Preston Hollow's Summer Of Dumplings And Dry-Aged Steak: How Two Shopping Centers Became The Neighborhood's Evening District

For most of the last decade, Preston Royal Village and Preston Hollow Village were errand centers. You went for the pharmacy, the dry cleaner, a Whole Foods run, maybe a quick lunch. If you wanted a real dinner, you drove to Knox Street, Uptown, or Sylvan Thirty. That equation broke this summer.

Between June and September of 2026, a New York steakhouse, a Shanghainese soup-dumpling house, and a bistro with a shared speakeasy lounge all planted flags inside a two-mile radius. The neighborhood didn't gain new blocks. It gained a reason to stay in for the evening.

Preston Royal, Rewritten From The Inside

The corner of Preston Road and Royal Lane is the clearest tell. Palladino's Steak & Seafood opened Tuesday, June 16 at 5959 Royal Ln., in the former Spec's space at Preston Road and Royal Lane. That address matters. Spec's was a wine-and-liquor stop where residents grabbed a bottle on the way home. It is now a nearly 10,000 sq. ft. space in Preston Royal Village serving traditional steakhouse classics such as Caesar salad, French onion soup, Maine lobster, Prime New York strip, and a la carte sides, plus caviar service, a large sushi selection, and vegetarian entrees like the rainbow carrot Wellington.

The operator is not new to Dallas. Joseph Palladino is an ex-NYPD police officer-turned-restaurateur known for concepts such as Nick & Sam's Steakhouse and the Coal Vines pizza chain. The through-line from Nick & Sam's to a Preston Royal steakhouse is a straight one, and the shopping center's owner knew it. Palladino was approached by Preston Royal's landlords to open a restaurant at the center. Given his local following and celebrity draw, as well as the large local appetite for steakhouses, Dallas made sense as a second location, particularly at the highly desirable intersection of Preston and Royal. The design work went to Rockwell Group, the internationally known design firm that also created the New York restaurant, with executive chef Sam Hazen, whose résumé includes stints at Michelin three-star Le Gavroche, Tavern on the Green, and Tao, along with chef de cuisine Henry Johnson.

Two doors down, the story is older and quieter. George Kai-Chi Kao's family restaurant Royal China, founded in 1974, sits in a back corner of the Preston Royal shopping center in the swank North Dallas suburb of Preston Hollow. If you have lived here longer than five years, you know it. What you may not know is that in June, Garden & Gun went long on it and specifically on what the Kaos do in summer.

Across the dining room, under a flotilla of red Chinese lanterns, diners bend toward wide white bowls, chopsticks in hand, pulling slippery noodles toward their mouths. Come summer, when Dallas swelters, many of those diners hover over one of two cold noodle dishes: Dan Dan Mian and chicken noodles in peanut sauce.

The peanut-sauce version is not a recent invention. Royal China's version, made with poached chicken breast and sauced with house-ground peanuts and sesame seeds, is based on a recipe popular in Taiwan, where George's father served as a diplomat in the years after World War II. The point is not novelty. The point is that a fifty-year-old restaurant fifty feet from a brand-new $200-per-cover steakhouse is having its own moment for entirely different reasons, and both are showing up in national press in the same quarter.

The Kaos have been positioning for this. Back in 2008, with a lease renewal in the balance, the owners of Preston Royal challenged April and George: Were they the right tenants for the space? Sales were down. The look was dated. Instead of giving up or moving, the Kaos reinvented the restaurant. April took a trip to China and came home with new ideas about noodles and dumplings. A fine-art photographer, she also returned with a portfolio of black-and-white images that now line the walls. Eighteen years later, that decision reads like foresight. The center's landlord frames the whole property the same way, calling it "the living room of this community". That framing is easier to earn now than it was in 2008.

The Walnut Hill Corner Catches Up

If Preston Royal is the evening address, Preston Hollow Village at I-75 and Walnut Hill has become the daytime-to-late-lunch counterpart, and its lineup shifted three times this year.

The first change was casual and Tex-Mex. Just opened in Preston Hollow in the former Fernando's space, this new Tex-Mex spot comes from the owners of Dallas' Smoky Rose. The menu features tacos, enchiladas, bowls, a cheeseburger, carne asada, and so much more. The restaurant is open for lunch and dinner. Cantina la Rosa moved into a name-recognized address, which changed the block's rhythm faster than a new build would have.

