Via Triozzi Is a Family Restaurant With a Story to Tell

It took seventeen years, but Leigh Hutchinson finally achieved her dream of opening an Italian restaurant in Dallas. Via Triozzi, which is open now on Lower Greenville, is the culmination of growing up in an Italian family, living in Italy, and Hutchinson’s aspiration to own a family business. Her brother works there, her mom is seemingly always there, and the walls are covered with photos of her family, including her Sicilian grandmother Angelina. The menu holds dishes Nani Angie frequently made for them.

What Hutchinson wants her guests to feel is what she feels there: at home. “I don’t want anything here to be formal,” she says, “I want everyone to feel like they’re at home and part of the family. Eat with your hands, I’m not going to judge you.”

Ahead, Hutchinson walks us through five dishes from the menu.

Cocoli

“Depending on which region you go to in Italy, this dish can be called different things. In Tuscany, specifically Florence, where I lived, they call it cocoli. It’s a way to reduce waste, in this case, pizza dough. They would pinch it off and throw it. It was never shaped into anything fancy. It’s a rustic, homey, comforting piece of warm bread served with nice cheese and prosciutto, and you fold it into a little sandwich.

“I serve it in a ball shape because that was how I saw it done in Florence. You just tear it apart. The outside is crunchy and dusted with coarse salt as it comes out of the frier. Typically it’s served with stracchino, which a lot of people refer to as Italy’s cream cheese, and it’s something I fell in love with. I missed it so much when I moved back home to Dallas, because no one had it. A lot of times you couldn’t import it because it’s unpasteurized. I immediately knew we had to have it on the menu.”

Mozzarella del Giorno

“The mozzarella came as a way to utilize the pasta room in the front of the restaurant where we crank out the noodles all day. We thought, ‘What’s more Italian than mozzarella?’ We hand-pull it in-house, and we’ll have seasonal vegetable garnishes to educate our customers about.

“It comes with two bread options. One is carta di musica, in Italian that would translate to music paper, which is a Sardinian cracker. I have a deep background in music and choral singing. The cracker is thin, fragile, and delicate. We also have pane bianco, our house bread, which is my grandmother’s recipe.”

Tagliatelle

“We make all of our pasta in-house. We mix, sheet, and cut the dough in our pasta room — egg dough. Fresh noodles make such a big difference. A lot of people think pasta is just pasta, but it isn’t. I’ve seen it many times, and it brings me such joy when people have fresh noodles for the first time. Their eyes get so big.

“This dish was served with bolognese, one of the classics that’s Italian through and through. Our bolognese stems from the traditional, but this is our adaptation of it. If you’ve ever had it in Italy and it took you back, made you say, ‘Oh my god, this is the best meat sauce I’ve ever had,’ that’s what you’re going to experience. I love bolognese with a long noodle, and these hug the sauce. It nests well with the sauce, all you have to do is twirl it to get the perfect combination.”

Bistecca alla Fiorentina

“In Tuscany, there is a special cow that is protected by the government. It is born and raised only there, the Chianina cow. It’s pure white, and it’s one of the biggest cow breeds in the world. They are fed grass and nuts — only produce that grows in Tuscany. This cow is highly revered. Bistecca alla Fiorentina can only be called that if it is made from a Chianina. We found a farmer in Texas who secured embryos from Tuscany, and just two years ago, he got them okayed to bring over and breed here by the U.S. government. They might not be fed from the Tuscan soil but they are true Chianina.

“This steak, which is our only porterhouse, is meant to share. It’s a 32 to 36-ounce cut, prepared the traditional way, with olive oil, salt, and pepper. Pair it with a glass of red wine. And it is only available when we have it in stock. It’s not a mass produced meat. There are other options for steak if you want one to yourself. But we wanted as many things as possible on our menu to be sharable.”

Cannolo Sbagliato

“Who doesn’t love a cannoli, right? It’s iconically Italian, but the shells are hard to nail down. We wanted to make them in-house but when we tried the flavor was great but you have to be so quick on the draw to get the fresh shells right. In my family, there was always a wafer cookie called a pizzelle, which is more of a Southern Italian things, in tins and old sewing boxes at everyone’s home. So months ago in the test kitchen, I decided to test putting cannoli filling with the pizzelle to make a deconstructed cannoli. The idea came from my background, not loving store-bought cannoli shells, and from wanting to make things a little easier on the kitchen.”

Via Triozzi is now open at 1806 Greenville Ave. Make reservations on Resy.