Who We Are :
UnaVida is a modern Mexican restaurant serving good-for-you food & no shortage of tequila. It’s founded on our love for Mexican Cuisine with a focus on clean, high-quality ingredients that helps you live well & be well. You’ll find familiar flavors you know & love, creatively re-imagined because life’s too short to eat boring food. Our chef-driven kitchen - lead by award-winning chef, Matt McCallister – fuels not just our food menu, but our bar menu too where we boil, extract, and dehydrate ingredients to serve libaciones made from only the purest of ingredients.
Our kitchen is free from seed oils, our proteins are sustainably sourced & we have a commitment to sourcing local whenever possible. Our menu is intentionally built to accommodate all types of different culinary preferences because eating well is not a “one-size-fits-all” approach. So herbivores, carnivores, gluten-free, flexitarians, tequila-tarians & eat-whatever-you-put-in-front-of-me-tarians alike – come as you are, we’ve got you. It’s real food, made well. Be bold, be you. Solo temenos UnaVida.
Our Culture:
People are at the heart of everything we do as we believe when life works, work works. A welcoming, inclusive environment with a menu made from the cleanest ingredients to help you live your most vibrant life and holding space for all the worthiest of indulgences.
Matt Mcallister
After spending 7 years cooking under Stephan Pyles then another 2 cooking in kitchens across the country, Matt found his home back in Dallas at FT33, his first solo venture that he opened at the age of 31 in October 2012. He quickly guided the restaurant to local acclaim, including earning a glowing five-star review from Dallas Morning News, and recognition of Restaurant of the Year by D magazine in December 2013. Matt and FT33 made waves on the national scale, including a spot on the 2013 Top 50 New Restaurant lists from Bon Appétit, Esquires top dishes of 2013, a 2014 Food & Wine Best New Chef nod, and James Beard Foundation Award semifinalist nods for Best Chef Southwest 2014, 2015 and 2016.
In 2018 Matt opened Homewood with a more elemental approach to farm fresh food he again earned a glowing 4 star review from the Dallas Morning News as well as Restaurant of the Year in D magazine. In 2021 Matt was again nominated for another James Beard award for best Chef Texas.