Bucket & Rope takes its name from a family story: an eight-year-old's offhand reference to the bucket-and-rope door mechanism at Baby Doe's Matchless Mine, which resurfaced years later when the Ruibal family and Victor Hugo were naming their new restaurant inside the historic Liberty National Bank Building in Dallas' Downtown Historic District.
The menu ranges widely — crispy calamari, ahi tuna tostadas, grilled lamb chop lollipops, duck taquitos, and New Orleans-style barbecue shrimp lead into soups, salads like a kale and arugula Caesar or Asian chicken salad, and pastas including a duck confit tagliatelle and a shrimp pesto penne.
Victor Hugo, who spent over fifteen years working in restaurants in Santa Barbara and Los Angeles including a stint helping The Cheesecake Factory scale its business, moved to Dallas in 2008. He managed Al Biernat's steakhouse and served as GM of Lombardi's Bistro 31 in Highland Park before opening Victor Hugo's Dining & Bar in Oak Cliff in 2014, which he ran for seven years. He later worked in private chef experiences, consulting, and pop-ups, including a recurring one at the Round Top Antique Show, before opening Bucket & Rope.
The menu ranges widely — crispy calamari, ahi tuna tostadas, grilled lamb chop lollipops, duck taquitos, and New Orleans-style barbecue shrimp lead into soups, salads like a kale and arugula Caesar or Asian chicken salad, and pastas including a duck confit tagliatelle and a shrimp pesto penne.
Victor Hugo, who spent over fifteen years working in restaurants in Santa Barbara and Los Angeles including a stint helping The Cheesecake Factory scale its business, moved to Dallas in 2008. He managed Al Biernat's steakhouse and served as GM of Lombardi's Bistro 31 in Highland Park before opening Victor Hugo's Dining & Bar in Oak Cliff in 2014, which he ran for seven years. He later worked in private chef experiences, consulting, and pop-ups, including a recurring one at the Round Top Antique Show, before opening Bucket & Rope.