Fino’s, promising new Italian restaurant, opens on Midway in DallasPlano

by Teresa Gubbins

DALLAS — Fino's Italian Bistro is a promising-sounding new bistro that opened three weeks ago on Midway Road in North Dallas.

Chef-owner Alfredo Sechi moved here from New York, where the original Fino's is located (it's run by members of his family).

"When I first moved here, I asked where to go for Italian food, and people said 'Olive Garden'," he says. "We didn't have Olive Garden in New York. I said, 'That's the best?'

"We're more of a mom-and-pop place," he continues. "I've been working at restaurants for the past 12 years, my family's been at it for 26 years. I started out chopping lettuce and worked my way up. These are recipes from me, from my mother. I don't care what cuisine you're talking about, home-cooked food always tastes better."

He settled on Midway because he thought it was a good fit for his vision of having an affordable neighborhood restaurant. His favorite dish is fruitti de mare, a seafood pasta dish that he stocks with shrimp, scallops, calamari, and clams.

Fino also has a unique program where you pick your pasta and sauce from a selection that includes marinara, meat, meatballs, Italian sausage, carbonara, mushroom, spicy tomato, garlic olive oil, pink, or alfredo sauce over angel Hair, fettuccini, linguini, ziti, or rigatoni, $6.99 at lunch and $7.99 at dinner. In other good news for frugal diners, the alcohol policy is BYOB.