Bacari Tabu

Fantastic vibes. Moody, elegant, lush, intimate. Also, it's in such a random strip center that you'll definitely get some street cred for telling your friends about this cool little jazz bar in a part of town they've never even thought twice about. It feels very much like a neighborhood secret, especially given that about half the crowd were boomers or older (one elderly couple, adorably, got up and danced in front of the band at one point). But the other half of the crowd ranged from 20's to 40's, and really no one felt or looked out of place. You can dress up or dress "Dallas casual," and you'll be fine either way (although I'd err maybe a bit on the dressier side).IMPORTANT point in light of Muh A's review: We sat down for our dinner reservation at 7:30 pm on a Friday and were allowed to linger as long as we wanted, even as the place filled up with people who'd arrived for a drink and some live jazz (which starts at 9 pm). We actually didn't leave our table until close to 11 pm, but we never felt rushed in the slightest.ANYWAY, on to the food and drinks...The fried olives are a nice (and generously portioned) complimentary bite to start. They're stuffed with cheese, so obviously they're delicious.I started with the amaro sour, which was a nice, easy drink and not overly sweet (always a risk with sours, so I was pleased by that). I was hoping for a bit more of an amaro "punch" to it, but all of the cocktails seem to be designed to be accessible to a wide audience.The current wine menu in the restaurant is not the one that's currently posted on their website -- it's quite different. After our cocktails, we ordered a $50 bottle of Grüner Veltliner that tasted so much like chardonnay that I actually had to take a second look at the bottle to make sure the waitress had delivered the correct bottle. It was, in the humble opinion of this Grüner Veltliner lover, the worst bottle of Grüner Veltliner I've ever had. Not sure who's in charge of their wine purchases, but this experience made me pretty skeptical about the other offerings on the wine menu. I'll also note that there are very few wines offered by the glass, which is a little frustrating.Our group of four shared the following dishes:- Hearts of palm: PASS. Basically a mushy, room-temp avocado under a bed of frisée. If there were any hearts of palm on that plate, they were slivered so thin you didn't even notice them.- Lamb meatballs: Tasty, but not traditional meatballs. They're served on an escargot plate (so, they're tiny) and are battered and fried. The meatballs sit on top of dollops of tzatziki, but their fried shells don't pick up any of the sauce, and good luck trying to scrape any of the sauce out of the divots with only a knife and a fork as utensils. Frankly, the lamb flavor gets lost in the fried breading...so, I mean, if you like fried breading, and you like meat, you'll like these.- Gnocchi alla Romana: Tasty, but in what world do fried polenta squares get listed on a menu as gnocchi? Nothing about this dish looked or tasted anything like gnocchi. I have no complaints about fried polenta in brown butter sauce, but don't advertise it as gnocchi.- Pizza alla Vodka: A middling execution of a margherita pizza. Any vodka sauce flavor was scant at best. However, props for the generous dollops of burrata.- Roasted Broccolini Pizza: This was my favorite thing we ate. The ricotta, the farm egg, the parmesan, and the black pepper all perfectly complimented the well-cooked broccolini.If we come back, which I might for the atmosphere alone, I'd probably do an off-menu dirty martini, the roasted broccolini pizza, and try some of the charcoal grill offerings. We had a vegetarian in our group, so we avoided the meats from the grill on this past visit.

This place is SO cute. It was absolutely packed when we went and rightfully so. The tapas were good, we got the calamari, white pizza, risotto and some others. The live music is what blew us away though. I would come here just for some cocktails and that. Such a cute date idea too. It was a little loud in there, but overall was a gem!

Gave this place a shot on two separate occasions because boy do I love live jazz music. But unfortunately, the service is absolutely pitiful-- even on my birthday! Truly some of the rudest waitstaff I've ever come across. You'd get better service at a Chick-fil-a without question. With a table of 5, we wanted to try one of the risottos. To which they said we needed to order 5 risottos (one for each person) after we had just ordered an app, 2 pizzas and different pasta. In what world would we want 5 risottos on top of all that? I tried to speak to the manager at the end of the meal to tell her how poor the service was but she was even more rude and incompetent. The clam pizza is exquisite and the music is lovely but it's impossible to enjoy either when your server is discourteous and they are simply trying to get you out of the restaurant as quickly as possible. Skip it-- there are muchhhh better establishments in Dallas.

