At new Dallas restaurant Sauvage, opening Aug. 27, 2025, diners perch at an L-shaped bar and watch as their 16-course meal is cooked in front of them.
With 12 seats, Sauvage is one of Dallas’ tiniest restaurants.
And at $245 per person, not including drinks, it’s also one of the priciest.
Husband-wife chef team Casey and Amy La Rue consider Sauvage a do-over from their last tasting menu restaurant, Carte Blanche on Dallas’ Greenville Avenue.
Restaurant News
At Sauvage in downtown Dallas, the chef-owners tiled and resurfaced the bar themselves.
Tom Fox / Staff Photographer
“This is what Carte Blanche started off as,” said Casey La Rue during a Dallas Morning News interview inside the small Commerce Street restaurant attached to the Statler Hotel.
Their ideal dinner restaurant is intimate and focused on beautiful food. Carte Blanche was too big, they said. Diners sat at tables, not at a chef’s counter. Carte Blanche closed in 2024.
Casey is curious to see if Sauvage can create an atmosphere where food is serious but customers feel at ease.
“Five servers in suits around your one little table can be intimidating,” he said. By design, Sauvage won’t have as many servers fussing over customers.
Sauvage’s menu is “wood-fire omakase,” according to the reservations page. It’s a tasting menu — meaning diners do not choose what comes next — and the focus is on the hearth in the corner of the kitchen.
No options exist for vegan, vegetarian or pescatarian diners, though accommodations for gluten-free needs, shellfish allergies and no-pork preferences will be made.
Jerk shrimp is among the 16-or-so courses at Sauvage in Dallas.
Tom Fox / Staff Photographer
The La Rues have distinct cooking styles: He likes to cook with wild game and often jazzes up a dish with caviar, truffles or foie gras. She’s an impressive baker, and the bread, croissants and desserts are mostly her work. (See also: La Rue Doughnut, a shop in Trinity Groves where her pastries are on display.)
Casey La Rue (pictured) owns Sauvage with his wife, chef Amy La Rue.
Tom Fox / Staff Photographer
An early look at the menu shows about 16 courses. Caviar to start; venison bresaola early in the meal; then whole roasted grouper, jerk-style prawns, wild boar burnt ends and more.
Despite a more relaxed atmosphere, “there’ll be some showmanship,” Casey La Rue promised. (And for the price of nearly $500 per couple, not including a tip, that’s likely expected.) For the amberjack course, chefs will make grapefruit kakigori, which is Japanese shaved ice. They’ll hand-crank it in front of guests.
While the La Rues seem content that Michelin inspectors are now in Texas — and they’ll soon release a new list of Dallas’ best restaurants — Casey said he would have opened a tasting menu regardless. He reportedly stretched the truth on which restaurants he’d worked at in his past, The News reported.
Is this Dallas chef cooking like he has something to prove? Maybe.
“This restaurant gives us more focus to make the kind of food we want to cook,” Casey said. He named it Sauvage, the French word for “wild.”
Antelope sausage with fermented harissa is on the tasting menu at Sauvage in Dallas.
Tom Fox / Staff Photographer
Sauvage was a do-it-yourself project — which is unlike nearly every other new, high-end Dallas restaurant today. Dallas is home to a steakhouse that cost $20 million to build, it’s worth remembering. Over at Sauvage, the chef-owners watched YouTube, then did the work themselves: They resurfaced the bar, laid tile on the walls, hung wallpaper and applied charcoal limewash to the walls.
Sauvage is cloaked in olive-colored drapes that keep out the bustle on Dallas’ Commerce Street.
Tom Fox / Staff Photographer
It was done out of necessity, both said. They maxed out credit cards while redesigning the restaurant.
“It’s just us; no investors,” Casey said.
A subtle nod to the work they did themselves is the lamp made out of acacia branches at the front of Sauvage. Diners wouldn’t know it, but that’s fashioned from a tree from the La Rues’ yard.
Amy takes in the room. “It feels like you could spend a few hours in here,” she said.
Sauvage is at 1914 Commerce St., Dallas. Dinner only. $245 per person, reservation required. Cocktail and wine pairings available for extra fee.