Buckle up cowpokes, it’s going to be a very Keith Lee year in DFW. | Leon Bennett/Getty Images for EBONY The TikTok food influencer announced he’s living in Big D and reviewed two restaurants It looks like the biggest food news story of 2024 is going to carry on into 2025 — no, not the Michelin Guide. It’s Keith Lee, baby, and he’s here to stay. By here, we mean in Dallas, which the TikTok food influencer and reviewer announced over the holidays is where he and his family have made their new home. We knew he made the move to Texas back in November, and that just before that he made his way through the foods of the State Fair, but who would have guessed, after his moderately controversial visit to the city last summer, that the Lee family would choose to settle down here permanently? One thing we know for sure: Lee will make content in his new hometown. On December 29, Lee dropped a review of Wicked Butcher, a steakhouse in Downtown Dallas with a much more successful location in Fort Worth. According to his post, the general manager of the restaurant saw him out and about, walked up to Lee, and asked him to give his feedback. Lee says his family was out getting dinner, but it’s unclear if they were having dinner at this spot or just ambling around Downtown when they were spotted. “One thing I do love about the Dallas food scene, and we’ve been here about a month/month and a half, is they do have some nice fine dining restaurants,” Lee says. Lee gives the cost of the meal, because he, as always, paid for it, and then reviewed a steakhouse meal from his car. Because that is what he does, for some reason, regardless of whether or not the food is car-suitable. Our main question, knowing that most of Downtown is paid parking, is where did he park to eat? Anyway, Lee recommends the green curry salmon, steak frites (at some point someone is going to have to tell him that steakhouses will default to a medium rare cook), salmon tartare (yes, he seriously ate that in his car), and blueberry (or was it blackberry — he mentions both) mint lemonade. He would have enjoyed the free bread more if it had salted butter. His next review was for Soiree Coffee Bar in Trinity Groves, following the recommendation of a lady who walked up to him at NorthPark Mall and Airdropped a whole list of places she thought he needed to eat. Her credentials for doing this? The world will never know. However, Lee chose a Black- and family-owned coffee bar that was broken into in December — he added a video of the owners cleaning up a broken pane of glass in the door and saying that the thieves took the cash register. As for Lee’s review, he recommends trying the catfish and grits, the loaded avocado toast without tomatoes, and the peach cobbler eggroll. He deemed the red velvet waffle fine but not special, and his opinion wasn’t helped by the fact that there was no syrup. What we don’t know, because Lee doesn’t seem to imbibe it, is how the coffee is. Lee left a $1500 tip, plus another $1500 to pay for the orders of anyone who came in after him, and a note to viewers to be patient if they choose to visit this family-owned business. So, we’re predicting two trends for 2025. The first is restaurant employees running up to Lee and asking him to review their places, even if it’s not appropriate for his type of reviewing. The second is folks dropping him lists and suggestions, also not necessarily appropriate for his reviews. That Airdropped list, for example, included Ruth Chris Steakhouse (a chain), Del Frisco’s (another chain), Nick and Sam’s, Ocean Prime (hey, another chain), Monarch, Perry’s Steakhouse and Grille, Town Hearth, Nobu (yes, another chain), the Capital Grille (again, a chain), Haywire, Eddie V’s (also a chain and the Dallas location is closed), and Truluck’s (a fine dining chain) — among other fine dining places that don’t need a car review. Feeding Lee ideas for small, locally-owned places is great. Do it! Help him help all of us find those hidden gems. But if you work at or want to recommend high-end, well-known fine dining establishments, save the recommendations for someone else. We don’t want to watch Keith Lee eat Nick and Sam’s in his car.