In another century, the structure serving as host for Rick’s Chophouse was a hotel—The Grand Hotel, in fact. In the dining room you’re surrounded by 19th-century trim: wrought iron, tin ceilings, high backed chairs, beaten wood flooring, and the like. Servers show old fashioned abilities, too.

The food shares a sense of past glories, gathering around the thick butcher steaks one would expect to find in fine dining houses way back when. He also brines chicken and double dips in buttermilk the old fashioned way before frying, a process that yields perhaps the best and juiciest bird in North Texas.

But Rick’s is no throwback restaurant. Petersen’s technique is so exacting as to expose the shortcuts other popular kitchens take when preparing Southern staples. Even his version of hickory-smoked ribs will cause the most xenophobic Texan to swoon. As unbelievable as it might seem, Rick’s Chophouse in McKinney deserves a spot in the Al Biernat’s, Pappas Bros. pantheon…with a little Salum and Suze thrown in for good measure.