Dallas restaurateur Gaspar Stantic resurfaces at Citrus Bistro at Preston-Royal

by Teresa Gubbins

DALLAS — Veteran Dallas chef Gaspar Stantic has resurfaced at Citrus Bistro, a new restaurant on Royal Lane, at the southwest corner of Preston, in the space previously occupied by Pompano Seafood.

Stantic, a classically trained chef who moved to Dallas from France in 1981, achieved local notoriety when he opened Gaspar's Cafe in Coppell in 1988 (now the site of Daddy Jack's). He owned Gershwin's in the '90s and also worked at the now-defunct Jimmy Lu's on the Tollway. More recently he's done consulting for Omni and Ritz Carlton and ran a wedding-reception catering company based in Irving -- steady but it lacked the excitement of restaurants.

Now he's chef at Citrus, which was opened by Didier Viriot, with whom he worked at Mignon in Plano.

"We're doing American, Continental, a little bit of everything, but a lot of fish," Stantic says. "Chilean sea bass, tilapia, salmon with potato gnocchi in provencal sauce, grouper with lobster minestrone. We have some steaks -- pepper-crusted tenderloin with mushroom risotto, steak and fries, but there's not much emphasis on steaks. It's mainly seafood."

They're open for lunch and dinner, and are observing a BYOB policy, which is appealing for wine-drinkers on a budget. Although they've been open two weeks, Stantic says they're still working out some kinks, especially in the front of the house, which they're still staffing.

"But I have no problem with the food part," he says.