Carbone did not need to be a good restaurant. Smaller operations, without name recognition or established reputations, must serve good food and memorable experiences to survive. But all Carbone needed to do when it opened a Dallas location in March was let everyone know that it is from New York.

Dallasites still revere cooking from the coasts, believing that a restaurant from New York or Los Angeles can help transport us from our provincial backwater. If a chef arrives in town claiming to have once peeled a potato at Per Se, someone will give him the keys to their own kitchen.