Great restaurants are often more than four walls and a menu. Via Triozzi, one of Dallas’ longest-awaited restaurants of 2023, has plenty of personality between those walls.
“I can tell a story about almost every single thing,” says chef-owner Leigh Hutchinson, walking past the pasta room that faces Greenville Avenue. In that special room, she placed photos of her Sicilian grandmother Nani Angie and her Grandpa Ward, of her parents on their wedding day, and of Italian chef Marcella Ansaldo, her mentor.
Via Triozzi was the name of the street in a small town near Florence where Hutchinson studied Italian history and art as a young adult. She grew up in Coppell and learned to love Italian food from her grandmother. Her dreams of opening a restaurant came true after she dedicated two years learning to cook in Italy, then led the arduous process of building and opening a restaurant in Dallas.
Via Triozzi debuted Aug. 16, 2023, on Lowest Greenville in Dallas. Reservations are available now.
The restaurant was designed to feel welcoming and familiar, even though it’s new. Diners can nosh on ricotta montata — that’s house-made ricotta with summer squash and pistachios — as if they were in Hutchinson’s grandmother’s home. And while Via Triozzi achieves a homey feel, it’s stylish, too, with an arched bar painted a deep sage green.
The bar was supposed to be painted yellow, surrounded by paintings, photos and mementos hung all around. But the yellow didn’t fit the room, so Hutchinson changed it. The look at the bar is nearly as important as “the wall” of stucco and brick across the room. It’s modeled after “the places in Florence I fell in love with,” she says.
Of course, the real draw to Via Triozzi will be the food, a mix of recipes from Nani Angie, chef Marcella and Hutchinson’s own adaptations.
She’s serving Italian food, her way, and that’s apparent in the arugula e bresaola, a light and refreshing salad with lemon vinaigrette and Parmigiano-Reggiano.
“This dish got me through the summers in Italy,” Hutchinson says. It might just work on a hot summer night in Dallas, too.
Everything on the menu is meant to be shared, and nearly all are backed with family history. Nani Angie’s chicken cacciatore is on the list because Hutchinson’s dad loves it, and she makes it for him on his birthday each year. Her cacciatore doesn’t have mushrooms or olives, as many recipes do, “because Grandma didn’t make it that way,” Hutchinson says.
Eggplant Parmesan makes the list because it’s Hutchinson’s mom’s favorite.
The most special addition to the menu — “my dish,” the chef-owner calls it — is the lasagna. Eventually, the restaurant will sell grab-and-go lasagna from cases near the front door.
Hutchinson hired a pasta maker, but she will be making some of the pasta herself.
“You’re not going to be able to keep me out of there,” she says with a sly smile.
The highest-dollar item on the menu — at market price — is bistecca alla Fiorentina, a dish Hutchinson always envisioned on her Italian restaurant menu.
It feels only right to experience Italy through Hutchinson’s eyes, so dinner ends with cannolo sbagliato. Cannoli filling, pistachios and chocolate are laced between pizzelle, an Italian waffle cookie that Nani Angie always had out on the counter.
“I love these things,” Hutchinson says, reaching in for a bite.
She smiles, savoring the memory it brings. “I could eat them for hours.”
Via Triozzi is at 1806 Greenville Ave., Dallas. Dinner only. Closed Tuesdays. A second-story terrazza will open eventually. Reservations on Resy.
