Why Did D Magazine Omit Sauvage From Its 2025 Best New Restaurants List?

by Andrew Chalk

D Magazine has released its list of Best New Restaurants of 2025, and the omission of Sauvage is impossible to ignore.

Sauvage, which opened in late August, is among the most ambitious—and expensive—restaurant debuts of the year. It offers complex, multi-course tasting menus that demand technical precision, conceptual coherence, and serious culinary intent. Yet it is nowhere to be found on D Magazine’s list, which instead makes room for competent but familiar offerings: pizzas, burgers, and other everyday formats that are already ubiquitous across Dallas and easily replicated at home.

While I have not dined at every restaurant on D Magazine’s list, I have visited enough to say with confidence that Sauvage would have been a natural inclusion. Its level of ambition, execution, and originality places it firmly in the upper tier of new openings this year.

Public response supports that assessment. Reviews on Google Maps—written by diners paying their own way—are unusually detailed, thoughtful, and enthusiastic. Other user-driven platforms tell a similar story. By any reasonable measure of critical or consumer response, Sauvage qualifies as one of the city’s most notable new restaurants.

Which makes its total absence from D Magazine all the more puzzling.

The omission does not appear to be accidental. DMagazine.com includes a prominent search function, so I searched for “Sauvage.” There were no results at all—not a review, not a mention, not even a passing reference. To rule out a technical issue, I searched for “Mamani,” another standout addition to the Dallas dining scene in 2025. That search produced multiple entries, as did searches for several other high-profile restaurants.

In short, Sauvage does not merely fail to appear on the Best New Restaurants list—it appears not to exist in D Magazine’s coverage at all.

For comparison, I checked CultureMap, D Magazine’s closest local competitor. Searching for “Sauvage” there returned numerous results, including a mention in a September “Where to Eat” roundup. In CultureMap’s universe, Sauvage is clearly considered newsworthy.

CultureMap also provides a possible explanation for D Magazine’s silence. On August 4, CultureMap published an article by Teresa Gubbins describing an incident in which Sauvage chef-owner Casey La Rue confronted D Magazine restaurant writer Brian Reinhart, who was allegedly photographing La Rue’s car and license plate. According to the report, Reinhart left abruptly when approached. CultureMap later followed up and linked to a video showing Reinhart departing the scene.

It is reasonable to ask whether the fallout from that uncomfortable episode has resulted in D Magazine choosing to ignore Sauvage altogether. If so, that decision would place personal or institutional discomfort ahead of editorial responsibility—and ultimately ahead of readers’ interests.

D Magazine owes its audience transparency. If there is a principled editorial reason for excluding one of the city’s most ambitious new restaurants from coverage entirely, it should be stated. Until then, the omission remains conspicuous, troubling, and difficult to justify.

I am awaiting an explanation from D Magazine’s editorial staff.