[DFW] The Green Room

[Kevin72]

We have some friends in from out of town for New Year’s and my wife convinced me to give The Green Room a spin for them. I was reluctant; with Marc Cassel gone, I figured that its distinctive flair would be lost or muted at best. But, with now nearly a year gone by since his departure, I hoped that maybe the kinks would have been ironed out.

We arrived and found an overwhelmed reservation desk, not a good sign. Posted on the stairway up to the rooftop bar is a glassed in case with Marc Cassel’s chef’s coat along with his sous chef’s, Suzan Friez, along with a signed menu from their last night there. So at least it looks like the parting was amicable. We did the Feed Me/Wine me without even looking at the menus (though there was one posted outside and I perused it briefly).

Executive Chef Colleen O’Hare has now taken the reins at The Green Room. According to their website,, she had previously worked there under Cassel, then went over to York Street and Sharon Hage, who became a great influence.

Appetizers (we ate and shared amongst ourselves): salmon cakes, mussels with champagne and chili broth, quail, and baked brie. The quail was my favorite and may have been the best-done, most flavorful dish all night. My mussels, though, were equally good—this is one of the restaurant’s signature dishes after all. And, there was an obscene amount of them for just one person. I didn’t have any, but apparently the salmon cakes were underseasoned.

Salads: Two Texas bibb lettuce salads, a chopped bacon and blue cheese salad, and mine was a baby romaine salad with pomegranate dressing and goat cheese. I took this off my wife’s hands; even though she had specified she didn’t want goat cheese at the outset of the meal, it was still served to her. Probably the only service hiccup that night, and, truthfully, it has happened to us previously when I got served something with coconut, the one thing I hate and specify not to serve me. Salads were, back in the Cassel days, a pleasant surprise if not even a standout when the rest of the meal disappointed. We didn’t share so much of our salads this time; I tried the one I gave to my wife and found it underwhelming, but mine was clean-the-plate good.

Mains: Roast pork chop (looked like a tenderloin), diver scallops with risotto, branzino (Mediterranean Sea Bass) with couscous, and venison. One thing I always liked about Green Room was that they had the stones to serve their pork medium rare, allowing for a much more fully flavored meat. That hasn’t fallen out of favor and the table unanimously agreed that my pork dish with pan-roasted potatoes, green tomato relish, and a pancetta jus was the best dish of the four mains. It was perfect. Kudos, too, for serving venison, and I found that to be excellent as well.

Desserts: Crème brulee, chocolate cheesecake, cappuccino mousse, and key lime pie. All were good, but seemed very rote in their conceptualization and execution.

I recognized some of the servers from before and service was quite good. The wines, as always, were well-matched with each course.

In the Cassel Days, Green Room offered a frustratingly unreliable experience. When he was on site and cooking, you could tell: everything just hummed and the dishes they made for Feed Me/Wine Me were mind-blowing (I still remember fondly raw oysters served with a savory fennel gelato). When he wasn’t there, the food was a little more unreliable: either good if a little straightforward, or overly ambitious and not well executed. While last night’s meal lacked the mindbending qualities of the top meals we’ve had there, everything was solidly prepared. Everyone agreed that only the salmon cakes and one of the salads were subpar. This was even a better experience than dining at Cassel’s new outpost, Dragonfly at Hotel ZaZa, so it looks like Green Room has been able to successfully weather the storm of so prominent a figure departing, and Chef O’Hare is off to a great start. We’ll be back.

[Raynickben]

I'm so glad to hear this. I've always loved The Green Room. Three years ago we went for the "Feed Me, Wine Me" and they sat us in THE KITCHEN!

I was in heaven!

Kevin: How is the vibe down there now? I have to admit I've been scared off by the bad publicity Deep Ellum has now.

[Kevin72]

We were there fairly early in the evening: 7:30 reservation, I think, so we were out at 9:30-10:00. Seemed very subdued. Deep Ellum's not quite the hopping spot it used to be.

[Kevin72]

Robert Wilonsky's cover story in the Observer sheds a little more and not too encouraging light on the state of Deep Ellum. Including that Entertainment Collaborative, the group that owns the Green Room, has filed for bankruptcy and just lost Trees, so it's not looking good.

[irodguy]

Robert Wilonsky's cover story in the Observer sheds a little more and not too encouraging light on the state of Deep Ellum.  Including that Entertainment Collaborative, the group that owns the Green Room, has filed for bankruptcy and just lost Trees, so it's not looking good.

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Yep it appears to be a function of safety. There are to many reported gang related issues in the area. Hopefully the area will resurrect itself.

[Kevin72]

A sad, unfortunate, but not entirely unforeseen development: Green Room closes, along with its sister restaurant, Jeroboam.

Best of luck to chef O'Hare and the staff at GR; hope they find a place locally soon.