If you drove Northwest Highway between Marsh Lane and Lemmon Avenue in 2024, you passed a shuttered Italian restaurant on one side of the road and a lake trail with a construction diversion on the other. Two years later, the restaurant is open again under a new name, the trail loop is intact for the summer, and a July report from People Newspapers put a fresh spotlight on the trailhead project that City Council approved back in 2018 and that still has not broken ground. The corridor along Bluffview's southern shoulder is more useful in August 2026 than it has been in three summers, and the reasons are specific enough to matter.
The Bugatti name came back three miles from where it left
For anyone who ate at the original Bugatti's before it closed, the return is not a reopening in the strict sense. The original Bugatti's opened in the '80s and earned a reputation for northern Italian cuisine with home-crafted recipes and attentive service, and after 40 years, they closed in 2023 to relocate to the Mercer Boardwalk development at I-635 and Luna Road in Farmers Branch, where they re-opened in early 2025. That version of the restaurant is still there and still run by the Bugatti family.
What opened this spring at 3850 W. Northwest Hwy #1190 is a separate concept. Trattoria Bugatti opened Monday, April 20, at 3850 W. Northwest Highway in the Midway Hollow area. It is a collaboration between the Bugatti family and Odeh Restaurant Group, and in a release, founders Michael and Zee Bugatti say that the Trattoria represents a "more modern expression of the brand."
Two facts that matter for how you plan a Tuesday night:
Then | Now |
|---|---|
Bugatti Ristorante, Bachman Creek shopping center, closed 2023 | Bugatti Ristorante relocated to Mercer Boardwalk, Farmers Branch, 2025 |
Same site sat vacant for the interim | Trattoria Bugatti, steps from the original, opened April 20, 2026 |
Family-run, northern Italian, 40-year menu | Bugatti family + Odeh Restaurant Group, rustic Italian, new chef |
The Trattoria occupies 4,397 square feet at 3850 W Northwest Hwy #1180, and the address for guests is 3850 W. Northwest Highway, #1190, Dallas, open Monday through Sunday, 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. If you live off Lovers Lane or on the streets north of Bluff View Boulevard, you can walk a dog to Bachman Lake, drive four minutes, and be at the bar for aperitivo before 6.
What Erin Willis is actually cooking, and where the ingredients come from
The kitchen is the reason to read past the name. Trattoria Bugatti has hired chef Erin Willis, a James Beard Award nominee and former owner and executive chef of RM 12:20 Bistro, a French bistro in Lake Highlands that closed in 2023, and while Willis' background spans Italian, French, Mediterranean and American cuisines, she will draw on her time studying cooking and food culture in Italy for her culinary philosophy at the trattoria.
Willis has been direct about what that means on the plate. "We're serving rustic Italian," chef Erin Willis says, and the menu is inspired by a trip to Italy she took some 20 years ago to shadow a chef, with recipes pulled from an old journal she kept while traveling through Rome, Florence, and smaller cities across Tuscany. Willis, who previously owned the lauded RM 12:20 Bistro in North Oak Cliff, says the breakout hit on the menu is fettuccine Alfredo, made with butter rather than cream sauce, first tasted at a restaurant called Alfredo's in Rome, where the chef told her Americans ruin the dish by adding cream.
The local-sourcing story is where the restaurant separates itself from a generic new Italian spot. Ingredients coming in from named North Texas producers:
Focaccia and sourdough pizza dough: Lubbie's Bagels, Andrea Lubkin
Fresh pasta: Fresh Pasta Delights, Plano, a family-owned artisan maker making pasta for DFW since 1984
Gelato: Botolino Gelato, owner Carlo Gattini, who "doesn't usually do restaurants," Willis says. "So I went in and begged him"
Beverage program: Chris Henley of Betty Cocktail
Exclusively at the bar is a dedicated apertivo menu with a curated selection of cocktails, wines and beers that go with small bites perfect for grazing, and the bar-only options include fried gnocchi and grilled shrimp skewers. For a resident who wants a 45-minute walk-in without a reservation, that is the useful column on the menu.
The pasta itself comes from Fresh Pasta Delights in Plano, which has been making pasta for DFW since 1984, and Willis says the restaurant ran out during opening week and had to have pasta guru Jack Rayome hand-deliver an additional 10 to 20 pounds just to keep up. A running-out-of-pasta story in month one is usually a warning sign for consistency. Three months in, the operation appears to have caught up.
