Ciao Dallas

North Italia restaurant hails Dallas with handmade everything

The first North Italia in Dallas will open in Plano.

Courtesy photo

Italian food fans get another shot with North Italia, the Italian food concept from Fox Restaurant concepts, which is scheduled to open on June 27 in Plano.

Texas currently has two branches of North Italia in Austin and Houston but this is the first branch in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. It'll be located at Legacy West, along with its corporate sibling, True Food Kitchen.

Italian food has never been a strong suit for Dallas, but in the past year or two, we're seeing newcomers such as Americano at the Joule Dallas hotel, Dolce Riviera in the Harwood District, fast-casual Italian sandwich chain Piada Italian Street Food, and Sprezza on Maple Avenue.

And there are more Italian restaurants on the horizon including Sassetta, the Tim Headington restaurant set to open in the Design District; and two chef-driven Italian concepts opening at Highland Park Village.

The menu at North Italia includes antipasti, pizza, pasta, and more. Everything is made fresh on the premises daily, including pasta and pizza dough. According to a release, the menu evolves to incorporate seasonal produce.

Signature dishes include The Pig Pizza with tomato sauce, spicy pepperoni, soppressata, and Italian sausage; prosciutto bruschetta with Crescenza cheese, grilled asparagus, and truffle; and burrata tortelloni with cherry tomato, basil, and Pecorino cheese.

The restaurant will occupy a roomy 6,500 square feet with an additional 1,500-square-foot patio. The interior will have an exhibition kitchen overlooking the dining room, bar, and seating for up to 270 guests.

Plano will be only the 11th branch. Other locations are in Arizona, California, Colorado, and Kansas. North Italia Plano marks the fourth Fox restaurant in the DFW area, along with True Food Kitchen and Flower Child, the massively popular healthy restaurant concept that recently opened at Inwood Village.

A second branch of North Italia is opening at the Union Dallas in Uptown in 2018, where it will be joined by yet-another Sam Fox concept, The Henry. If we like Sam Fox, he definitely likes us.

Fox Restaurant Concepts' founder Sam Fox is a James Beard nominee and is on the list of "the 50 most powerful people in food service" by Nation's Restaurant News.

Open seven days a week, North Italia will offer lunch and dinner every day, and brunch on the weekends along with happy hour Monday through Thursday from 3 – 6 p.m. North Italia will also offer half price bottles of wine all day on Sundays.

openings

Supermarket News

Cult grocer Trader Joe's plots 3 new locations for Dallas-Fort Worth

In massive supermarket news, Trader Joe's, the cult grocery chain from California, is expanding in North Texas with plans to open a trio of new locations across Dallas-Fort Worth. One alone would be cause for celebration, never mind three.

The potential new stores include two in Collin County and one in Fort Worth, as follows:

Plano, at 5900 Preston Rd.
Wylie, at 2710 E. FM 544 #110
North Fort Worth, at 9052 North City Dr., just south of North Tarrant Parkway

The chain has filed plans with the Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation to begin construction at these sites. That alone is not a confirmation, since companies sometimes file plans that do not come to fruition.

But Trader Joe's spokesperson Nakia Rohde has confirmed that the company plans to open three new stores in these cities, although no timeline has been defined. Because the stores are still to be built, the exact addresses could change, too.

Construction on all three stores is currently slated to be complete by June 2027. Plano and Fort Worth are set to break ground in December 2026, while the Wylie store will do so in March 2027. The three stores will average 12,500 square feet, according to the filings.

The Plano store will be advantageously located across from an H-E-B — the DFW area's second — which opened in 2022. Located at the corner of Spring Creek Parkway, this will be Plano's second Trader Joe's. The first opened back in September 2012 at 2400 Preston Rd., just two miles south at Park Boulevard.

The Wylie store will be a block west of Wylie High School and a Kroger Marketplace, and two miles east of a constellation of markets that includes an Aldi, Sprouts, Target, and a recently opened H-E-B store in Murphy.

The Fort Worth store will be across from Target and Costco, in an area loaded with restaurants, just west of a Portillo's, which opened in 2023. It will be the second Trader Joe's in Fort Worth; the first opened at 2701 Hulen St. in June 2012.

There are currently 26 locations of Trader Joe's in Texas — six in the Dallas area and the one in Fort Worth.

collin county openings supermarkets