New restaurant, Cava, opens on Royal Lane in Dallas

by Teresa Gubbins

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Restaurant is, above all, unstuffy.

DALLAS — Cava Restaurant, a mom-and-pop restaurant that wants more than anything not to be stuffy, opened last month on Royal Lane at Preston in Dallas, in the space that used to be Le Rendezvous.

The restaurant, which was brought to the attention of Pegasus News by a mention on SideDish (but which was first noted on Eats, in an item that also mentioned Red India Bistro, which was first mentioned in Best Bites, not that this is like a competition or anything, so it probably isn't worth pointing out that the Pegasus News item on Red India Bistro was on November 7 and the Belo mention was on January 14), is owned by a husband-and-wife team with lots of experience in local restaurants. Xavier Miro, who is from Barcelona, was previously the general manager at Chic From Barcelona; his wife, who is from Colombia, worked at La Duni.

Although Cava is named after the Spanish sparkling wine, it has a BYOB policy. But the point of the name is to bring the same sense of informality to dining that cava brings to champagne.

"We just try to bring a little bit of the notion of the informality of sparkling wine from Spain," Xavier says. "We want to make it fun and available to everyone. We want a place that is casual, without the stuffiness. That's the similarity between cava and the restaurant: elegant and nice but approachable."

The menu's theme is global. The signature dish is chicken provencal, which incorporates sweet, earthy prunes with dark-meat chicken, mashed potatoes, caramelized onions, and pine nuts.

"That's the perfect dish for Cava," Xavier says. "Le Rendezvou had French fine dining, and we still want to offer some French dishes. But we are not French. The basis of my cooking is Spanish because I'm from Spain, but I respect all areas. We have no pretensions."