Hot Pizza News
New Italian restaurant brings New York style to Dallas' Cedars District
A new restaurant coming to Dallas' Cedars District aims to dish out great Italian food, including a legit New York-style thin-crust pizza. Called Southside Pizzeria, it's opening at 1210 S. Lamar St., in the thick of the entertainment strip that includes Alamo Drafthouse and Gilley's.
The restaurant will open in September on the ground floor of South Side Flats, a new-ish four-story mixed-use apartment building with residential units on the top three floors and retail on the ground floor that opened in 2016. Other shops include a nail salon and a barber, but so far, Southside is the only restaurant. The closest pizzeria in the area is Zalat, which operates a stand next to Mac's Southside, on the other side of the South Side on Lamar loft building.
Southside comes from Ilir Murati, who already owns a restaurant in Plano called Italian Bistro. Diners give it high marks for its Italian baked dishes, stuffed mushrooms, house-made bread, and ah-may-zing cannoli.
For Southside, Murati plans to go more casual and more urban.
"It'll be a pizzeria-slash-bar, with New York-style pizza being our primary focus, but with some of the popular entrees that we do at Italian Bistro," he says.
Murati knew he wanted to expand to Dallas, and searched around before he found this space. "We'll be there for the residents in the building, but with Gilley's right across the street, I feel like we can be there for people who are going to see a show and want to get pizza or a bite to eat," he says.
He keeps his prices reasonable to entice return visits. "In Plano, we have people who come two to three times a week, and we'd be happy if that happened in Dallas, too," he says.
