Dallas' Avanti Italian settles into City Place in Fort Worth

April 12,2016

By: Bud Kennedy

The exact spot “where the West begins” must have moved.

There is no other way to explain Avanti, a sleek Euro-Dallas restaurant on Throckmorton Street in the City Place tower west of Sundance Square.

At lunch, servers glide beneath chandeliers to the tempo of what sounds like the Dave Matthews Band.

Diners choose from the same menu as Avanti’s Uptown Dallas location, with entrees such as beef bourguignon or gnocchi pizzaiola and a tiramisu dessert.

But the lunch prices are very Fort Worth: $11-$14, plus a choice of Greek or Caesar side salads for $2.

Blackened salmon is a near-ubiquitous menu item these days, and Avanti serves it on a bed of grilled romaine lettuce with a berry balsamic.

The lunch salad choices also include a shrimp-and-chicken “salad gourmandi” with hearts of palm ($12) and a lump-crab salad with pear and candied pecans ($12).

The dinner menu (about $15-$35) adds more elaborate entrees such as bone-in veal Milanese, a rib-eye, crabmeat-crusted sea bass and tenderloin beef “tournedos Avanti” with mushrooms, spinach and Gorgonzola.

The Fort Worth restaurant also offers flatbreads and more small plates, owner Amin Malek said.

“We have so many clients who come from Fort Worth to the Dallas location — we have tried to create the same atmosphere,” he said.

The setting is fine-dining Italian, with a pleasant patio on the walkway from West Second Street.

(Too bad a Hooters will open next door.)

Avanti is open weekdays only for lunch and closes in midafternoon. It opens at 5 nightly and serves until 11 p.m. weekends, which means Avanti can be an after-show dinner choice when it’s too late for Taverna.

The address is 150 Throckmorton St., at the west end of Second Street connected by skybridge to the Renaissance Worthington. 817-991-6455; avantirestaurants.com/fort-worth.