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Chef Tiffany Derry, who co-founded the lauded Roots Southern Table in Farmers Branch and has appeared on food-TV show Top Chef, is opening a new restaurant in the Dallas area.
Italian restaurant Radici will be a few doors down from Derry’s comfort-food spot near the intersection of 635 and Interstate 35 in Farmers Branch. Radici is expected to open in late 2023 or early 2024.
Radici means “roots” in Italian, and the restaurant was inspired, in part, by Derry’s business partner, Tom Foley. Whereas Roots Southern Table is a chef’s version of Derry’s Southern upbringing, Radici honors Foley’s Italian heritage.
But Derry feels a deep connection to that cuisine, too.
“Italian was one of the first things I truly learned to love, outside of Southern food,” she says. Derry worked in Italian restaurants in Houston and Dallas in previous jobs.
Radici has soaring ceilings and room for about 75 diners inside. A six-seat chef’s table will look at the woodfire grill, which is Derry’s favorite part of the restaurant. The space is a shell, for now, but it’s easy to envision what it could look like, with Derry as a tour guide.
“Right here is the woodfire grill,” Derry says, arms wide, as she stands in a corner of the empty space. “The whole idea is that the kitchen becomes the centerpiece. Because it’s large, because it’s open, this will be our showpiece.”
And all eyes will be on Derry. She’s used to it: She’s the most prolific TV chef in Dallas, with film shoots every few weeks or months for MasterChef, Top Chef, The Great American Recipe, Bobby’s Triple Threat and more. It seems like she runs a sizable operation, as the co-owner of Roots Chicken Shak (in Plano, Austin and, soon, DeSoto) and Roots Southern Table, plus her TV work. But Derry keeps it real.
“It’s just Tom and I,” she says of their company, T2D Concepts. Their work “marriage” is interesting to observe: Derry is the frontwoman and the chef-creative; Foley is the businessman and attorney-turned-restaurateur. Funny enough, Foley is not a foodie.
“I didn’t believe that you could taste ‘the love’ in the food,” he says. “But I do now.” That changed after he met Derry. It became more apparent after he traveled to Italy with Derry, researching for Radici.
Radici’s menu is still in flux, but Derry wants to make house-made focaccia, vongole-style clams and white lasagna with bechamel and white bolognese. All of those are modeled after memorable meals they ate in Italy. Derry tested some of the recipes on Roots regulars during an Italian-themed chef’s dinner in May 2023.
She calls Radici “not a special occasion place” and says it will have a small, simple menu focused on good ingredients.
Derry says it’s time grow their hospitality company into other cuisines, not just Southern.
“Italian and Southern may look different from the outside, but if you look at the connection of the people, it’s the same,” Foley says.
Radici is expected to open at 12990 Bee St., Farmers Branch, in late 2023 or early 2024.
For more food news, follow Sarah Blaskovich on Twitter at @sblaskovich.
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