Chef Amy DiBiase is putting her own name on the door. Amy D’s Italian is set to open next spring at 7511 Main St. in downtown Frisco, inside The Patios at the Rail, and it will be the first restaurant from the new Nack Hospitality.
The food starts with her grandmother. DiBiase grew up in Maine cooking beside her Italian grandmother and working in her family’s restaurants, then earned her degrees at Johnson & Wales. Most of her career was spent in San Diego, where she ran the kitchens at Tidal at Paradise Point and at the InterContinental. Frisco diners know her more recently from Elaine’s Cocktail Kitchen, also in the Rail District, where she was executive chef.
“Some of my favorite memories are of making pasta with my grandmother, and that’s the feeling I want every guest to have at Amy D’s,” DiBiase said. “I look forward to bringing that to Frisco, with the best ingredients from Texas and Italy.”
Pasta is the center of the place. A glassed-in pasta room will let diners watch the dough get rolled and cut, and the menu moves from antipasti and housemade focaccia to handmade pastas, wood-grilled meats and fish, and seasonal sides meant for the middle of the table. The bar leans Italian, with Italian wines, spritzes and classic cocktails, plus housemade shrubs, Italian sodas and spritzes without alcohol.
The restaurant takes two floors and about 4,700 square feet. Downstairs is the main dining room, in walnut, pale stone and aged brass, built around the bar and the pasta kitchen. Upstairs is darker, in olive, bronze and deep red, with an enclosed rooftop room whose glass panels slide open in good weather and a 20-seat private dining room.
That second floor is the Aperitivo Lounge. Aperitivo hour runs Tuesday through Saturday from 4 to 7 p.m. On Friday and Saturday nights a late service called Dopo Notte keeps the lounge open from 10 p.m. to 1 a.m. with cocktails, wine and small Italian plates.
DiBiase’s partner is Donny Churchman, founder and CEO of Nack Companies and the developer behind The Patios at the Rail. She will run culinary direction and operations for Nack Hospitality, and Amy D’s is the first of several concepts the group has planned.
The timing lines up with downtown Frisco’s big moment. In October the city finished its $83 million Rail District rebuild, which reconstructed Main and Elm streets, added a five-story parking garage and opened the new 4th Street Plaza.
Amy D’s will open serving dinner Tuesday through Saturday from 4 to 10 p.m. A Sunday Italian lunch comes later, a multi-course, family-style meal modeled on the Sundays DiBiase spent at her grandmother’s table. The restaurant hasn’t announced an opening date yet. Updates will be posted at amydsitalian.com and on Instagram at @amydsitalian.
