A chef-driven restaurant in downtown Dallas is shifting gears: Sauvage, the fine-dining concept near the Statler Dallas hotel known for its multicourse tasting experience, is diving into a more fluid approach by taking on a new identity each month.

Their new model will begin in February with an embrace of Italian food. Each ensuing month will usher in a new theme, driven primarily by cuisine.

According to chef Casey La Rue, it's just a fine-tuning of the seasonal approach that the restaurant already takes.

"Sauvage has always shifted with the seasons — ingredients come and go, dishes evolve, small changes happen constantly," he says. "The rotating theme lets us explore a cuisine, a perspective, and a set of flavors more deeply, while still staying grounded in the local farmers, ranchers, and producers we work with every day."

Casey opened Sauvage with his wife, Amy La Rue, in September 2025 at 1914 Commerce St. as a tasting-menu-style restaurant with just 12 seats and two seatings per night. The restaurant is a collaboration, with Casey serving as chef and Amy, who is a pastry chef, doing desserts and breads; the couple also owns La Rue Doughnuts, the massively popular artisan shop at Trinity Groves.

Their unique approach included cooking everything on a wood fire, eschewing traditional methods such as a deep fryer. They'll still make the wood fire the centerpiece, but with an embrace of Italian food. That means pastas made in-house, plus meats and seafood with Italian ingredients and techniques.

The starting menu includes dishes like gatto di patate — smoked potato with a savory custard and caviar, or couscous rustico with Wagyu beef cheek.

"We'll be making couscous in-house — it's 'rustico' because it's handmade and the couscous pearls won't be uniform in size or shape," Casey says.

There'll be smoked Wagyu beef rib, crusted not in the usual salt and pepper but with olives instead, and served with lion's mane mushrooms; and carne cruda with venison and crispy sunchoke which he describes as "an Italian tartare."

Other courses include Gulf prawn sausage with Swiss chard, boar belly with parsnip puree, and opening dishes such as focaccia with Gulf snapper baccala spread.

Desserts include spumoni, an eye-catching ice cream confection that originated in Naples and is hugely popular in the Northeast, featuring three distinct layers of cherry, pistachio, and chocolate ice cream; white coffee tiramisu, a decidedly chef's take with a coffee-cocoa gel and hazelnut sabayon; and zeppole — ricotta doughnuts, summoning the restaurant's doughnut-shop sibling.

"Part of our motivation is that we didn't want to be doing the same thing over and over," he says. "When customers come in, they invariably ask when the next menu change will take place. Changing to a new theme or identity every month also gives our staff a chance to get creative."