The loop below the restaurant, and why half of it is still waiting on 2018
Walk out the back of the 3850 shopping center, cross Northwest Highway, and you are on the northern shore of Bachman Lake. Bachman Lake Trail is a loop trail that covers 3.1 mi, with an elevation gain of 39 ft, and it takes about 1–1.5 hr to complete. The lake itself is 205 acres, and featured amenities include a 5k hike and bike trail (3.08 miles), picnic areas, a pavilion, accessible playground, Bachman Recreation Center indoor pool, and an outdoor family aquatic center.
Two conditions worth knowing before you drive over with the dog. First, the western end. Parts of the trail were crumbling and difficult to navigate, and dam construction is ongoing until Spring 2026, so there is a diversion at the west end of the trail to bypass that. Depending on which side you park on, you may still be routing around it into the fall.
Second, the Bachman Creek Greenbelt on the north side of the lake, which sits closer to Bluffview homes than the trail itself. QuikTrip has planned since 2018 to design and maintain a trailhead within the Bachman Creek Greenbelt, and the recovery of a man's body from Bachman Lake has raised questions about the status of a project meant to improve the area's safety and quality of life. A long-awaited trailhead project from QuikTrip would improve safety and security by adding lighting and bar barriers along the pathway that goes under the bridge from Lemmon Avenue, but that venture, which was approved by the Dallas City Council in 2018, has yet to break ground.
The gap has been filled, unevenly, by a volunteer group. As Friends of Bachman Lake's Moore told People Newspapers, "Back in 2021 is when the Friends group started working with some other nonprofits and outdoor restoration groups and they carved out the first mile of nature trail. That was the first time that you could really navigate throughout the greenbelt." The vision they are pushing is not another paved path. "Ultimately what we hope to see over on the Bachman Creek greenbelt side is a transformation of this space (into) a fully designed Texas native arboretum," Moore said.
The practical read for a Bluffview resident: the paved lake loop is fully usable this summer with a small detour on the west end, and the Greenbelt nature trail on the north side is walkable for the first cleared mile but not lit and not signed. Save the Greenbelt for daylight.
A Saturday that uses the corridor as it stands in August
For a resident who wants a routing that actually uses what is open right now, not what a guide from 2022 lists:
7:30 a.m. Park at the Bachman Recreation Center at 2750 Bachman Drive and take the loop clockwise. There are good water views most of the way, and a close-up view of airplanes landing at and taking off from Love Field Airport at the southern bank of the lake, but the path is quite open and un-shaded, so be prepared on a hot day. Finish before 9.
9:15 a.m. Detour to Bluff View Park off Bluff View Boulevard for the shaded playground and tennis courts if kids are involved.
11:00 a.m. Trattoria Bugatti opens. Take the bar seats and order from the aperitivo menu.
Afternoon. If the Greenbelt cleared trail sounds interesting, walk in from the Lemmon Avenue side while the light is high. Stick to the mile Friends of Bachman Lake has already carved out.
6:30 p.m. Back to the Trattoria for dinner. Order the Alfredo and let someone at the table order the fettuccine with cream so you have a control group.
The Inwood Village question
Every Bluffview conversation eventually turns to Inwood Village, a landmark shopping destination at Lovers Lane and Inwood Road, which blends historic charm with upscale retailers, Dallas' favorite bakeries, fitness studios, and popular eateries, just moments from Bluffview's residential streets. That corner is running its own reshuffle and deserves its own read. What the Northwest Highway corridor gives you that Inwood Village does not is a working restaurant anchor tied directly to a walkable body of water and a neighborhood park within a mile. For a resident who already lives here, that combination is the argument for staying local on a Saturday instead of driving to Preston Center or Knox.
The neighborhood spent 2023 and 2024 losing pieces of its daily map. The Bugatti site went dark, the trail lost sections to construction, the Greenbelt project sat on a shelf. In August 2026, three of those four have flipped. The fourth, the QuikTrip trailhead, is the one to watch.
For a private conversation about how the corridor is influencing what buyers and sellers are asking about along Bluff View, Cochran Heights, and Glencrest, The Rosen Group is available for a discreet consultation and home valuation.
