Across from Whole Foods in Highland Park, Nonna is a restaurant that doesn’t need to announce itself. It simply exists—calm, composed, and entirely confident. The space at 4115 Lomo Alto Drive is refined without being flashy, intimate without feeling precious. A few steps in, and it’s clear: this is a room built for serious food and those who appreciate it.
Owner and executive chef Julian Barsotti has made Nonna more than a restaurant. It’s a living dialogue between traditional Italian technique and Texas seasonality, a place where restraint is power and the ingredients are never treated like props. The kitchen doesn’t chase trends. It refines them out of existence.
Nonna’s kitchen is guided by clarity of purpose. Pastas are crafted in-house, shaped with region-specific intention, and plated with thoughtful simplicity. You may see cavateddhi—a southern Italian pasta similar to cavatelli, but smaller and harder to find outside Calabria. It’s the kind of thing a lesser kitchen might gussy up. Here, it’s treated like it matters.
The lobster ravioli is one of the few constants. Served in a shallow broth rather than draped in sauce, it presents with confidence—delicate pasta, briny-sweet lobster, and a light, aromatic broth that enhances without overwhelming. It’s a dish that understands elegance through subtraction.
Then there’s the white clam pizza. Fired in the wood oven, its crust is thin, blistered, just shy of charred. The clams are briny, the garlic assertive, and the whole thing sings with the kind of balance that only comes from repetition and refusal to cut corners. This pizza doesn’t try to impress. It simply performs.
The wood oven turns out other standouts—roasted meats with the right ratio of sear to succulence. Quail with crisped skin and subtle smoke. Gulf snapper roasted whole, its skin crackling, its flesh tender. Veal or lamb depending on the cut of the week, always respectful of fat, bone, and flame.
There is no static menu here, aside from those two anchors. Everything else shifts. Maybe it’s bucatini with swordfish and fennel one night, ricotta gnocchi with spring peas and mint the next. Vegetables change weekly, sometimes daily, dictated by the market and delivered with the same reverence as the proteins. One week may feature house made pork sausage and rapini over polenta; the next, a rustic stew with chickpeas, saffron, and dayboat scallops.
Desserts follow suit—precise, seasonal, rarely showy. A semifreddo might come flecked with candied citrus. An olive oil cake might land on the table still warm, surrounded by fruit compote and mascarpone.
The Room and Its Rhythm
The dining room is quiet in the best way. No clatter, no over lighting. It’s a space where tables are well-spaced, service is exact, and conversations are measured. The bar serves well-executed classics and wines that understand Italian structure and minerality. The staff operates without ego—just precision and pride.
Chef Barsotti’s vision permeates every detail. He’s built a small empire of Italian dining in Dallas, but Nonna remains the original, the understated flagship. There’s a deep seriousness to the work here, not in attitude but in execution. He knows when to edit, when to let a dish breathe, and when to step out of the way.
Nonna doesn’t need oversized portions, big personalities, or trends to define it. It’s a restaurant that’s never shouted for attention, and yet it remains at the center of the city’s best dining conversations. Here, food is handled with care, flavor is elevated through technique, and the guest is always treated like they’ve arrived somewhere that matters. Because they have.
