There’s a reason you keep hearing about Il Bracco. There are restaurants you visit once and forget. Then there are restaurants that quietly become part of your rotation – places you find yourself recommending before anyone even finishes asking for a suggestion. Il Bracco, tucked into The Plaza at Preston Center in Dallas’s Park Cities neighborhood, is the latter. And if you’ve been paying any attention to the Dallas dining conversation over the last few years, you already know the name.
I’ve eaten my way through a good portion of this menu. More than once. That’s not a confession – it’s a recommendation.
Il Bracco describes itself as a fresh take on Italian classics, and that framing is accurate but almost undersells it. What they’ve built is a menu that feels both familiar and considered — the kind of food that doesn’t need to announce itself because the quality does the talking. Everything is made with intention. The pastas are housemade daily. The fish is butchered in-house. And perhaps most importantly, the bread — all of it — is made right there in their kitchen, every single day. That last detail matters more than people give it credit for.
Start with the bread. No, really. Before we get into the heavy hitters, we need to talk about the focaccia. The housemade focaccia with whipped ricotta, roasted garlic, and thyme is one of those dishes that sounds simple on paper and then quietly steals the show at the table. The bread has almost a lacquered finish offering a slight resistance on the outside with a pull that lets you know it was made that morning, not shipped in. The whipped ricotta is light and creamy, the roasted garlic subtle and sweet. It’s the kind of the bite that if you have more than two people, I’d recommend a second order.
The fact that Il Bracco makes all of their bread in-house is a detail that reveals everything about their philosophy. It’s the kind of commitment that most restaurants quietly abandon in the name of efficiency. Here, it’s non-negotiable — and you taste it in everything from the focaccia to their sandwiches. We will talk about the sandwiches shortly.
The Steak Tartare is something I’m left dreaming of until my next visit. The dish — USDA Prime filet, olives, capers, Dijon, Reggiano, served with housemade potato chips — is one of the best versions of this dish in Dallas. The balance is precise. Nothing overwhelms. The chips offer the textural choice that something like a soft bread wouldn’t offer. If you’re the kind of person who orders tartare everywhere you go as a personal litmus test, add Il Bracco to the list and set the bar accordingly.
You could order something else, but you’d be a fool for skipping the pasta section. I’ll be direct: order the Spicy Gemelli. The housemade gemelli in a spicy vodka sauce with basil and Reggiano has become one of those dishes that regulars quietly consider their own personal discovery, even though half the dining room ordered it too. The sauce has depth, the pasta has bite, and the heat is real without being aggressive. It earns its reputation.
The Bolognese is equally serious. Mafaldine – a wide, ruffled pasta that grabs sauce like it was designed to – tossed in a housemade beef, lamb, and pork ragu with Reggiano. This is a slow-cooked, properly built Bolognese. Not a shortcut version dressed up with good marketing. You can taste the time it took.
The sandwich program is a legitimate reason to come back for lunch. This is where Il Bracco surprises people who’ve only visited for dinner. The lunch menu features sandwiches that deserve serious attention, and they’re built on that same housemade bread that anchors everything else on the menu.
The Combo – thinly sliced Italian meats, fresh mozzarella, LTO, cherry pepper spread, oil and vinegar – is the kind of sandwich that makes you wonder why anyone would ever order anything else. Every component is doing its job. The cherry pepper spread has the right amount of heat and brightness. The meat selection is generous. The bread holds everything together without getting in the way.
The burger is a dark horse. House ground chuck, aged provolone, Calabrian chilies, arugula, fennel, and red onion. The Calabrian chilies add a slow heat that builds in the best way. The fennel and arugula keep it from feeling heavy. It’s a well-engineered burger, and on housemade bread, it’s borderline unfair to every other burger in the neighborhood.
And if you’re visiting on a Sunday or Monday, the Chicken Parm sandwich is worth planning your week around. Crispy chicken, house tomato gravy (or sauce for those us without Italian grandmothers), melted mozzarella – at lunch it comes with a wild arugula salad, at dinner it arrives over bucatini. The chicken is properly crispy, the gravy is housemade and rich, and the whole thing is the kind of comfort food that still manages to feel elevated.
The Burrata Salad – fresh burrata with dressed market produce – rotates with the season, which means it’s always worth asking what’s on it that day. What stays consistent is the quality of the burrata itself, which is the whole point. It’s creamy, properly salted, and paired with whatever produce is at its best. Simple, but that’s what makes it work.
And for the traveling players here, Il Bracco recently opened a location in Scottsdale, which means if your golf calendar takes you to Arizona – and for a lot of serious players, it does – you now have a legitimate reason to add a dinner reservation to the itinerary. Same menu. Same housemade bread, pasta, and philosophy. Same quality you’d expect from a group that’s built something worth replicating.
The Park Cities location sits at 8416 Preston Center Plaza and is open seven days a week for lunch and dinner. Business casual is the suggested attire, and the patio, when the Dallas weather cooperates, is one of the better places to sit in that part of the city.
Make a reservation. Order the focaccia the moment you sit down. Let the pasta do the rest.