The grilled sea bass sits on a bed of forbidden (black) rice, pumpkin coconut velouté and pomelo chutney. Photography by Kelsey Shoemaker
Quarter Acre’s red-brick exterior is unassuming.
The Kiwi-inspired restaurant is tucked in between Trader Joe’s and Japanese grill Manpuko.
The brainchild of chef and owner Toby Archibald, it’s all coastal cozy New Zealand vibes, and its concise menu is a deliberate experience.
The revolving menu offers just six appetizers, four sharing plates, six entrees and four desserts. It’s a little bit of everything. Dishes are created with centerpiece ingredients like striploin, winter roots and quail.
Archibald says intentionality plays a pivotal role in each menu or drink creation. Often, items are inspired by something he ate in his childhood or in his travels.
“We have a rabbit dish on the menu right now that’s inspired 100% from a staff meal we ate in London every week,” he says. “This was something (the French staff) grew up eating as kids … I always loved that dish, so the dish on our menu is a much more refined version of that.”
And occasionally, there’s an unconventional menu item that simply just works well.
“Sometimes, there’s no story,” Archibald says.
“There’s always a story,” interjects a staff member.
“Well, let me tell you a story about pickled beets,” Archibald starts. “When I was little, I would always eat bacon and eggs in my grandparents’ house. Every time, my granddad would eat pickled beetroot with his bacon and eggs. As a kid, I was like, ‘I just want the eggs and I want the bacon.’ Then, as you get older and your palate changes … It’s delicious. So whenever I eat a pickled beet, I always think of my granddad.”
Quarter Acre’s beef striploin is a Heritage Angus cut with crunchy potato rose, charred beet and truffle jus. Photography by Kelsey Shoemaker.
Originally, Archibald went to culinary school because he “really liked to eat” and “always wanted to see the world.”
“And then I got into it and I loved it. I liked the passion in the kitchen,” he says. “I like the artistic side of the kitchen. I liked the knowledge (we shared) together.”
Since 2006, he’s been living and working outside of New Zealand.
His first stop was London, where he worked at a Michelin-starred restaurant for three years.
“That was a big eye-opener for me,” Archibald says. “As a young chef, you think you’ve got it all figured out in New Zealand and then you go out into this big wide world and people just cook circles around you. Which is good, very good, for so much knowledge.”
Archibald’s next step was to keep working and save money, so he did what many international chefs do in the early stages of their careers — work on yachts in the Mediterranean.
“That was good fun, just like a TV show,” he says.
The Red Eye Flight cocktail is a reference to the thought that a New Zealander flew a plane before the Wright Brothers. The drink includes Angel’s Envy Bourbon, Campari and espresso. Photography by Kelsey Shoemaker.
But the goal was New York City. However, VISAs were restricted because of the recession of the late 2000s, and the closest he could get was Vancouver or Toronto.
He first worked in Vancouver for Daniel Boulud’s restaurant group Dinex, but only stayed for a few months before returning to yachts to scrounge up more money. Yacht chefs make more on average than land-based chefs and with nearly all living expenses taken care of and a regular view of the Mediterranean, it’s an easy pitch.
While on vacation in Canada, Archibald ran into a former colleague from London who was the sous chef for a Dinex restaurant in Toronto. He knew about an open sous chef position at what was to be Cafe Boulud in the Four Seasons.
After three years in Toronto he was asked to transfer to another Cafe Boulud. His time for New York City had come.
He started what would be a year at the Café Boulud on the upper east side. During this time, he took another pivotal vacation. This time to Chicago where he met his wife.
“I had a very whirlwind romance. She came to New York a couple of times, I went to Chicago a couple of times, and then we agreed to move to Australia together and that’s what we did,” he says. “We’d been in each other’s physical company for 10 days, and we moved to Australia together.”
Archibald worked as a head chef for Matt Moran on Bondi Beach, an experience he describes as a “beautiful location, strong seafood and really good fun.”
After almost a year in Australia, Archibald proposed to his now wife in front of the Sydney Harbour Bridge. The two got engaged and headed to Dallas, where his wife’s family lives.
“She’s a smart woman,” Archibald says. “She realized very quickly that if she was going to be my wife and if I was going to be a husband, we would need a good game plan for wanting to have kids and any sense of normality in our lives. So (we moved) back here with her support system, I got my green card and I started working.”
Archibald was part of the opening team at Downtown’s French restaurant, Bullion, before getting picked up to be the opening executive chef at Curtis Stone’s Georgie.
When the pandemic hit, Archibald decided that it was time to find some investors and open his own place — an upscale restaurant in Lowest Greenville with nods to his roots and culinary experiences.
“So many places have a really, really pretty room or beautiful uniforms,” he says. “But as far as the food goes, quite often, it’s an afterthought. It shouldn’t be, not in a really good restaurant … I wanted to bring a restaurant to Dallas where the food was definitely thought out.”
Though the restaurant just celebrated its one-year mark with a frequently filled dining room, Archibald says that Dallas’ dining scene still has a long road to healing from the pandemic.
“We’re a little restaurant doing big restaurant things,” Archibald says. “We do great service. We do free bread. Free lollies at the end of the meal. We’re trying to achieve all of that on this tiny, little budget and I’m really, really proud of what we’ve achieved (in our first year).”
Quarter Acre, 2023 Greenville Ave #110, 214.647.1616
CORRECTION: This article has been corrected from its original version to clarify and correct the timeline of restaurants that Archibald has worked at.
