Los Akins, the first executive chef of Popolos, has returned with the reopening of the Preston Royal restaurant under the guidance of founder and owner-again Maury Jaffer. There's another familiar face, Louis Bougazelli, in the front of the house. Mr. Akins is restoring the wood grill with sauce options and gourmet pizzas.

REVIEW

By TERESA GUBBINS

It sounds like faint praise, but the best thing about Popolos Cafe is how benign it is.

This North Dallas bistro, which opened four years ago, has no showpiece dish, no star waiter. Its decor is pleasant, though not breathtaking. The food is good, though not challenging nor outstanding.

But it is exactly for these reasons that so many people find it comfortable. Popolos is one of those practical places where you can dress up or down, take your parents or your date, eat well and not spend too much money – sort of like a chain restaurant, but better.

Actually, Popolos has become part of a mini-chain, one of the restaurants under the Foodstar Restaurant Group, which also includes both Mediterraneo locations and Toscana.

A new chef is in the house: Britton McIntyre, who is the chef de cuisine under executive chef David Holben. He replaces Los Akins, who left to open the Palace on Lower Greenville.

Chef McIntyre comes most recently from Sipango, whose Mediterranean menu is not unlike the fare at Popolos. He's a good fit.

He's not changed the menu dramatically – of course not – but he's beefed up the grilled items, as well as added some new pizzas, seafood dishes and a couple of salads.

Pork tenderloin ($16.50) is perhaps the best of the new grills. The pork loin was grilled over hickory, then cut into thick slices, each with a pale pink center and an almost crusty edge. It came with a tart apple chutney, bodacious mashed potatoes and fresh spinach, intensely green and flavored with garlic.

A Riviera pizza ($10.95), named after the Dallas restaurant, was quite good. Turkey andouille sausage and red onions added spark to the mellowness of its Gouda cheese, set atop the pizza in small discs. The crust was on the thin side, though not to the often unpleasant thinness of cracker crust.

A testimony to Popolos' practicality is the sensitivity shown to vegetarians, with many pasta and vegetable dishes, plus a fine market plate ($11.95).

Plenty of restaurants offer grilled vegetable plates, but few do it with as much verve. The selection of vegetables was wide, and they were cut into hefty chunks so that it really felt as if you were eating something solid. They included a huge portobello, a clump of fresh, perfect spinach, long slabs of zucchini and yellow squash, half a red bell pepper and half a tomato, grilled. They were served atop a generous portion of herbed couscous. Really a wonderful dish.

Sometimes the specials felt ordinary; one night, a Nebraska "hanger" steak ($19.25), sliced and topped with more chunky vegetables, was in a brown glaze so thick it was like a bad stew. A special of tuna ($19.95), cooked rare, had a side of orzo that tasted as if it had been cooked in Campbell's beef stock. And an appetizer special of raw salmon ($9.95) came not with arugula, as advertised, but with mixed greens. Why not just say mixed greens?

But everyone gets the complimentary opener of sliced breads with flavorful basil dip. And the wine list, which has been updated and includes a nice array of wines by the glass, offers a good common-sense selection of wines from Italy, California and France.

Service was either experienced and friendly or young and green – which happened to match the personality of the clientele. One recent weekend night, parties seated at adjacent tables embodied the range. On the left sat two savvy over-50 couples, savoring a bottle of red. On the right, a young, enthusiastic fivesome barely in their 20s, having a rare, grand night out. And everyone fit in, comfortably. That's just the kind of place Popolos is.

Published in The Dallas Morning News: 10.09.98