The second was a bistro that shared a room with a bar program. The space that Chido Taco Lounge used to occupy in Preston Hollow Village has a new tenant. Ella at 7949 Walnut Hill Lane is "an intimate, American bistro with modern comfort food" in a refined setting. It will open on Tuesday, June 17. In addition to the dining room and bar, the space shares a lounge with Customs Speakeasy. The kitchen carries a real résumé. Executive chef Kyle Farr was previously the executive sous chef at Michelin-recognized Sachet as well as executive chef at the beloved and now-closed Bishop Arts spot, Boulevardier.

The third arrives in fall, and it is the one to plan around. Exterior signage is up and DuWest Commercial Real Estate has confirmed that Fortune House will open on September 26 at Preston Hollow Village. Joining the original location on MacArthur Boulevard in Irving, as well as a three-year-old spot on Lower Greenville, North Dallas marks number three for the authentic Shanghainese eatery. The draw is very specific. Since launching in 2015, Fortune House has earned accolades, including a "Best Dumplings" nod from DMagazine, thanks to its signature soup dumplings (xiao long bao). Available in traditional pork, as well as blue crab and black truffle, Fortune's artfully twisted take on the Shanghai classic has handmade dough and pork broth simmered for hours.

Here is where the block reads differently from the outside than it does from the inside. Preston Hollow Village already had a very interesting lineup of restaurants including cool indies (Chefika, Centrale Italia), buzzy chains (Chicken Guy), and reliable mainstays (Broken Egg, Thirsty Lion). Adding Cantina la Rosa, Ella, and Fortune House inside a nine-month window turns "a lineup" into a genuine directory.

The Warm-Weather Routines That Hold The Rest Together

Restaurants alone do not make an evening district. The reason the new openings feel like a shift and not a coincidence is that the summer calendar around them filled in too.

• Semones Family YMCA Walk & Eat With a Doc. At 4332 Northaven Rd., starting at 8:30 a.m. on Saturday, June 6, this unique event begins with a plant-based food tasting and health discussion hosted by a local physician. Thereafter, attendees are invited to continue the conversation during a self-paced walk along the Northaven Trail.
• Eataly at NorthPark, Festa della Repubblica. At 8687 N. Central Expy., #2172, Eataly at NorthPark Center celebrated the Italian national holiday, Festa della Repubblica, with a special event on Friday, June 5. Tickets started at $135.00, and included "unlimited" samples of 50-plus dishes, as well as "endless" drinks, chef demonstrations, and a performance from the Emerald City Band.
• The Boho Market at Preston Hollow Village. Your favorite small business market is headed back to Preston Hollow Village in Dallas this 2026 market season. Make plans to shop a variety of thoughtfully-curated vendors while enjoying all that Preston Hollow Village has to offer.
• The Northaven Trail itself. Running just north of Preston Hollow, the Northaven Trail is a multi-use path popular with local joggers, cyclists, and dog walkers, offering miles of scenic views, public art, and convenient connections to various neighborhood parks.
• 'til Midnight at the Nasher. A short drive south into the Arts District, the Nasher Sculpture Center hosted 'til Midnight at the Nasher on Friday, May 15, from 6 p.m. to 12 a.m. This free event showcased performances by hip-hop artists, Pierce Washington and Carter Ace, followed by a showing of Ferris Bueller's Day Off, with food from Wolfgang Puck available for purchase.

The pattern in that list is worth naming. The morning belongs to the trail and the Y. The mid-afternoon belongs to a curated market at Preston Hollow Village or a walk through NorthPark. The evening now has real gravity of its own, a mile north at Preston Royal.

What The Summer Actually Says

A neighborhood's dining scene is a lagging indicator. Landlords do not sign leases on centers they think are losing energy, and chefs with Michelin résumés do not follow. The Kao family reinvented Royal China eighteen years ago because they read their regulars carefully. George and April began reading their customers more closely, too. Three synagogues cluster within two miles, and for years Jewish customers had begged the Kaos to open on Christmas Day. In 2008, they began serving dinner on that date. Today they typically feed four hundred people. Palladino's landlord read the same room in 2025.

For a homeowner already on Meaders, Deloache, or one of the streets off Walnut Hill, the practical result is simple: the number of nights you have to leave the neighborhood to eat well has dropped, and it is going to drop again on September 26. The center of gravity for a Preston Hollow evening is no longer somewhere else in Dallas. It is a six-minute drive from your driveway.

If you are weighing what the neighborhood's next chapter means for your home's value, the retail refresh you can taste on a Tuesday night, Christian Smith Real Estate Group is happy to walk that block with you. Request Your Personalized Home Valuation to see how the new Preston Hollow reads against your address.