I don’t know about you, but when I see the word “hibiscus,” I automatically think, “Any of various chiefly tropical shrubs or trees … having large, showy . . . flowers.” How that delicate floral image got attached to a decidedly Texan, though slickly sophisticated, restaurant in a hot Dallas neighborhood is a mystery that may never be solved. But there’s nothing inscrutable about the talent of Hibiscus chef Nick Badovinus. Witness his appetizer of pearly-white lump crabmeat piled in an avocado half sided by freshly grated horseradish; unctuous ossobuco with the marrowbone split lengthwise and slathered with foie gras and lemony gremolata; and desserts bigger than your head, like a four-inch-high slice of devil’s food cake with a morello cherry drizzle. Add vases of orchids on the tables and nouveau country music on the sound system, and you have a formula for twenty-first-century Texas chic. No mystery there.
