First Look: Radici, Tiffany Derry's New Italian Restaurant

Tiffany Derry opened up Roots Southern Table in Farmers Branch in 2021, and accolades followed, including two James Beard nominations the following year for both Best Chef in Texas and Best New Restaurant. Not content to sit on their laurels, co-owners Derry and Tom Foley decided to branch out a bit (albeit in the same shopping center in Farmers Branch) with Radici Wood Fired Grill, an Italian restaurant that offers traditional dishes with a modern twist using locally sourced and seasonal ingredients, all enhanced by open wood-fired cooking.

While Roots Southern Table pays homage to Derry’s upbringing and culinary influences in the South, Radici draws inspiration from Foley’s familial heritage and Derry’s early work in Italian restaurants as well as their travels throughout the many regions of Italy. Radici, in a display of clever and consistent nomenclature, means roots in Italian, so it's a fitting name for their newest effort to bring comfortable fine dining with a twist to North Texas.
The space, just a few doors down from Roots, enjoys the same warm and inviting light and décor as the first restaurant, with neutral colors and high ceilings in a not-too-crowded dining area with a clear view of the kitchen and pass. On this night, Derry was front and center there, seemingly overseeing each dish before it made its way to the tables.

We started with a couple of cocktails, deciding upon a negroni (when in Rome… ) and a classic martini. The negroni was $16 and didn’t quite half fill an old-fashioned glass, prepared with Campari and Engine gin along with a splash of Dolin Rouge vermouth, and garnished with a lemon peel and large ice cube. The martini was correctly prepared with gin (Malfi) and Cocci extra dry vermouth. Perfectly chilled and mixed with a lemon peel, but the best part: it came with a sidecar of extra gin with which to replenish the drink, which helped a bit to take the sting out of the $20 price.

The waitstaff were helpful and efficient, never letting our water glasses remain empty or used plates accumulate. They suggested we go with two starters (antipasti), a couple of pasta dishes (primi), a side or two, and one shared main (secondi), and so we did.

Our starters were a rosemary and garlic confit focaccia and suppli al telefono, and both arrived quickly. The focaccia showed off the wood-fired grill, full of both crunchy and chewy texture with a smoky flavor enhanced by the rosemary. It was topped with what seemed like a full head of creamy garlic cloves and served with a little side of olive oil and balsamic vinegar. It was just enough for two.

The suppli were five risotto croquettes on a pesto and olive oil bed, topped with smoked mozzarella. Fried just right with sausage, chicken liver and pomodoro mingled with the risotto. They were good, but the liver and sausage mélange was definitely front and center.

Our pasta selections were the lasagna blanca and the coniglio alla gricia. The lasagna was prepared with sage, spinach pasta, parmesan and nutmeg with a white Bolognese sauce. Definitely not of the style prepared by nonna on special occasions for family dinners, but an interesting and successful twist on this classic nonetheless.

The second pasta dish had braised rabbit as the protein and casarecce pasta prepared in the gricia manner with guanciale, pecorino Roman, greens and black pepper. It was extremely good and full of complex flavor, in a good way.

During the service Derry would occasionally leave the kitchen and stop by various tables, talking to diners in a friendly manner, smiling and laughing and answering questions while taking well-deserved kudos before eventually making her way back. Foley could be seen checking on this and that also. It was a very relaxed atmosphere that was surprising considering they’d been open for less than a week.

We ordered a bowl of Tuscan white beans as our side dish, and it was more of a soup. A wonderful soup of flavors that was basically Tuscany in a bowl and almost perfectly matched the great northern bean soup I had often as a child.

Our shared main was the braciole di maiale alla brace. I had imagined braciole as served by my Italian grandmother and popularized by The Bear television show on FX, but actually it was a pork chop. Full of misplaced righteous indignation, we searched Google, and learned something new: braciole di maiala is really and truly a pork chop, it is not the rolled stuffed beef dish we had expected. This is the real deal as opposed to our (and The Bear’s) rolled and stuffed beef or veal Americanized version. We calmed down and dug in.

This was a Kurobuta pork chop, a large one at that, grilled to perfection on that wood grill with a wonderful outer bark and tender and deeply flavorful interior, sliced into several servings, along with grilled radicchio and whole borettane onions liberally seasoned with rich balsamic vinegar. It was one of the highlights of the year, so much so that we gnawed at the succulently moist meat that clung tantalizingly to the one bone that remained for garnish. We’re not proud.
Our arms were twisted to order dessert, and we went with the pistachio olive oil cake, moist and not overly olive-oily and topped with crème fraiche, roasted pistachio pieces and several slices of blood orange marmalade. A fitting end to a pretty good birthday meal, but you shouldn’t wait for a special occasion like that to try this place out.