Celebrity chef Tiffany Derry poses at the counter of her new Italian restaurant, Radici, on Thursday, May 9, 2024, in Farmers Branch.From a distance, Tiffany Derry’s new Italian restaurant Radici might seem like a departure for the North Texas chef who’s built her career on the tenets of Southern cooking, earning accolades for her duck-fat fried chicken and gumbo.
Accompanying the chicken is a take on a warm bread salad made with toasted focaccia, sultanas, arugula, herbs and a bit of lemon and olive oil.All of the pastas at Radici are made in-house. Amatriciana, a guanciale and chili-laden sauce from Italy’s Lazio region, was a must-have on the menu for Derry, who pairs it with rigatoni. So, too, was the lasagna blanca, which is inspired by her time in Emilia-Romagna.
“We have a lot more of what people consider traditional Italian,” Derry said. Although, she added, she couldn’t skip the opportunity to put chicken parmesan on the menu. Along with running her restaurants, Derry juggles a stunning number of projects including appearing regularly on cooking shows; partnering with American Airlines on their Flagship Lounges menus; and working as an ambassador for diabetes organization Novo Nordisk.