Restaurants from New York and Los Angeles are scheduled to open in a tower in Uptown Dallas in fall 2025.

elephantan Italian coastal restaurant that started in Santa Monica, California and Little Ruby’san all-day cafe from New York City, is set to open in the 23Springs office complex at the corner of Cedar Springs Road and Maple Avenue. The project is right next to Uchi and across the street from the new $20 million Nuri steakhouse.

Although Élephante and Little Ruby’s are located on opposite sides of the United States, they are owned by the same company. The founder, Nick Mathers, was born and raised in Sydney, Australia. He loves to travel.

“I just want to take you somewhere,” he said of his restaurants.

With Little Ruby’s he wants to take you home with him, where he surfed off the coast of Australia. With Élephante he was inspired by the Italian Mediterranean island of Pantelleria.

“When you walk into the restaurant, you’ll feel like you’re not in Dallas,” Mathers said of Élephante. “It will be like you’re on a mini-vacation.”

The 26-story office building is nearly complete, said Paul Bennett, senior managing partner of Granite Properties. When the building opens in March 2025 (as planned), 23Springs will have a half-acre park on the ground floor, adding some green space to the property since the six-story parking garage was hidden underneath.

Granite Properties, a Plano-based commercial real estate company, has partnered with Highwoods Properties on the project. The Raleigh-based company acquired a 50 percent stake in the tower following the announcement.

Élephante will be placed as a freestanding restaurant in the park. Little Ruby’s will be located in the main building near the lobby.

A third restaurant will open near Little Ruby’s, and Bennett and his team have not yet decided on a tenant.

While the focus of the office tower is to provide space for companies like Deloitte, Sidley Austin LLP and Bank OZK, Bennett said the restaurants are designed for everyone in Uptown.

“We’re trying to foster a community experience with the park and the restaurants,” he said.

Learn more about Élephante and Little Ruby’s here.

Élephante: an Italian restaurant on the coast that places great emphasis on lunch

The largest restaurant on the property is Élephante, at 11,000 square feet. It originally opened in California and will next open in Scottsdale, Arizona, and then in Dallas.

The restaurant has an “elegant rustic” atmosphere, said Mathers: stucco, plaster and warm wood interiors.

Mathers says many customers start their lunch or dinner at Élephante with an appetizer of whipped eggplant, which looks like hummus. It’s so popular that Mathers says Costco representatives have asked him if he’s considering selling it in their major supermarkets. (And will he? “Who knows. I wouldn’t say never.”)

Lunch is very popular at Élephante, Mathers says, and that fits well in this part of Uptown, which has a lot of office space.

There are at least six types of pizza, with soppressata with chili oil and honey being the most popular.

Pasta is a must: spicy vodka with Calabrian chili and basil (with lobster if you wish), cacio e pepe, spaghetti alle vongole and the like.

Main courses include a 590-gram bone-in rib-eye steak to share, branzino with leek and fennel salmoriglio, and polenta with black truffle mushrooms.

Mathers said he saw the television show Dallas long before he set foot in Texas. On a trip to Big D, he found a city with good shopping and restaurants. He believes there is room for Élephante’s coastal Italian menu.

“It’s not necessarily a bad thing, but there are so many steakhouses,” he said.

Little Ruby’s Cafe: a breakfast spot with cocktails and coffee

Little Ruby’s will occupy a smaller space of about 3,000 square feet at 23Springs. It’s possible the space will feel large, as Mather’s first Little Ruby’s in New York City was a “shoebox” of a restaurant at 300 square feet.

Mather calls the restaurant “super casual and down to earth,” the kind of place where joggers can stop by for coffee alongside business people dressed for the day. He compares it to Cheersif the bar served Australian classics.

“Brekkie” includes Vegemite toast, eggs and vegetables, as well as the cafe’s famous avocado toast. Mathers said Little Ruby’s was the first establishment in the United States to sell avocado toast – a claim that’s hard to prove but fun to believe.

The all-day cafe menu ranges from breakfast to pasta with shrimp and kale salad to plenty of burgers.

Mathers opened the restaurant when he was 24 years old.

“It’s close to my heart,” he said. “I want it to feel like an extension of my kitchen.”

Little Ruby’s in Dallas will be the fifth in the United States and the first outside of New York City.

For more food news, visit Sarah Blaskovich on X at @sblaskovich.