And there’s nothing worse than being boring
By Brooklyn Rodgers | JULY 27, 2026 | 9:11 PM
I had the opportunity to visit Mamani last week, one of Dallas’s most noteworthy restaurants despite opening only late last year. Mamani received a MICHELIN star after just 48 services in 2025, making it one of just two MICHELIN-starred restaurants in Dallas (the other is Tatsu). It was brought to life by the Cohanim brothers, whose portfolio also includes Namo and Bar Colette in the West Village, and The Bread Club, which neighbors Mamani at the Quad in Uptown.
In the politest possible sense, I found it very boring.
As my dining companions and I debriefed the $400 meal afterwards at Bowen House, we all felt the same. There is no doubt that Mamani is very good: a pedigreed chef, serious technique, high-quality ingredients, MICHELIN-star-stamped. So why was it not at all compelling?
Before I attempt to answer that, it’s worth saying that my opinion shouldn’t matter.
I’m not a professional critic with years of culinary knowledge and institutional access. Nor am I a food influencer who reduces food to an instantaneous personal preference (read: the Keith Lee effect). I’m definitely not a MICHELIN inspector, although I am available nights.
The thing is, professional critics, food influencers, and especially MICHELIN inspectors represent a tiny fraction of the dining population. I’m just a person who is curious about food, eats widely, recognizes quality, and knows my preferences. I’d like to think my experience is closer to that of the average diner deciding whether to try something they’ve never tasted before, where to spend $200 on dinner, or where to celebrate their birthday.
There were standouts in our dinner. Light and crispy ham croquettes with a molten Manchego center wowed. The capeletti was the star of the pastas: paper-thin little hats filled with veal, swimming in brodo, and practically melted in your mouth. I was about to tell my dining companions exactly that when I bit down a tiny piece of bone from the veal. I still loved the capeletti anyway.
In contrast, the potato gnocchi bored me. Not bad. Not offensive. Just potato gnocchi. Tomato. Basil. Parm.
The whole duck, prepared the “Mamani way” for $170, was nothing short of a centerpiece: with two enormous duck breasts with perfectly crispy skin swimming in a Honey Baked Ham-esque demi-glace. The rest of the whole duck? Fashioned into an unceremonious kebab log that we were instructed to slice up and slide into house pita with harissa, tzatziki, and Texas peaches.
I’m all for a build-your-own adventure, but it felt like two different dishes, and not in a good way.
The flavor on the duck breast was good, though the meat itself was slightly dry. I didn’t particularly enjoy sawing into the oily meatloaf of a duck-thigh log, and the peaches were unripe and not improved by bitter balsamic. I sensed that the juxtaposition in the preparation was trying to make some statement. I just didn’t quite understand what.
Maybe you would love the duck. Kevin Gray did. MICHELIN loves Mamani. Brian Reinhart thinks this is Dallas’s best French restaurant. I’m not saying they’re wrong. I’m trying to understand why all of those things can be true, and I can still leave with no desire to return.
Dallas has spent years complaining that its dining scene isn’t taken seriously. Then MICHELIN finally came to Texas. In year two, Mamani opened and earned a star less than two months later.
Mamani certainly plays the part of a major city’s dining crown jewel. The chef spent nearly a decade leading the kitchen at Joël Robuchon in Las Vegas. The buildout is glamorous. The ingredients are expensive. The technique is there.
But maybe Dallas’s problem was never that we didn’t have enough restaurants capable of demonstrating technique. Maybe it’s that we don’t have enough restaurants with identities distinct enough that we’d miss them if they disappeared.
I was lucky to live in Austin from 2018 to 2021 and experience the dining scene there. My biggest takeaway is that Austin diners have historically rewarded uniqueness in a way Dallas diners often don’t.
In Austin, restaurants can play with cuisines, formats, and ingredients without also needing to satisfy the Dallas requirement of being a place where someone can take a client, celebrate an anniversary, order an expensive bottle of wine, and know everybody at the table will find something agreeable.
A good example is Emmer and Rye Hospitality Group, whose portfolio spans New American, Caribbean, Mediterranean, Italian, Mexican, Spanish, Texan, and more. I can’t think of a hospitality group in North Texas operating at that level across such a broad range of concepts.
Dallas restaurants often need to be impressive without being challenging. And Mamani might be the embodiment of that.
So, who is Mamani for?
The MICHELIN inspector? Absolutely. The person entertaining clients? Sure. The person who wants a beautiful room and a serious bottle of wine? Probably.
But would I want to go to Mamani for my birthday?
Mamani was not a memorable meal for me, and at this price point, that matters. Objective quality, technique, and prestige matter too. But the question at the top of a normal diner’s list is more likely: Do I want to make a memory here?
Maybe that’s an unfair standard. Mamani undoubtedly gave me plenty to admire. I just wish it had given me something to miss.
P.S. I’ve stated before that one visit does not provide a legitimate basis for a restaurant review. If you are particularly frustrated with my sample size, you can send me $250, and I will visit again.
Brooklyn in Dallas 