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Inside Isla & Co., the Australian restaurant in Oak Cliff replacing the original Lucia

Australian food is having a moment in Dallas. Let’s dig in.

Isla & Co., a bright, all-day cafe serving coffee, cocktails and food, has opened in Dallas’ Bishop Arts District in place of the beloved longtime Italian restaurant Lucia.

Lucia was famously small, but Isla’s owner has managed to make the space feel a little bit bigger, with white walls and leafy greenery hanging from up high. (Lucia is still in the neighborhood; it moved to a nearby Oak Cliff address with more room.)

The restaurant is pronounced "EYE-lah" and Co. It sells coffee and coffee cocktails like...
The restaurant is pronounced "EYE-lah" and Co. It sells coffee and coffee cocktails like this espresso martini.(Shafkat Anowar / Staff Photographer)

The restaurant is owned by Dave Orr, an Australian from a small town about three hours northeast of Melbourne. “This feels a lot like home,” he says of the Bishop Arts District. He notes that Texans, like Australians, are friendly, and that Oak Cliff seems to have a vibrant food scene.

Isla’s Australian fare is something we have not seen much of in Dallas-Fort Worth. Orr describes it as “European cuisine with Southeast Asian profiles.”

“Australia is a lot like America,” he says. “There have been a lot of waves of immigration,” and the menu reflects that.

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Executive chef Matt Foley — who is notably not Australian; he’s from Los Angeles and lives in New York — has created a menu blessed by the Aussies. The best dish we tried in a pre-opening sneak peek was braised lamb shoulder ($28) atop a smear of labneh with smashed fingerling potatoes. A dollop of spicy cilantro sauce called zhoug and some salty Swiss chard made the dish almost too delicious to share.

Lamb is commonly served in Australia, Orr says, and the Mediterranean and Middle Eastern flavors turn this entree into a fancier version of what he would eat at home.

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The braised lamb shoulder at Isla & Co. has layers: creamy labneh underneath, spicy zhoug on...
The braised lamb shoulder at Isla & Co. has layers: creamy labneh underneath, spicy zhoug on top and salty Swiss chard on the side.(Shafkat Anowar / Staff Photographer)

Other menu items include burrata with delicata squash ($17); a generous serving of crispy halloumi atop a spicy, sweet almond romesco ($18); charred octopus with cannellini beans and nduja ($21); and fish and chips ($26).

“Gotta have fish and chips,” Orr says. Isla’s version comes with yuzu kosho tartar sauce, a way to elevate it and offer an Asian spin.

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He also recommends Isla’s sausage roll ($16), which is made with ground pork rolled inside phyllo dough and served with sweet chile sauce. It’s very Aussie, he says: It’s like their version of a hot dog.

A lot of restaurants sell vodka rigatoni. Isla & Co.'s has shrimp in it.
A lot of restaurants sell vodka rigatoni. Isla & Co.'s has shrimp in it.(Shafkat Anowar / Staff Photographer)

Another satisfying bite we had was spicy shrimp rigatoni vodka ($23). The restaurant takes the classic Italian American dish — which we’re seeing all over Dallas, including at new restaurant Carbone — and adds seafood. Shrimp made the dish more interesting.

Orr got involved with New York-based Parched Hospitality Group as an investor, when he was working separately in corporate finance. “We thought, ‘We could really grow this,’” he says, and he joined the company full time. Parched now operates 10 restaurants, with 15 expected to be open by spring 2023.

Isla & Co. is the group’s first Texas restaurant, and Dallas is where Orr has chosen to live permanently with his wife and son. The company is opening restaurants in Florida and Georgia as well, and they expect to find other leases in the Dallas area soon.

The Isla & Co. in Dallas is the fourth one in the United States. The others are in Brooklyn, N.Y., Midtown Manhattan and Fairfield, Conn.

Coffee, cocktails — and brunch every day

Playing to Australia’s strong coffee culture, Isla & Co. will open at 9 a.m. It will serve Dallasites’ favorite meal of the day — brunch — but will do it every day.

The East Side Spritz at Isla & Co. in Oak Cliff is made with gin, aloe vera liqueur,...
The East Side Spritz at Isla & Co. in Oak Cliff is made with gin, aloe vera liqueur, cucumber, mint and lime. It's "kind of like spa water, but with booze," beverage director Jeremy Ortiz says.(Shafkat Anowar / Staff Photographer)

Brunch is kind of Parched Hospitality’s thing; sibling restaurant Hole in the Wall has been called one of the best brunch spots in New York City.

In Australia, Orr says, most people go to the same coffee shop every morning. It’s a ritual, not only for the caffeine perk but also to see the same folks each day. “It’s like you’re going to a pub, but in the morning,” he says.

Isla & Co. is designed to be a stay-awhile kind of place as customers sip flat whites and eat “brekkie,” the shortened Australian word for breakfast. Breakfast and brunch items include Benedict with lox ($24) or avocado ($21); soft-scrambled eggs with spicy sambal sauce ($18); mushroom toast with Parmesan cheese ($19); a cheeseburger ($18); and a quinoa grain bowl with Brussels sprouts and squash ($20).

The cocktails, made by beverage director Jeremy Ortiz, feel right at home in Texas. The East Side Spritz, kind of “like a spa water, but with booze,” Ortiz says, is a cucumber-mint-gin number that would be easy to finish in minutes on a patio. The espresso martini plays up the coffee flavor, which the Aussies love. And the Smoke Show, a mezcal-based passion fruit cocktail, has habanero bitters for a spicy kick.

The menus will change with the seasons. Eventually, most of the New York crew will go back home, but Orr will stay. His 2-year-old son already has a Texas accent, anyhow.

“This is a welcoming place, and I feel it’s very similar to home,” he says.

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Isla & Co. opened Oct. 20, 2022 at 408 W. Eighth St., Dallas. Open all day, starting at 9 a.m. Closed Tuesdays for now.

For more food news, follow Sarah Blaskovich on Twitter at @sblaskovich.

It's goodbye to the original location of Lucia — which moved to a new address in Oak Cliff....
It's goodbye to the original location of Lucia — which moved to a new address in Oak Cliff. It's hello to Australian restaurant and coffee shop Isla & Co.(Shafkat Anowar / Staff Photographer)