Best Family Style Restaurants in Design District

I visit Dallas twice every year. El Carlos Elegance has been a regular for me the past 3 years. I eat there EVERY time I'm in Dallas. The service, drinks, and food are truly fabulous. A diamond of a Mexican restaurant. Tequila is their thing. The mezcal margaritas are amazing. Attention to detail is the signature for their food. This is a must experience restaurant. Very highly recommended. But book ahead if you're eating 7pm -9pm. It's busy!

This was my first time to go to the Mexican and what a great experience. This was a business dinner with some new clients during the home furnishings market. It’s close to the market center so it made it very convenient. The food and service are fantastic. This definitely won’t be my last time to dine in there.

The team that works at this establishment take pride in their craft and it shows. The service, food and ambiance was divino. My only regret was not taking photos of the items but I was in the moment. I believe Kyle was our server and he exceeded our expectations. I will definitely come back the next time I’m in town.

Celebrated Friendsmas with the girls for brunch. The Christmas decor? amazing, food and drinks? So good but service? Trash, just lacking. The restaurant had maybe 3 tables and 2-3 servers but ours was constantly missing in action. Nonetheless we had a great time and probably wouldn’t go back. If service is horrible when slow I can’t even imagine when it’s packed.

My only reason for give four stars on the overall category is due to the confusion of booking/making a reservation for this restaurant. We was not aware this is actually TWO different restaurants with "Vino" being on one side, while "Carbone" is on the other side. When I made my reservation - I thought I was reserving for the "Carbone" side (not realizing this was a different restaurant, of course). We had already looked at the menu online and through OpenTable which is the menu for "Carbone". Once our server came out and handed us the menu, we was confused as we did not see anything mentioned online that she was telling us. When we asked her, that is when she explained the difference in the two different restaurants, which we was not aware of. She then informed us we have to get a "reservation" card at the front host stand to email and make a reservation for the "Carbone" side of the restaurant. Said all of that to say - 1) this should be better explained when making a reservation and 2) the restaurant should have both menus easily and most definitely understandable that there are two different menus due to there being two different restaurants right next to one another. The service and food was great - so this does not fall on them - this falls on the owners/management of this establishment.