You may not remember Nine at the National, the stylish but neutral restaurant on the ninth floor of the Thompson Hotel in downtown Dallas. Once a great place for a quick breakfast or lunch on business trips, it has been redesigned as a French bistro serving breakfast, lunch and dinner, with a more interesting menu.
Louisiana-born executive chef Jeremy Robison serves gumbo made with duck fat and sausage. The “Jazzmen” rice is served in a large bowl with just the right amount of spiciness. Along with dishes like shrimp and white cheddar grits and Rockefeller oysters, Little She Daisy is a place worth venturing off the busy Elm Street in downtown Dallas, even if you're not staying at the hotel. became.
For the past few years, the Thompson Hotel's food and beverage options have been anchored by sexy cocktail bar Catbird and sky-high views of Dallas from upscale restaurant Monarch and its second-floor sushi restaurant Kessaku. All these restaurants and bars are part of his $460 million renovation to the 1965 First National Bank Tower building, which was completed in 2020. Dallas business firm Todd Interests purchased the building, renamed it The National, and installed a hotel, 324 apartments, and a restaurant. Both good and not so good. Chick-fil-A and White Rhino Coffee are both on his first floor, giving him more options.
Building co-owner Philip Todd's idea for the ninth-floor hotel restaurant was to enhance the style and change the cuisine.
“We wanted a French bistro and cafe,” said Todd, president and managing partner of Todd Interests. “But we are not French, and our chef is not French.”
So they looked for inspiration during a trip to Paris. Caroline Todd, Philip Todd's sister, Little Daisy designer and founder of her own company, Todd Interiors, quickly changed the restaurant's colors to give it a warm feel. The size of the dining room has been cut in half, leaving him with a private dining room behind a wall covered in French art.
The French perspective worked well for Robison, a Louisiana chef. Robison hasn't made dishes inspired by his family's upbringing since he landed in Dallas 10 years ago to work at Japanese-Texas restaurants Shinsei and then Uchi.
His Oyster Rockefeller was inspired by Drago's Seafood Restaurant in Louisiana. At Little Daisy, oysters ($19) are served on an escargot plate and served with green onion hushpuppies.
The gumbo ($14) requires five and a half hours of careful whipping to create a “peanut butter”-colored roux, the chef says. Robison's uncle used to make gumbo for Thanksgiving, and it's fun to think that Thompson would too. The hotel is open seven days a week, and gumbo is on the menu year-round.
Little Daisy is still new, so Robison is still figuring out how to share her recipes with her staff.
“There's no recipe for gumbo,” he says. “It's outside my head, outside my heart.”
Inside Little Daisy, the new restaurant at the Thompson Dallas Hotel
The restaurant has an expat theme, as hotel guests and Dallas customers may come from anywhere. Breakfast expat eggs ($18) are poached and served with spicy tomato sauce and feta cheese. Other breakfast items include Banana His Foster pancakes ($16) with Chantilly cream and rum caramel. Juices like Raspberry Beret ($9) with raspberry, banana, apple, hibiscus and oat milk; Homemade croissants and sticky buns ($5 each).
For lunch, Philip Todd likes soup and salad options. French onion soup ($11) or gumbo ($14) and wedge, bibb, or Nicoise salads ($13 to $24). Hearty lunches include muffaletta ($21), caramelized onion and bacon tart his flambée ($15), and Hemingway his burger ($24), based on a recipe written by the author himself.
Perhaps Ernest Hemingway is mentally sitting in Little Daisy's corner. He also has a gin martini and daiquiri named after him.
The Todds want the bar to be known for its margaritas, and the bar has two. There's the Little Daisy Rita ($23) with Patron Reposado, Grand Marnier and lime cordial, or the Clearly Skinny, a decidedly lower-calorie option. That means it looks like a glass of water ($17).
“You can't come to Texas and not have a margarita,” he said.
Margarita is the origin of the restaurant's name. The owner translated “Petit His Marguerite”, which is reminiscent of this drink, to Little Daisy.
Dinner options here include roasted vegetable ratatouille ($14), trout amandine ($38) and steak frites ($54-$68). A fun side is roasted fingerling potatoes, which are cut in half to look like small baked potatoes and topped with caviar. For those who enjoy the expensive bite-sized appetizers trending at Dallas restaurants like Mr. Charles, Little Daisy's baked potato and caviar is similar, but for $12 Each order comes with 3 pieces, 2 bites each. You might want to share it.
Robison's Barbecue Shrimp and Grits is a jazzy version of what the Todds eat on New Year's Eve. Spread the peel-and-eat barbecue shrimp on a sheet of newspaper on the table. Little Daisy's Robison dish is sophisticated, with giant shrimp on white cheddar grits and a sauce infused with Louisiana's Abita beer ($36).
As you take the elevator up to the 9th floor, the renovated Little Daisy feels like it was always meant to be. But you need to know that it will always be there.
“We want people to know they can show up here anytime,” Todd said.
Little Daisy is located at 1401 Elm St. in Dallas (9th floor of the National Building, which houses the Thompson Dallas Hotel). Reservations are not required but are available through Resy.
