Where not to eat, and with whom
By Brooklyn Rodgers | February 9, 2026 | 3:40 PM
I’ve been traveling for what feels like a month straight now: Paris with friends, back home in Flower Mound for the annual freeze, and most recently, Indianapolis for work. It’s meant a lot of eating out, and not always at places I would’ve chosen myself, which makes it surprisingly hard to find something interesting to write about.
As I keep eating at restaurants that look the same, taste the same, and aren’t distinguishable in any meaningful way- food, service, drinks, aesthetics, the whole thing- I’ve been thinking a lot about the Sysco monopoly. I figure these are the meals most people have most of the time. I feel lucky to have had some truly fantastic meals in my life, even if they’ve been few and far between.
I haven’t minded the meals I’ve eaten over the past few weeks all that much, mostly because they’ve been in good company. I think the primary function of food is to bring people together. Everything else: technique, execution, service- is a bonus. That kind of flair is largely reserved for a small group of people who can afford to experience it regularly.
After all, I wouldn’t treasure some of the best meals of my life, even the ones that were technically “perfect,” if it weren’t for the people I shared them with: birthdays at Emmer and Rye in Austin and Las Palmas in Dallas, holidays at my sister’s restaurant Bistecca, special occasions at Uchi and Shoyo.
I took a solo trip to Italy in 2023 and ate incredible Italian food in some of the most scenic places on earth. One meal I think about often is a saffron risotto I had with a beer, watching sailboats drift across Lake Como. What I remember most, though, is texting my friends and family back home to tell them how much I missed them, and how much I wished they could taste the risotto with me.
Loneliness is a feature, not a bug. Companionship multiplies a dining experience and turns it into a shared memory. That’s also why service matters so much, especially in scored evaluations like Michelin stars.
While Michelin’s official criteria isn’t public, we know restaurants without tasting menus are rarely awarded honors. A tasting menu creates ritual and structure; it forges a connection between you and the place serving you. It requires servers to return more often than strictly necessary, invites conversation around each course, and, ultimately, prompts connection.
I’m back in Dallas now for a little while, and I’m looking forward to meals at restaurants I choose, hopefully with people I enjoy. I don’t have much to say about the countless Sysco-based, mass-appeal, non-special dishes I ate over the past few weeks, but I’ve included the pictures so it can feel like we shared them together. Cheers.
Brooklyn in Dallas 