My spouse and I spent around five hours at this venue and just under $500 yesterday, so I feel especially qualified to give a review as a first-time visitor. I'm giving what is probably an overly-generous five stars, but that is ONLY because of the ambiance, music, service, and cocktails. Every single one of those are not just excellent at Bacari Tabu, they are some of the best in the entire city in my estimation. And that's no exaggeration. This is the kind of little jewel box that one would expect to uncover in New York or Paris. Unfortunately and so very sadly, just like every single one of Julian Barsotti's venues that we've ever visited in Dallas, the food is extremely hit or miss. The menu is termed as "tapas" but very few if any of the offerings could reasonably be categorized as such. We started with a very odd lukewarm crudo -- the presentation and the flavor of the underlying sauce were both superb, but the "semi-seared" temperature of the crudo was extremely off-putting to the point of being almost impossible to finish. Next, we tried some sort of spicy Roma tomato pizza which was enormous. It was significantly undercooked and doughy, but the flavors of the tomato and garlic were actually quite nice. We moved on to a pasta dish -- here again the pasta itself was marvelous, as was the sauce. But it contained chunks of nearly inedible, flavorless, tough sausage that just about destroyed the entire dish. It's important to emphasize that "hit or miss" is very literal. Barsotti shows such tremendous talent in so much of his food but his cooks manage to f**k it up way too often either by wild inconsistency (over repeat visits) or by including elements in the dishes that are subpar distractions from the otherwise glowing high quality that should be shining through. I'm not sure if this is because Barsotti is trying to run too many restaurants at once and can't be everywhere at the same time or what, but it's really such a shame. Anyway, the service was impeccable and highly personable. The jazz was very clubby and clearly appeals to the slightly older Park Cities crowd that was present. I hope they will eventually include a Chicago/Texas "blues guitar" style night (think Freddie King or Stevie Ray Vaughn) once a week that's a little more lively and gritty, but that's just my own personal taste in jazz. As for the drinks, they honestly couldn't have been better. The Gangsta's Paradise in particular is delicious and a definite must try. And whomever designed the space itself deserves an award -- it's so intimate and perfect for a romantic, enchanted evening of entertainment. All things considered, it's a hit. Improvements to the food would make it a total home run.

Service at the bar was a bit lacking, but good and wine were delicious. Not quite welcoming bartender, but cool vibe and snacks. Will come again.

Amazing food and service. Mario was our bartender. Had the wagyu skewers and Pepperoni and calabrian chili pizza. So good.

Such a great little spot! We loved the food, service, and atmosphere. Thursday date night with live music DO NOT SLEEP on Bacari Tabu.

We've been three times. Venue, service, food, cocktails were top notch each time. The musical talent can be a hit or miss. The venue reeks of NYC/Paris jazz club, chic, beautiful, classy, small, intimate. But, check out who's playing and listen to their music on YouTube or Spotify before committing to go, see if it's something you like, and even then, it can change before you get there. We expected the similar NYC-ish jazz lounge style music we heard the first time (loved), and the second and third visits were a BIG disappointment, so we left quickly after they started. A good plan: The music started at 9 so you could get there earlier, have cocktails, eat dinner, see if you like the music, and scoot if not. Dear Bacari Tabu: Please tap the talent at UNT jazz department. They are eager to perform, will travel to Dallas, and the best jazz students in the world. They go on to be the greatest jazz musicians in the biz, a treasure Dallas needs to tap into and make Dallas the Jazz Scene of the south.

One and done. While Bacari Tabu has a cool vibe, the food was fair and the service made me feel like I was at Olive Garden- turn the table as quickly as possible even though the restaurant was only half full. Our two cocktails were decent. Neither the pizza nor the spaghetti suppli (sp) were nearly as good as we remember them to have been at Sprezza. The fried artichoke was different in a good way. We were in an out in 50 minutes even though we were not in a hurry. In fact, when we left we went to another restaurant for dessert and another drink. That decision saved the evening.

This two stars is for the waitress we had. 3 of were seated and ordered lasagna which was good, meat balls and pepperoni pizza (just OK. Crust was average and the calabrian chile on the pizza was way too spicy) and a drink. The new look of the old Tabu Room was impressive. The waitress told us that there was only music on the weekend and this was a Thursday night. She was wrong. In 15 minutes a singer with guitar started singing his set. He was terrific and we finished eating but wanted to stay for the whole set. When the waitress came to clear the table, I told her we would be staying to hear the music. She said that was really not a good idea because there were reservations. Then she brought our check. I told her we had reservations and the place was never full the whole time we were there. she came and took everything away on our table. We stayed anyway to the end of the set. Why have music if you are urged to leave and not hear it. Rude service that encourages patrons to leave is NOT acceptable. We aren't going back.