From a distance, Tiffany Derry’s new Italian restaurant Radici might seem like a departure for the North Texas chef who’s built her career on the tenets of Southern cooking, earning accolades for her duck-fat fried chicken and gumbo.
But this new chapter for Derry, one of bolognese and branzino, is a return to her professional roots as a fresh-out–of-culinary-school cook rolling pasta dough in the kitchens of Houston restaurants like Pesce and Grotto.
“I love Italian food,” Derry said, standing in her week-old restaurant as sous chefs buzzed around her to prep for the night ahead. “I’ve been cooking it for 26 years. It’s probably the thing I make for myself the most at home.”
Radici, which Derry and her business partner Tom Foley opened May 1, 2024 in Farmers Branch next to their James Beard-recognized restaurant Roots Southern Table, takes its cues from Derry’s experience in Italian cuisine as well as Foley’s Italian heritage. It also subtly pulls from Derry’s background as a kid raised in a barbecue family in Beaumont.
She longed for the smoke and char of the barbecue of her childhood, so the Top Chef and MasterChef regular designed Radici to be centered around open-flame cooking — a distinguishing element amongst the many Italian restaurants across North Texas.
Nearly everything that requires heat on Radici’s menu is put on a leviathan, three-tiered wood-burning grill fueled by knotty Texas post oak.
“There is no substitution for that flavor,” Derry said.
Derry’s favorite bite on Radici’s menu is the focaccia studded with garlic confit and rosemary. It’s set over the flames to be blanketed in smoke and gently charred before being served. The menu will change seasonally, but the focaccia will stay put, she said.
The Pollo alla Griglia — the current favorite amongst the kitchen staff — is also infused with flavor from the post oak smoke. Vegetarian-fed chicken is grilled bone-in and served with a jus made from chicken backs and feet that are cooked down for 36 hours into a glossy reduction.
“We let the chicken do what the chicken’s gonna do,” said Ivana Robinson, one of Derry’s sous chefs. Simplicity, she said, is key.
Accompanying the chicken is a take on a warm bread salad made with toasted focaccia, sultanas, arugula, herbs and a bit of lemon and olive oil.
All of the pastas at Radici are made in-house. Amatriciana, a guanciale and chili-laden sauce from Italy’s Lazio region, was a must-have on the menu for Derry, who pairs it with rigatoni. So, too, was the lasagna blanca, which is inspired by her time in Emilia-Romagna. The northern Italian preparation of lasagna layers sheets of spinach pasta with ragu and béchamel. Derry’s version uses a white bolognese and adds in sage and nutmeg.
Radici’s menu pulls from a number of regions across Italy with a 14-ounce ribeye prepared in the style of bistecca alla Fiorentina, Roman supplì al telefono made with sausage and chicken livers, and Neapolitan mozzarella in carrozza made with ‘nduja.
“We have a lot more of what people consider traditional Italian,” Derry said. Although, she added, she couldn’t skip the opportunity to put chicken parmesan on the menu.
One dish on the antipasti list was a late addition after Derry tried a rosé vinegar and decided she had to incorporate it. The result was the Prosciutto e Melone made with Texas cantaloupe, culatello (an Italian cured ham similar to prosciutto but made from a different cut and aged differently), lightly candied hazelnuts, figs and basil. The dish is dressed simply with olive oil and the lightly sweet rosè vinegar.
“Use the best that you can and do very little to it,” is Derry’s guiding philosophy, she said.
Along with running her restaurants, Derry juggles a stunning number of projects including appearing regularly on cooking shows; partnering with American Airlines on their Flagship Lounges menus; and working as an ambassador for healthcare company Novo Nordisk.
She manages it all with the help of her business partner, two assistants, and parents who drove into town for Radici’s opening just to make sure she was fed and her chef’s whites were ironed. It’s chaos, she said, but she loves it.
“I’ve already had six meetings today,” she said just shy of 4 p.m. “I do better when I’m in the eye of the storm.”
To add to the chaos, she and Foley are opening a second location of Radici at Grand Prairie’s EpicCentral sometime in the fall or winter of 2024.
The Grand Prairie restaurant is a doubling down for Derry on her commitment to the suburbs. As a Carrollton resident, she never had any interest in opening Roots Southern Table or Radici in Dallas, she said. She wanted to give the suburbs places to go for a laidback weeknight meal or a celebratory weekend dinner without having to make the drive to Dallas.
Pivoting from Southern cuisine to Italian, like setting up shop in the suburbs instead of the city, is how Derry keeps herself and her diners on their toes.
“People don’t know what to expect,” she said, “and that works well for us.”
Radici opened May 1, 2024 at 12990 Bee St., Farmers Branch. It is open Tuesday through Sunday from 5 p.m. to 10 p.m. The Grand Prairie location will open at Epic Central in late 2024. radiciwoodfiredgrill.com.
