TV chef Tiffany Derry nabbed another national accolade this week when Roots Southern Table in Farmers Branch was named on Southern Living’s list of “The South’s Best New Restaurants of 2023.”
Roots is the only restaurant in Dallas-Fort Worth on the list of 25 restaurants, at No. 21. And it’s just the second in Texas, behind No. 20 Birdie’s in Austin.
Sorry, not sorry, Houston!
Diners will have to travel to towns like Birmingham, Ala., Coral Gables, Fla., Savannah, Ga., and Louisville, Ky. to reach some of the top 10. Despite Southern Living’s designation that these restaurants are in “The South,” a steakhouse named Bardea in Delaware made the list, as did Palestinian deli Baba’s Pastry in Kansas City. The “new” requirement on the list seems a little loosey-goosey, too, as Roots has been serving gumbo and duck-fat fried chicken for more than two years.
All that aside, it’s a happy accolade — but not a surprise — to find Roots on a national restaurant list again. Esquire named it in a list of best new restaurants in 2021, as did The New York Times.
We spent an afternoon at Roots with Derry and her business partner Tom Foley last week, and the two are still hard at work keeping Roots spinning while Beaumont-raised Derry travels for TV gigs like Bobby’s Triple Threat on Food Network and MasterChef on Fox.
Foley and Derry plan to open an Italian restaurant named Radici — “roots” in Italian — a few doors down from Roots in Farmers Branch. After it opens in late 2023 or 2024, here’s hoping the national food writers stop into both, an expected one-two punch on the same block from one of Texas’ most beloved chefs.
Southern Living says of Roots: It’s “hard to leave but easy to return.”
Read the full list of 25 restaurants.
Roots Southern Table is at 13050 Bee St., Farmers Branch. Better make reservations; the restaurant is small and often full of regulars who know to plan ahead.