Smoke gets in your rib-eyes at Kirby's in Dallas

The history of Woodfire Kirby's, the Lower Greenville Avenue restaurant that until last October was called Kirby's Prime Steakhouse, goes back a long time -- all the way to 1921. That's the year that J.G. Kirby and Dr. R.W. Jackson opened the Pig Stand on the Dallas-Fort Worth Highway. It was a drive-in restaurant (said to be the country's first), serving sandwiches of uncured ham doused in a special sour sauce.

Kirby's son B.J. opened his own Pig Stand, on Greenville Avenue. Kirby turned the Greenville Pig Stand into Kirby's Charcoal Steaks in 1954, and it thrived until 1987. In 1995, Kirby sold the name rights and recipes to Jim Ingram and Monte Hough, who opened a new restaurant, Kirby's Steakhouse -- then changed its name to Kirby's Prime Steakhouse, adding branches in San Antonio, Southlake, The Woodlands and elsewhere.

Ingram and Hough gave Kirby's a makeover last fall, refreshing the dining room and refashioning the restaurant, smartly, into Woodfire Kirby's.

To be sure, Woodfire Kirby's rides the crest of a trend. A month before it reopened, Smoke, a veritable wood-fire theme restaurant, opened in Oak Cliff. Kent Rathbun had opened Rathbun's Blue Plate Kitchen (a spinoff of his wood-fire-centric Jasper's chain) earlier in the year.

Like Smoke, Kirby's gives dishes all over the menu the wood-smoke treatment, and that's a big part of what makes it so appealing.

Skewers of prosciutto-wrapped shrimp ($12) poke jauntily into a thick platform of grilled pineapple -- a presentation that straddles the fine line between silly and funny. Be sure to get some of the pineapple and the shrimp in the same bite, counsels the server, and she's right -- the fruit gets a smoky depth from the hickory wood, giving dimension to the dish. Charred pineapple appears again (with green chile) in a salsa that accompanies three gorgeous wood-grilled Maine scallops ($14).

Alaskan king crab legs, the most expensive dish on the menu at $39, make a dramatic presentation -- three enormous legs spill off the sides of the plate, they're so long. Slashed lengthwise to expose the meat, they're drizzled with garlic butter then perfectly grilled over that wood fire.

An herb-crusted Berkshire pork chop on the bone ($21) arrives nicely rosy pink, juicy from being brined in Shiner Bock. A whole acorn squash, wood-roasted with lavender and brown sugar, keeps it company -- just right for the season, sweetly earthy, lovely with the pork.

Speaking of vegetables, I love the julienned zucchini and crookneck squash you can get as a side dish. Here chef Daniel Nemec sautés the squash to just-tender with a little olive oil, truffle salt and black pepper. My favorite dish was a hickory-smoked wood-grilled rib-eye ($28). Smoky, but not too, perfectly cooked as ordered, wonderfully flavorful and topped with sautéed mushrooms.

Also very good (and more expensive at $37.95 and $39.95, respectively), were wood-grilled prime 16-ounce New York strip and 22-ounce bone-in rib-eye steaks. Both landed medium-rare as ordered, nicely charred and well seasoned.

I'll skip the wood-fired pizzas ($11-$15) next time. One of the simplest, with tomato slices, mozzarella, goat cheese, basil and garlic, was pale and dull, more like a shy flatbread than a pizza. Desserts are a mixed bag, including beignets ($8.95). A terrific idea, they arrive prettily dusted with powdered sugar and served with three dipping sauces, including good caramel, but they could have been hotter and lighter. Best to sink your teeth into the Rice Krispies treat batons with chocolate sauce for dipping ($8.95).

The dining room is warm and comfortable, with a row of cozy booths in the center and another along the side wall. With the busy bar and music playing, it is not the spot for quiet conversation.

Service during visits -- one on a weeknight when the bar was packed, the other on a busy weekend -- was warm and attentive.