“Anything worthwhile takes time” rings true for most restaurateurs. The owners of Lake Highlands’ newest Italian restaurant would probably agree.
Whether it’s spending six hours braising beef or six months renovating the space, sisters Vjosa Bajraktari and Gondze Ajro have taken their time in making Sorella a reflection of their very particular expectations. They credit their mother for those standards, who they say set an impossibly high bar with her cooking while they were growing up in Albania.
The chic, polished restaurant soft-opened on Aug. 24 without much fanfare or a marketing campaign and practically zero media attention. And they’re fine with that.
“We don’t run things like most of the big corporate people because they have investors and they have to get their returns right away here and there. So they make their huge promotions and this and that, and then they move on to the next one and to the next one,” Gondze says. “For us, we’re here. We want to be here for a long run.”
Sign up for the Food & Drink newsletter to get the latest stories delivered to your inbox
THANK YOU!
You’re all set.
CLOSE
Vjosa has managed another Italian restaurant near her home in Trophy Club and has prior dining experience. She’s also an artist, and plans to decorate the dining room’s walls with her in-progress paintings, which she says will bring color to the sleek, modern space. Her sister works in real estate and is familiar with the neighborhood, which they say is an optimal setting since it reminds them of their hometown, where everyone knows each other and word of mouth spreads quickly. That’s also why they haven’t invested heavily in marketing: in Lake Highlands, a few informal recommendations from neighborhood moms can go a long way.
Vjosa, left, and Gondze can be seen working on dinner in Sorella’s open kitchen.
Food is a passion for the sisters, going back to their grandmother’s table, where, like their restaurant, fresh ingredients took center stage, they say. Sorella, by the way, means “sister” in Italian. And while they had planned to collaborate for a while, it was their own sister’s recent death from pancreatic cancer that gave them the drive they needed to make their dream a reality.
“It was like, okay, life is too short, and we’ve been wanting to do this for a while; we needed a distraction,” Gondze says. “It felt like our sister was watching over us.”
The space
Sorella’s bar offers cocktails like the Sicilian margarita, which comes with amaretto. The sisters say they’re working on a signature drink.
After walking through an al fresco dining patio out front and through Sorella’s twin glass doors, the space opens into a moody, well-lit dining room that shines as sun pours through floor-to-ceiling windows during lunch hours. Rich tan booths line an exposed brick wall to the right of the doors, beneath an exposed ceiling dotted with a variety of hanging light fixtures. It feels like a trendy loft, with an 11-seat white marble bar stocked with spritz-ready aperitivos and a succinct selection of Italian wines chosen to complement the menu.
At 3,235 square feet, the space is expansive and includes a cafe that opens early at 9:30 a.m. From the small counter, the Sorella cafe team churns out espressos, lattes and cappuccinos, with grab-and-go pastries and sandwiches made on house-baked focaccia bread set to roll out soon.
Vjosa says they want the space to create a “family environment” for a “bit of everything,” from casual weeknight dinners to date nights.
“It’s like you invite everybody to stay and dine,” she says. “That’s how it is, and that makes us happy.”
Shrimp alla limone.
The sisters at Sorella say they oversee most aspects themselves — from interior design and general operations to menu writing. Their offering is substantive yet confined to two pages, and features recipes they’ve enjoyed since childhood.
“We want it how we made it in our house,” Vjosa says.
Just like it was back home, they say fresh ingredients and farm-to-table preparation are central to each dish, with Vjosa adding, “If you don’t have good ingredients, you can’t prepare great Italian fare. Five people spend hours each morning prepping vegetables sourced from local producers, which is where they also get the meat for their six-hour braised beef and the meatballs, an early hit based on another family formula.
“A lot of our sauces and stuff, I didn’t even have recipes,” Gondze says. “I just knew how to make them. Because it’s like ‘How many cups of this?’ I don’t know how many cups!”
Vjosa and Gondze say their menu isn’t confined to the traditional, and they call their fare “a bit of everything,” with steak and even a fontina cheeseburger starring alongside housemade pasta. The menu features authentic Italian classics such as broccolini and sausage orchetiette, served with chili flakes ($22), alongside more Americanized twists like Fettuccine Alfredo, a house specialty ($26). Starters include calamari fritti ($16), caprese salad and caponata (both $14), and a roasted Sicilian medley of peppers, eggplant, and tomatoes garnished with agrodolce, olives and basil.
For a lighter starter or to soak up their housemade sauce, the restaurant offers four kinds of focaccia: rosemary; bruschetta; garlic and parmesan; and zucchini, tomato and ricotta confit. A small table portion of the rosemary bread is available for $4, and like everything else at Sorella, Gondze says it’s always fresh.
“I don’t like sitting food; everything happens this morning for service today,” she says.
Early best-sellers include spicy rigatoni alla vodka made with Calabrian chilis ($21) and shrimp alla limone, lightly crusted in a lemon-and-white-wine sauce ($26). Our pick is the tortellini alla niavola, with crispy bits of pancetta and chilis in a robust, slightly spicy, light cream sauce ($22).
Everything is cooked to order, to the sisters’ specifications, Vjosa says, which is why customers may need a little extra patience while they wait. They may also need to wait a little longer for a grand opening or menu specials, but as with simmering a good sauce, the sisters aren’t trading quality for speed.
“For us, it’s just getting it right first, just delivering the food how we want it, for every dish to come how we want it,” Vjosa says.
Sorella is at 9660 Audelia Road and is open Wednesday to Monday, 10 a.m. to 9 p.m.