25 essential Dallas spots, Dealey Plaza to Deep Ellum. This free City Pack from Whosly collects our favorite Dallas spots — restaurants, bars, museums, parks, and things to do — each one mapped and ready to turn into a plan. Save the ones you love, then text a link and see who's in.
The spots off the tourist map. The 25 must-dos everyone knows come after.
15 spots off the tourist map.
The classics, for a first visit or anyone you're showing around.
Deep Ellum's barbecue hall, where the line out the door moves toward brisket, beef ribs and the Hot Mess, a sweet potato loaded with meat and cheese. Open daily from 11.
Todd and Misty David's barbecue in a north Dallas industrial park, recognized by Michelin and a perennial on Texas Monthly's list of the state's best. It opens only a few days a week, mostly Thursday and Friday lunch, and the brisket sells out.
Regino Rojas's Deep Ellum taquería, built on corn tortillas made by hand; the pulpo (octopus) taco is the one to order. It turned up on Netflix's Taco Chronicles. Closed Mondays.
A Mexico City-style restaurant in the Design District from Duro Hospitality, the group that also runs Mister Charles, with a wood-fired grill, crudos and its own masa program. Start with a crudo, then order from the grill.
Chef David Uygur's small Bishop Arts Italian restaurant, open since 2010, makes its own salumi, pasta and bread, and the menu changes often. Leave room for dessert: CultureMap named its pastry program the city's best in 2026.
The most lavish room from the team behind El Carlos Elegante: a glamorous Knox Street brasserie where dishes from France and Italy get the full luxury treatment. Michelin lists it.
Stephen Rogers and Allison Yoder's Henderson Avenue bistro, with seasonal American cooking, a deep wine list and a pretty patio. Michelin lists it.
Chef Peja Krstic's cozy Lakewood restaurant pairs Vietnamese flavors with French technique and a strong wine list; CultureMap made Krstic its 2026 Chef of the Year.
A steakhouse twenty-seven stories up in the Hilton Anatole, with wood-fired steaks, live music and a sweeping view of the downtown skyline across the river.
Al Biernat's original Oak Lawn steakhouse, open since 1998, is where Dallas society, athletes and deal-makers come for prime steaks and a lively bar.
A basement cocktail lounge under The Joule hotel downtown, with leather sofas and a menu by bartender Gabe Sanchez. Open Tuesday to Saturday from 5.
A cocktail bar in an 1874 wood-frame house in Uptown, pouring drinks since 2014. Sit on the porch with something from the seasonal menu.
On the sixth floor of the old book warehouse above Dealey Plaza, the spot Oswald shot from in 1963, this museum tells President Kennedy's story and what followed. Take the included audio guide and allow two hours, then walk the plaza and the grassy knoll outside.
One of the country's biggest art museums anchors the Arts District, and general admission is free. The collection runs from ancient Americas and Africa to Monet and Pollock, with rooms rebuilt from a French Riviera villa.
Five floors of hands-on science, from dinosaurs to DNA, in Thom Mayne's striking cube in Victory Park. Kids head straight for the dinosaur hall and the glass-tube escalator on the outside of the building.
Raymond Nasher's sculpture collection in a Renzo Piano building with a garden out back: Rodin, Matisse, Henry Moore, and a James Turrell skyspace you can sit inside.
A free museum of Asian art in the Arts District, now part of UT Dallas, known for its jade along with Japanese screens and South Asian sculpture. It sits right next to the Nasher.
A modern West End museum that traces the Holocaust through survivors' testimony, then carries the story into the US civil rights era and human rights today. A World War II-era railcar stands inside.
A five-acre park built in 2012 on a deck over a sunken freeway, stitching downtown to Uptown. Food trucks line up at lunch, and free yoga, concerts and the children's park keep it busy all day.
Gardens spread across 66 acres on the lake's east side. Go in spring for Dallas Blooms or in fall for the pumpkin village; this holiday season is the last for its Twelve Days of Christmas displays.
A 1,000-acre lake in East Dallas with a 9-mile trail around its shore. Rent a bike or paddleboard, watch the sailboats, and catch sunset over the downtown skyline from the east bank.
A shady path, about three and a half miles long, along a former rail corridor through Uptown and Oak Lawn, busy with runners, cyclists and dog walkers. Break for a beer at the Katy Trail Ice House along the way.
The ball-topped tower that defines the Dallas skyline. Ride up to the GeO-Deck at sunset for views over downtown and the Trinity River.
Less an aquarium than an indoor rainforest: you climb through a South American jungle full of birds, sloths and monkeys before heading down to the sharks and manatees, all inside an old West End warehouse.
Texas's largest zoo, and its oldest, just south of downtown, home to some 2,000 animals. Giants of the Savanna puts the elephants and giraffes side by side; Dallas Zoo Lights runs through the holidays.
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