In October 2019, a tornado tore through Preston Hollow and destroyed Pizza by Marco — the pizzeria that Joe Nuccio had started in 1949 on Carroll Avenue and eventually moved to Preston Royal Village in 1962, where it became a North Dallas institution over the next six decades. A few months before the tornado, Frankie Nuccio had lost his mother. His father had passed years earlier. Then the pandemic arrived. Nuccio walked away.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
Dallas is not a pizza city the way New Haven or New York is a pizza city, but it has become something more interesting: a city where nearly every serious style of the form is being made at a high level, by kitchens that mean it. Neapolitan, New Haven, New York, Roman, Detroit, Neo-Neapolitan — they’re all here, they’re all good, and the range is wide enough that the argument about which is best usually comes down to which style you were raised on.
What follows is our working list of the pizzerias worth knowing, organized by style and neighborhood. No Cane Rosso. No chains. Just pizza.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
The Campisi family has been feeding Dallas since Carlo and Antonia arrived from Sicily and tossed the city’s first pizza dough at a bar called the Idle Hour on the corner of Knox and McKinney in 1946. They moved to Mockingbird Lane four years later, took over a space that had been the Egyptian Lounge, and couldn’t afford to replace the neon sign — so they just removed the word “Lounge” and added “Restaurant.” That sign has been glowing on Mockingbird ever since, and the restaurant behind it has outlasted everything around it for nearly 80 years.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
Florida has been quietly building something worth paying attention to. Oak & Stone started in St. Petersburg in 2018, spent eight locations proving its concept worked, and then decided Texas was the next move. McKinney got the first one. It opens May 19 at 8575 W. University Drive in the West Grove development, and if you have been waiting for something genuinely different in North Texas, this is worth the drive up.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
Khanh Nguyen was eight years old when his family fled Vietnam in 1975. His father was a general in the South Vietnamese army and the governor of a mountain province called DaLat — and when the country fell, a communist assassin was sent to kill them. The family’s escape plan collapsed at the last minute. What saved them was a bowl of pho. The cook at a roadside restaurant outside the city recognized Nguyen’s father, fed the family, hid them, and helped them find another way out. They made it through the Philippines and Guam before landing in Texas. Khanh grew up here, went to UT law school, became a corporate attorney, then a software startup CEO, then looked around at forty-something and decided he wanted to make pizza.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
There is a pizzeria in Richardson that most people drive right past. No sign on the building, no marquee, no indication from the street that anything remarkable is happening inside. Just a small space at 514 Lockwood Drive, next door to Lockwood Distilling, where Maen Azzam and Sonia Khan are making some of the most serious Neapolitan pizza in North Texas.
The place is called Farina in Grani. It opened in November 2024 and came out of the pandemic the way a lot of the best food businesses do — from boredom and obsession. Khan started baking during lockdown, moved on to pizza, made it for family and friends, then catered events with a portable oven, then decided to do it for real. The name means “flour in grains” and refers to the whole-grain wheat flour they use in the dough — germ, bran, and endosperm together — which gives the crust its signature golden color and a depth of flavor you don’t get from refined flour.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
Louie’s on Henderson Avenue has been a staple of East Dallas since 1987, founded by Louis “Louie” Canelakes, whose presence defined the restaurant for decades. Louie passed away in 2013, but his influence remains in every detail—from the exposed brick and pressed tin ceilings to the vintage bar stools and the welcoming, unpretentious atmosphere that he built. Televisions broadcast sports, bartenders greet regulars like family, and the hum of conversation fills the room. Louie’s thrives on consistency and character, not gimmicks.
Continue readingFiled under Steven Doyle
Oak & Stone is headed to Addison in summer 2026, bringing its high-energy dining room and signature self-pour tap wall to 5225 Belt Line Road #220. The Florida-born concept, part of Artistry Restaurants, marks its second North Texas outpost following its McKinney debut this spring.
Continue readingFiled under Crave
