Coastal Italian restaurant Élephante opens next Tuesday, September 1, at 2701 Maple Ave. in Uptown Dallas, occupying roughly 9,800 square feet across two floors inside the 23Springs development. The Los Angeles-born concept will seat about 270 people indoors and another 78 on a 1,250-square-foot patio, giving it one of the largest footprints among the tower's new restaurants.
The Dallas location marks Élephante's expansion beyond its original 2018 rooftop birthplace in Santa Monica, according to CultureMap Dallas. The restaurant is owned by Wish You Were Here Group, founded by Australian restaurateur Nick Mathers, and is the brand's third location following a late-2024 debut at Scottsdale Fashion Square in Arizona, with additional outposts planned for Houston's Central Park Post Oak and Laguna Beach, California, per PR Newswire. Élephante Dallas was first announced back in September 2024 and landed on local lists of the most anticipated restaurants of 2025 well before its doors opened.
Culinary Director and Partner Thomas Lim, a Sydney native who has led kitchen programs for Wish You Were Here Group since 2012 and previously earned a spot on Zagat's “30 Under 30” list, described the approach behind the menu. “The menu aims to capture the freshness and simplicity of coastal Southern Italian cooking while feeling at home in Dallas,” Lim said, according to the CultureMap report. He added that the dishes are “vibrant, seasonal, and designed to be shared.”
What's On the Menu
The menu leans on vegetables, housemade pastas, wood-fired pizzas, seafood, and meats built for sharing. Signature dishes include a Margherita pizza with housemade mozzarella, tomato, and basil; ragu bianco with cavatelli, Italian sausage, pecorino, broccolini, and fennel pollen; grilled octopus with hearts of palm, olives, capers, tangerine, and red onion; whipped eggplant with puccia and olive oil; branzino with salsa verde butter, sea beans, and lemon; and a vodka sauce pasta finished with Calabrian chile, basil, and Parmigiano.
The beverage program is similarly ambitious. Élephante's wine list runs past 1,000 labels and includes limited-vintage bottles and private-label wines produced exclusively for Wish You Were Here Group venues, with an emphasis on Italian growing regions and curated spritzes, according to background reporting from PR Newswire. A central bar topped with white-oak and honed-stone counters sits beneath illuminated wine bottles, the report notes, anchoring the restaurant's design.
Design Draws on Pantelleria and the Aeolian Islands
Élephante's aesthetic was inspired by the group's travels to Pantelleria and the Aeolian Islands, per the CultureMap report, and the Dallas space carries that through with warm woods, stone, greenery, sculptural lighting, and artwork inspired by Southern Italy. Sliding glass doors open onto terraces and landscaped areas, an architectural choice designed by Mathers in collaboration with Austin-based Alter Studio, according to Granite Properties. The layout is meant to echo the breezy, open-air feel of the original Santa Monica rooftop.
Élephante will be open 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 11 a.m. to midnight Friday, 10 a.m. to midnight Saturday, and 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sunday, with reservations accepted through OpenTable, per the CultureMap report. The restaurant sits inside 23Springs at the corner of Maple Avenue and Cedar Springs, a $450 million, 26-story tower that Granite Properties and Highwoods Properties completed in August 2025, replacing a former three-building, 110,000-square-foot low-rise office complex.
A Growing Restaurant Row Inside the Tower
Élephante isn't the only new arrival at 23Springs. Wish You Were Here Group also operates Little Ruby's Cafe, its NYC-born Australian sister concept, which debuted at the development in early 2026 in a standalone 1,790-square-foot space facing the property's central park — marking Little Ruby's first location outside New York, according to DiningOut. Austin-based Torchy's Tacos also opened an upscale flagship prototype at 23Springs in June, complete with a full cocktail bar and dedicated patio, as Hoodline reported in its piece on the tower's boozy new flagship.
The dining boom is riding alongside a wave of office leasing. By July 2026, 23Springs had reached 93% occupancy, with tenants including Deloitte, law firm Sidley Austin, Bank OZK, and Prudential Financial's PGIM unit, according to Granite Properties. That built-in corporate base gives Élephante a dense, high-earning lunch and after-work crowd right at its doorstep. The tower became the tallest office building in Uptown Dallas upon its 2025 delivery, according to CoStar, which credited it with anchoring a broader neighborhood dining surge fueled by out-of-state luxury hospitality groups.
That surge reflects a wider pattern of coastal restaurant groups from Los Angeles and New York pushing into Sunbelt cities like Dallas, Scottsdale and Houston, using architecturally distinctive, indoor-outdoor spaces to recreate coastal resort atmospheres in dense urban towers. Wish You Were Here Group's broader portfolio includes Belles Beach House and Eveleigh in California, Dudley's and Ruby's in New York, and Kassi Beach House at Virgin Hotels Las Vegas, according to Whitewall. Mathers launched the group more than two decades ago, starting with Ruby's Cafe in Manhattan's SoHo neighborhood.
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