Culture

Cuisine

Dallas is known for its barbecue, authentic Mexican, and Tex-Mex cuisine. Famous products of the Dallas culinary scene include the frozen margarita.^[101] Fearing's restaurant at the Ritz-Carlton Dallas hotel in Uptown Dallas was named the best hotel restaurant in the US for 2009 by Zagat Survey. The Ritz-Carlton Dallas hotel was also named 2009 best US hotel by Zagat, and 2009 No. 2 hotel in the world by Zagat, trailing only the Four Seasons King George V in Paris, France. A number of nationally ranked steakhouses can be found in the Dallas area, including Bob's Steak & Chop House, currently ranked No. 1 according to the USDA Prime Steakhouses chart.^[102]

Arts and museums

The Winspear Opera House and the Meyerson Symphony Center in the Downtown Dallas Arts District

The Perot Museum of Nature and Science in downtown Dallas

Big Tex, a statue at the Texas State Fair in Fair Park

The Arts District in the northern section of Downtown is home to several arts venues and is the largest continuous arts district in the United States.^[103] Notable venues in the district include the Dallas Museum of Art, the Morton H. Meyerson Symphony Center home to the Dallas Symphony Orchestra and Dallas Wind Symphony, The Trammell & Margaret Crow Collection of Asian Art, and the Nasher Sculpture Center. The Perot Museum of Nature and Science, also located downtown, is a natural history and science museum. Designed by 2005 Pritzker Architecture Prize Laureate Thom Mayne and his firm Morphosis Architects, the 180,000 square feet facility has six floors and stands about 14 stories high.
Venues that are part of the AT&T Dallas Center for the Performing Arts^[104][105] include the Winspear Opera House home to the Dallas Opera and Texas Ballet Theater, the Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre home to the Dallas Theater Center and the Dallas Black Dance Theater, and City Performance Hall.
Also, not far north of downtown is the Meadows Museum at Southern Methodist University. In 2009 it joined up with "Prado on the Prairie" for a three-year partnership. The Prado focuses on Spanish visual art and has a collection of Spanish art in North America, with works by Picasso, Goya, Velasquez, El Greco, Murillo, Zurbaran, Ribera, Fortuny, Rico, de Juanes, Plensa and other Spaniards. These works, as well as non-Spanish highlights like sculptures by Rodin and Moore, have been so successful of a collaboration that the Prado and Meadows have agreed upon an extension of the partnership.^[106]
The former Texas School Book Depository, from which, according to the Warren Commission Report, Lee Harvey Oswald shot and killed President John F. Kennedy in 1963, has served since the 1980s as a county government office building, except for its sixth and seventh floors, which house The Sixth Floor Museum.
The American Museum of the Miniature Arts is located at the Hall of State in Fair Park.
The Arts District is also home to DISD's Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts, a magnet school which was recently expanded.^[107]
City Center District, next to the Arts District is home to the Dallas Contemporary.
Deep Ellum, immediately east of Downtown, originally became popular during the 1920s and 1930s as the prime jazz and blues hot spot in the South.^[108] Artists such as Blind Lemon Jefferson, Robert Johnson, Huddie "Lead Belly" Ledbetter and Bessie Smith played in original Deep Ellum clubs such as the Harlem and the Palace. Today, Deep Ellum is home to hundreds of artists who live in lofts and operate in studios throughout the district alongside bars, pubs, and concert venues.^[109] A major art infusion in the area results from the city's lax stance on graffiti, and a number of public spaces including tunnels, sides of buildings, sidewalks, and streets are covered in murals. One major example, the Good-Latimer tunnel, was torn down in late 2006 to accommodate the construction of a light rail line through the site.^[110]
Like Deep Ellum before it, the Cedars neighborhood to the south of Downtown has also seen a growing population of studio artists and an expanding roster of entertainment venues. The area's art scene began to grow in the early 2000s with the opening of Southside on Lamar, an old Sears warehouse converted into lofts, studios and retail. Within this building, Southside on Lamar hosts the Janette Kennedy Gallery with rotating gallery exhibitions featuring many local, national, and international artists.^[111] Current attractions include Gilley's Dallas and Poor David's Pub.^[112][113] Dallas Mavericks owner and local entrepreneur Mark Cuban purchased land along Lamar Avenue near Cedars Station in September 2005, and locals speculate that he is planning an entertainment complex for the site.^[114]
South of the Trinity River, the Bishop Arts District in Oak Cliff is home to a number of studio artists living in converted warehouses. Walls of buildings along alleyways and streets are painted with murals and the surrounding streets contain many eclectic restaurants and shops.^[115]
Dallas has an Office of Cultural Affairs as a department of the city government. The office is responsible for six cultural centers located throughout the city, funding for local artists and theaters, initiating public art projects, and running the city-owned classical radio station WRR.^[116] The Los Angeles-class submarine USS Dallas (SSN-700) will become a museum ship located near the Trinity River after her decommissioning in September 2014. She will be taken apart into massive sections in Houston and be transported by trucks to the museum site and will be put back together.

Events

The most notable event held in Dallas is the State Fair of Texas, which has been held annually at Fair Park since 1886. The fair is a massive event, bringing in an estimated $350 million to the city's economy annually. The Red River Shootout, which pits the University of Texas at Austin against The University of Oklahoma at the Cotton Bowl also brings significant crowds to the city. The city also hosts the State Fair Classic and Heart of Dallas Bowl at the Cotton Bowl.
Other well-known festivals in the area include several Cinco de Mayo celebrations hosted by the city's large Mexican American population, and Saint Patrick's Day parade along Lower Greenville Avenue, Juneteenth festivities, Taste of Dallas, the Deep Ellum Arts Festival, the Greek Food Festival of Dallas, the annual Halloween event "The Wake" featuring lots of local art and music, and two annual events on Halloween include; a Halloween parade on Cedar Springs Road and a "Zombie Walk" held in Downtown Dallas in the Arts District.
With the opening of Victory Park, WFAA Channel 8 has begun to host an annual New Year's Eve celebration in AT&T Plaza that the television station hopes will reminisce of celebrations in New York's Times Square, and on New Year's Eve 2011 set a new record of 32,000 people in attendance. Also, several Omni hotels in the Dallas area host large events to welcome in the new year including murder mystery parties, rave inspired events, and other events.