Everyone is in love with Lucia, the darling of the Dallas dining scene. We sent our hard-to-impress dining critic, Teresa Gubbins, to the cozy spot run by Jennifer and David Uygur and she filed this report.
Dallas has a giant crush on Lucia. And why not? She is easy to love. This small, adventurous Italian restaurant has courage, a fierce independent streak, and some sultry handmade pasta, too.
Lucia is the offspring of Jennifer and David Uygur, who are fulfilling their dream of opening their own place. David built a dedicated following for his creative cooking at Lola, where his precisely rendered culinary experimentation made the restaurant’s limited-seating tasting room the top destination for foodies in the know. Jennifer is the slow-food enthusiast and former wine manager at the Dallas Central Market.
At Lucia, Uygur departs from New American cuisine, an act inspired by his wife’s love of Italian food. Her aunt was an opera singer, and a teenage Jennifer went to Verona to see her perform. That trip educated her palate. Uygur had his own Italian connection. Right after he got out of culinary school, he worked for Basil’s in Austin, where they make fresh pasta every day.
