Looking for Valentine’s dinner? New Italian restaurant open between Fort Worth, Dallas

Bud Kennedy
·2 min read

A new finer Italian restaurant in the Loews hotel will be open by Feb. 13 and can now take reservations for Valentine’s Day, Loews hotels announced Wednesday.

Farena, by Loews executive chef “Moose” Benhamacht, is the all-day restaurant in the new, 888-room hotel tower at 888 Nolan Ryan Expressway, across East Randol Mill Road from the Live! By Loews hotel and Texas Live! complex near Globe Life Field.

Farena joins the Loews lineup along with Soy Cowboy, a pan-Asian restaurant by Houston restaurateur Ben Berg of B&B Butchers. It will open in summer, the hotel has announced.

Reservations for Farena just opened at Resy.com. Tables were available at midweek for Valentine’s lunch and dinner.

The pizza ovens at Farena in the Loews Arlington hotel.
The pizza ovens at Farena in the Loews Arlington hotel.

The restaurant has not published its menu or specials yet at farenarestaurant.com.

Farena’s central design feature is a bank of two giant pizza ovens. Chefs teach pasta-making in a “pasta lab.”

Dining options also include outdoor seating on the Veranda, open as late as midnight.

Benhamacht, the former executive chef at Cut & Bourbon in Live! By Loews, came to Arlington five years ago from a Universal resort hotel in Orlando, Florida.

The only hint at offerings is on the Loews room-service menu, which includes margherita pizza, short-rib ravioli and pan-roasted salmon with roasted cauliflower. The breakfast offerings include “Farena flavors” such as eggs with pomodoro or with pancetta and arugula.

Chef Dustin Lee, formerly of The Beast restaurant in Fort Worth, has posted on social media that he is a chef at Farena, showing photos on social media of Neapolitan-style pizzas and linguine di mare.

The new Farena Italian restaurant in the Loews Arlington hotel.
The new Farena Italian restaurant in the Loews Arlington hotel.

The hotel’s website says only: “The rustic yet refined ambiance of the dining room transports patrons back to Italy at first sight while rich flavors of Italian cuisine crafted from meticulously selected premium ingredients take the tastebuds on a gastronomic journey.”

According to the hotel’s announcement, the name Farena is a reference to a “local dialect” pronunciation of the Italian word farina or farine, meaning flour.

It is not related to the local Farina’s Winery & Cafe restaurants in Grapevine and Granbury.

Soy Cowboy is Berg’s second local restaurant, joining B&B Butchers in Fort Worth. The company also operates eight restaurants in Houston.

The Soy Cowboy menu is expected to include sushi, tempura and wok dishes along with Korean barbecue.

The dining room at Soy Cowboy in the Loews Arlington hotel.
The dining room at Soy Cowboy in the Loews Arlington hotel.