The pandemic took a toll on many Dallas and Fort Value eating places. Too many favorites closed ceaselessly. Too many employees had been laid off. And now that we’re dwelling within the new regular, too many locations are feeling the detrimental impression of provide chain points and labor shortages. Amid the chaos the hospitality business continues to face, Southern Italian-inspired Dolce Riveria within the Harwood District reopens this week after almost 800 days closed.

It’s appears like an unlikely story. The Harwood Hospitality Group made a strategic resolution to shut down all of their eating places through the mandated restaurant closures in 2020, and use the time to make adjustments. For Dolce Riveria, that meant a redsigned eating room, the addition of a wine tasting and cocktail room known as The Parlor, and a brand new menu beneath government chef Paul Latkowski.

“It’s a reopening but it surely has the power and the keenness with a model new opening,” Warren Richards, VP of Hospitality at Harwood Hospitality, tells Eater Dallas. He credit the power to Chef Latkowski, who labored with the group’s company government chef, Taylor Kearney, to think about a brand new menu centered on upscale coastal Italian fare.

“We’ve doubled down on our pasta program,” Richards says. “We’re going to have 9 several types of pasta made recent each day. There may be positively a seafood centric emphasis to the menu, however nonetheless numerous these acquainted classics that individuals get pleasure from.”

Part of why Dolce Riveria and its company dad and mom had been in a position to keep the restaurant beneath such a protracted closure is as a result of it owns, moderately than rents, the entire actual property during which it operates. That allowed them to decide on the right second to open to the general public as soon as once more. “Because the temperature rises, everyone seems to be is heading into summer time trip mode and that’s what Dolce Riviera is,” Richards says. “It’s such an attractive outside area and it did make sense on this late spring early summer time interval for folks to come back right here and really feel like they’re on trip.”

That point allowed Harwood to transform the patio as effectively, putting in lemon timber which have had the time to develop into the pergola above. “Personally, for myself, seeing eating places across the nation reopened with these lovely outside areas — I feel that’s one thing that every one of our company have been lacking,” Richards says.

He additionally revealed that the brand new patio consuming space incorporates a roof that may be opened up, when the climate permits, to provide patrons a view of the night sky.

A brand new addition to the area is a heat, intimate room known as The Parlor. Richards explains that the inspiration for the room was the custom in Southern Italy of going for a cocktail or an aperitivo within the time between work ending and earlier than dinner, to open the abdomen. However the room solely holds 15 to twenty patrons.

“The Parlor permits our company a possibility to go to this heat and comfy, intimate hideaway the place you will get that pre-dinner cocktail however then additionally double again after dinner, when the solar goes down,” Richards says.

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Kathy Tran

The Parlor will serve conventional Italian cocktails, in addition to picks from the brand new cocktail program, and a fastidiously curated wine choice that hits the upper finish and Champagnes. Some are uncommon wines with a really hefty price ticket, going as much as the a whole bunch of {dollars} per glass. It is usually out there for personal events.

Dolce Riveria is open now at 2950 N. Harwood Avenue. Reservations can be found from 5 to 10 p.m. on Sundays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays and from 5 p.m. to midnight on Fridays and Saturdays.