Dallas doesn’t have a Little Italy neighborhood or a history of Italian immigration on par with New York, Boston or Chicago, but that hasn’t stopped it from embracing the cuisine like a warm hug from our nonnas. The city is dotted with Italian restaurants presented in packages ranging from casual bistros to opulent productions, and covering a variety of regional styles. Throw in the talented chefs with Italian backgrounds and a dining public that appreciates fresh pastas, wood-fired proteins and wine, and there’s never been a better time to eat Italian food in Dallas. These are 12 of the best Italian restaurants in town.
Via Triozzi
Leigh Hutchinson’s Via Triozzi is the ideal neighborhood restaurant, with a warm atmosphere, friendly service and the kind of comforting food you want to eat three times per week. Standout starters include the coccoli, which combines crispy dough, stracchino cheese and 20-month prosciutto, and the grilled zucchini with whipped ricotta, pistachios and herb oil. From there, move onto fresh pastas like the linguine with clams, tagliatelle al ragù or the lasagna loaded with bolognese, bechamel and pecorino romano. The wine list features dozens of Italian bottles, including a handful of fun skin-contact rosés and orange wines. If you can’t choose, ask for a carafe of the affordable, food-friendly house wine, which is better than it needs to be.
Lucia
The darling of Dallas Italian restaurants since opening in 2010, Lucia is helmed by husband and wife team David and Jennifer Uygur and is rightfully lauded for its house-cured salumi, handmade pastas and fresh breads. The menu changes frequently, but there’s always a wide variety of antipasti, including oysters, salads and the chef’s selection of salumi, plus pasta-focused primi plates and a few entrees, like Berkshire pork collar or a roasted fish. The drinks get equally thoughtful treatment and range from Italian wines and aperitif cocktails to an eclectic selection of vermouths and amari.
Knife Italian
John Tesar’s Knife Italian is the anchor restaurant inside the Ritz-Carlton Dallas, Las Colinas, which recently took over from the Four Seasons after a $55 million renovation. The restaurant serves three meals per day, so you can reasonably eat eggs swimming in peperonata for breakfast, cacio e pepe for lunch and pork Milanese or bistecca for dinner. Pastas and breads are made fresh daily, and steaks are sourced from 44 Farms and sized to share. Like at Tesar’s steakhouse, Knife, bone-in ribeyes are aged between 45 days and an incredible 240 days, the latter resulting in one of the most interesting and flavorful bites of beef you’ll find in Texas — which is saying something.
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Julian Barsotti is everywhere, and his other Italian concepts worth checking out include Nonna and Fachini. But it’s hard to beat Barsotti’s, the cool and clubby restaurant where his Italian cooking is on full display across a variety of antipasti, pastas and hearty specialties. Start with some chilled crab claws or fried ravioli before moving into lasagna bolognese, linguine with clams and the veal parm. You’ll be full, but that’s just more reason to stick around and sip one of the many stomach-settling digestivos.
Partenope
Partenope is a comfortable, pizza-heavy Italian spot that’s primed for whatever occasion you throw its way, from dates and working dinners to solo evenings at the bar. Naples-born master pizzaiolo Dino Santonicola pumps out perfectly cooked pizzas topped with smoked mozzarella, Italian sausage and Calabrian chilies, so be sure to try one or more of those. But don’t miss the pastas, like the spaghetti alla carbonara or the puttanesca loaded with marinara, anchovies, olives, capers and garlic. Everything above goes swimmingly with a glass of chianti or a cold Italian lager.
Radici Wood Fired Grill
Tiffany Derry is best known for the kind of Southern cooking on display at her restaurant Roots, but she began her career cooking Italian food and certainly hasn’t lost her touch. Radici (“roots” in Italian) is her ode to Italian flavors and wood-fired ingredients, with must-try dishes including the rigatoni amatriciana and white lasagna, plus hearty, hearth-cooked items like the whole branzino and a Fiorentina-style ribeye. You can’t go wrong. Unless you forget to order the Negroni made with Italian gin, then we suppose you could.
The Charles
Duro Hospitality maintains a roster of hits, but it all started with The Charles, the group’s first restaurant and still one of its best. On most nights, the fun, lively dining room feels like the place to be, as guests clink glasses and plates hit tables, filled with food described as Italian cuisine interpreted through a Texas lens. Dishes range from oysters, charred octopus and grilled halibut to lemon-ricotta gnudi, smoked oxtail pappardelle and a massive Wagyu tomahawk ribeye. Order a bottle of wine from Alto Adige or Sardinia, and when dinner’s over, you can always retire to the attached Bar Charles to decompress with a digestivo.
Monarch
Located on the 49th floor of the National building, Monarch is a prime perch for dinner and drinks with downtown views. The menu is inspired by Michelin-starred chef Danny Grant’s upbringing in an Italian-American household, with modern interpretations of his favorite dishes from childhood. That translates to wood-fired meatballs, short rib bolognese, spicy rigatoni alla vodka, crispy veal chop Parmesan, and a selection of wood-fired steaks. So, it seems he ate well as a child.
La Stella Cucina Verace
Everything about La Stella is polished, from the white tablecloths to the vest-and-tie-clad servers. The menu focuses on self-titled “real cuisine” (cucina verace), which in this case means authentic Italian with a modern twist, as seen in dishes like homemade gnocchi stuffed with ricotta, agnolotti featuring a veal osso bucco filling, sage butter and veal reduction, and a whole branzino with lemon caper butter. La Stella also sports one of the most extensive Italian wine lists in Texas, and the restaurant channels its Arts District location, with a piano and performers ready to serenade diners while they eat.
MoMo Italian Kitchen
Family-owned MoMo hits that sweet spot between being casual enough to visit on a random Tuesday for dinner, but nice enough to warrant a date night and ordering that bottle of Barolo. Choose your own adventure across the vermouth flights and Negroni menu, then dive into dishes like lasagna bolognese, mushroom risotto, pork milanese and trenette pasta with shrimp and smoked salmon in a spiced brandy cream sauce.
Carbone
Carbone is big, bold, loud and expensive, but the Dallas outpost of the New York original is also one of the more fun dining experiences in town — if you can get a reservation, that is. Inside the grandiose space, servers wear burgundy tuxedos and Caesar salads are mixed tableside in theatrical fashion. The Instagram-famous spicy rigatoni vodka lives up to the hype, and other favorites include bone-in veal marsala, fall-apart meatballs, linguine vongole and Dover piccata. Book a table in advance, lest you’re forced to eat dinner at 5 p.m., then wear something nice, bring your best credit card and lean into the over-the-top experience.
Il Bracco
Sicilian crudo, housemade focaccia and pasta, eggplant parm, a cheeseburger… Il Bracco has a bit of everything, but the Italian bonafides are strong, as evident in the fresh cacio e pepe and flavorful bolognese. It’s also the only restaurant on this list that’s open for lunch and dinner seven days per week, so Il Bracco is always there for you. And, when it’s not brutally hot, the hedge-lined patio is a comfortable spot for al fresco dining.
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