Chef Jackson Kalb, a former contestant on Bravo TV show ‘Top Chef’ is opening his first Texas restaurant in the Dallas Design District. Ospi is a Southern Italian restaurant.
Anja Schlein/The Dallas Morning News
Dallasites might feel some familiarity inside Italian restaurant Ospi, which opens on Oak Lawn Avenue in the Design District on May 1, 2026. This was once Meddlesome Moth, a funky gastropub whose owner said he was priced out of the neighborhood.
Backlit poses of Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry and Jerry Lee Lewis in stained glass — signature art pieces hanging inside the Moth — are long gone. But the arched openings are still there, reminding customers of the restaurant’s former life, while the Dallas Design District barrels ahead as a magnet for flashy spots like Delilah, Carbone, The Mexican, Evelyn and coming-soon 20-course restaurant Punk Noir.
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Ospi isn’t one of them.
Its chef-partner Jackson Kalb competed on Top Chef and has a fleet of restaurants in California. But this is Kalb’s first one in Texas, and it isn’t glitzy like its neighbors.
Ospi is opening in Dallas in place of the Meddlesome Moth. The three arched sections on one wall will remind longtime Dallasites of where the three stained glass windows once were.
Anja Schlein/The Dallas Morning News
Kalb got his start in “old-school kitchens,” he told me. He scored his first real cooking job at age 14, after a chef didn’t show up and he graduated from shucking peas to live-fire cooking in an instant. That was at Mélisse, the French restaurant in Santa Monica, Calif., that earned two Michelin stars while Kalb worked there, still a teenager.
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Today, Kalb operates with quiet precision. His takeover of Dallas’ Meddlesome Moth doesn’t seem to have a juicy side plot. The restaurant is newcomer in an evolving neighborhood, once a warehouse district for artists and now a hot spot.
Kalb said he gets emails “every day” from brokers asking him to bring his restaurants to new cities. He ignores most of them. “For some reason, I opened this one,” Kalb said about Dallas broker David Holiner’s email about the Design District.
“I just had a gut feeling,” Kalb said. And here we are.
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It’s easy to like Ospi’s spicy rigatoni with vodka sauce, a pasta dish available at brunch, lunch and dinner at the new Dallas restaurant.
Anja Schlein/The Dallas Morning News
What to eat and drink at Ospi
The chefs at Ospi don’t wear chefs’ coats. They wear aprons.
“We come from a Michelin background,” Kalb said, “but we don’t put pretension in our food.”
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A sign hangs in front of one of the dining areas at Ospi, an Italian restaurant opening in the Dallas Design District from a Top Chef contestant Jackson Kalb.
Anja Schlein/The Dallas Morning News
Lunch is anchored by a section of sandwiches that include chicken pesto ($19), chicken Parm ($19) and tuna salad with avocado ($18). All day, customers will find super thin crust pizzas including marinara, garlic and jalapeño for $20; and soppressata, honey and chili for $25.
At dinner, customers should consider sharing several dishes. Commit to memory the kale salad and the rigatoni; those are must-gets. The kale salad with almond dressing, $20, is crunchy and satiating. The spicy rigatoni, $27 (and $23 at lunch), is a plate of nubby, house-made noodles with creamy heat.
Kale salad with almond dressing, avocado, cilantro, serrano and ponzu is among the healthy options at Ospi in Dallas.
Anja Schlein/The Dallas Morning News
An entire focaccia section on the dinner menu — rare here in Dallas — offers six starters featuring bread made in-house. There’s garlic confit focaccia ($12), whipped ricotta with focaccia ($16), burrata and prosciutto focaccia ($27) and more.
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Kalb transported the bread starter, which cultivates yeast and bacteria, in his checked luggage from California to Dallas.
For cocktails and wine, the list is fairly uncomplicated, matching the restaurant. Two cocktails offer more personality, the chef said: Martinis, $21, are shaken tableside; and the “Margherita” is a blanco tequila drink with “salt air” on top. That’s salt foam sitting atop the cocktail, a trick Kalb learned when he worked at Alinea, the Michelin-starred restaurant in Chicago. NBD.
Ospi is the Italian restaurant from California chef Jackson Kalb. His restaurants have grown across California, and his first Texas restaurant opens May 1, 2026 in the Dallas Design District.
Anja Schlein/The Dallas Morning News
Those who remember the Meddlesome Moth’s long bar with beer taps on the walls won’t find that same look, or the deep beer selection, at Ospi. But they will find an emphasis on the bar, which the Ospi team moved closer into the dining room, changing it into a horseshoe shape so customers can see one another through the bar to the other side.
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“The whole restaurant was built around this bar,” Kalb said.
That was true at Meddlesome Moth, and it’s true again at Ospi.
Ospi is at 1621 Oak Lawn Ave., Dallas. It opens May 1, 2026.
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Wine bottles at Ospi bisect the dining room in Dallas.
Anja Schlein/The Dallas Morning News