Anise Wine Bar - The Village Dallas — Restaurant in Dallas

I had wanted to like this restaurant so it is a little bit disappointing that the experience fell flat. I had found Anise through Google Maps and saw that they had great reviews. The interior, as others have mentioned, is quite cute. I can imagine it being a nice place to hang out with friends, if the food and service were equally amazing.

Starting off with the food, my friend and I had ordered the fattoush salad, margherita flatbread, and the lamb kofta shakshuka. While the food certainly looked great (for the most part) my first thought was “is this all we had ordered”? While I had not expected extremely large portions, I had thought that the portion size would be a little larger than what we had actually been served. It feels like the server should have mentioned, or made suggestions, if portion sizes were on the smaller side.

Putting that aside though, in terms of taste, the fattoush salad and the margherita flatbread were the most disappointing. The fried pita within the salad tasted pretty stale, which I am not sure is the norm or not. Additionally, the margherita flatbread not only looked pretty disappointing but tasted kind of like what you would expect, in terms of quality, of frozen microwaveable food. In other words, not very great considering you are expected to pay $16 for the flatbread. The lamb kofta shakshuka was decent but I do not think it was anything to rave about either.

In terms of service, I think it was the most disappointing part of this restaurant experience. It could be that it was just a bad day for the server, or perhaps the restaurant was understaffed. However, I just remember that the server did not seem very happy and the overall service was really slow. I think it took over 30 minutes to get our order taken and then it took even longer to get our checks after finishing our meal. I had glanced at the parties next to our table, who were seated after us, also waiting quite some time for their check to arrive.

Honestly, I feel like rating this restaurant 3 stars is being generous considering the mediocre food...

This was our first time here for dinner. We were a good size party of 7 and were looking to do a shared plates style meal. When we asked if this was how their plates can be ordered we were told that their menu is fully able to satisfy us.

For the most part, we were able to do shared plates since we ordered multiple orders of majority of their menu. The cheese and charcuterie board was a big hit with our group. Everyone enjoyed the variety of flavors it offered.

In all, we expected the chicken plate would be the filler for our bigger eaters in our group, but that's not how it worked out. The chicken dish, while delicious, was very small. The chicken itself, is smaller than a cornish hen. If you're planning to do a shared plates dinner throughout with anyone who typically eats a filling meal, this will not satisfy that need, even with all of the other shared plates and shared sides.

We did enjoy our overall dinner and experience. Regretfully, for this review, we were engrossed in our dinner, conversation and company that we did not get any pictures of our ordered dishes. Our server was attentive, but the clearing of table/plates as we ate and next meals and dishes were brought out, was lacking.

It's a small, cute space so if you have a party bigger than 4, I highly recommend making a reservation...

We consider ourselves incredibly lucky to have had the opportunity to dine at Anise on their opening night to the public! Everything from the ambiance, decor, creative, yet delicious, food, and wonderful cocktails were perfect. With the restaurant being brand spanking new, we went in knowing that there would probably be a few mistakes made, but we were so optimistic after looking at the menu online. The Drey Hotel is stunning and this lobby restaurant is so unique.

Crispy octopus, a wide selection of oysters, charcuterie, lamb shoulder, saffron rice, branzino! Wow wow wow! We were so incredibly overwhelmed by how beautiful this restaurant was, how kind and attentive the staff were, and how fantastic every bite was.

We loved it so much, we have already made reservations with friends to return again tonight!

The only tip I would share is please make sure all team members are educated on the menu and can answer questions as they pertain to the wine list, or what regions your oysters from, or even "do you like this?"

Perfect those simple things and this restaurant could be well on its way to being the best restaurant in Dallas! It's...