A big, bold eatery called La Stella Italian Steakhouse and Music Lounge opens on Black Friday 2025 at one of Addison’s most significant restaurant addresses.
Lawry’s The Prime Rib served steak dinners here, on the edge of the Dallas North Tollway, for 40 years before it closed in 2024. In four quick months, La Stella’s owner turned the 11,000-square-foot restaurant into a throwback Hollywood mansion studded with Italian porcelain and a collection of decades-old Italian china.
La Stella in Addison is intended to be the “flagship” restaurant under that name, said owner Giuseppe “JP” Piccinini. An existing La Stella is open in the Dallas Arts District, and that restaurant — across the street from the Meyerson Symphony Center — will continue to serve Italian classics.
The new Addison restaurant is bigger, beefier and a little less concerned with breaking the rules of Italian cooking.
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Tartare Cannoli are a crispy, creamy, salty appetizer.
Juan Figueroa / Staff Photographer
For instance, dinner in Addison could start with with tartare cannoli ($32), a crunchy appetizer stuffed with avocado-mascarpone mousse and tuna, a heap of caviar on top. “The only Italian thing there is the word ‘cannoli,’” Piccinini said.
But it fits in with La Stella’s new identity as a steakhouse.
“We want to push the envelope a little bit,” he said.
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And, anyway, the menu features tons of Italian dishes. Piccinini was born and raised in Naples, Italy, and emigrated at age 13 to Wichita Falls, Texas, where his dad was assigned to the Air Force base.
Now open: La Stella, in place of Lawry’s in Addison
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Customers should consider Nonna’s meatballs ($21), his mother’s recipe. She makes them herself. She also serves as “quality control” for the many Italian dishes, Piccinini said.
The bar and lounge area at La Stella in Addison will have live music.
Juan Figueroa / Staff Photographer
Pillows of agnolotti filled with veal ($38) are a rich, salty treat. Customers will be tempted by plenty of other pastas, like the ravioli with butternut squash ($26); saffron-infused egg fettuccini with porcini mushrooms and truffle ($48); spaghetti Alessandra ($29), named for Piccinini’s wife; and several others.
The restaurant also offers more than 10 cuts of steak or lamb, including a Wagyu filet ($73) and a shareable 40-ounce Tuscan porterhouse ($180).
It’s heartwarming to see a prime rib roast on the menu ($45), a nod to Lawry’s. It’s available on weekends only.
The Sophia, a rye cocktail, and the Napoli, an espresso martini, are among the options in the La Stella dining room or at the bar.
Juan Figueroa / Staff Photographer
Brazilian corporate chef Marcelo Mintz left a job as a Wall Street trader years ago and learned to cook in Italy and France.
“I decided dealing with other people’s money was not my thing, so I took up cooking,” Mintz said. He created the menu alongside a team of chefs, with Piccinini and his mother’s help.
The restaurant has a sultry, celebratory feel. The “lady of the house,” as Piccinini described her, is a busty Sofia Loren who is pictured here, there and everywhere.
Giuseppe “JP” Piccinini created La Stella Italian Steakhouse and Music Lounge in Addison.
Juan Figueroa / Staff Photographer
It will be easy to remember his Italian roots as you pass the 1967 Lambretta motorbike parked in the dining room. Go ahead, sit on it. Wouldn’t it make for a great photo?
Those eating dinner among the rich burgundy booths and “Pompeii green” accents, as Piccinini described them, will surely pause to watch as customers order pistachio cake for dessert. This 11-layer slice feels of-the-moment, with trendy ingredients from Dubai chocolate laced in the many slivers. Drag a fork down through pistachio cream, fudgy chocolate and more, then beg a friend to try a bite. It, like most of the menu, is worth sharing.
Live music, on the right
To the right of the hostess stand is a bar, live music area and two private dining rooms.
The Vesuvius Room at La Stella in Addison is named for the area in Italy.
Juan Figueroa / Staff Photographer
The Vesuvius Room is the most exclusive part of the restaurant, reserved for 14 people at a time.
Just outside it, the lounge with a piano will serve as a “listening room” from 5:30 to 8:30 most evenings. Full bands will perform on the stage from 8:30 p.m. to close, and artists like Aubree-Anna and WT Greer have been booked so far.
New memories, after Lawry’s 
To the left is the La Stella dining room. To the right (not pictured) is the bar and live music. The 11,000-square-foot restaurant, formerly Lawry’s, was remodeled to be an Italian steakhouse.
Juan Figueroa / Staff Photographer
The dinner “theater” La Stella offers — with its fettuccini with mushrooms and truffle served tableside in a Parmesan wheel, and a gelato cart rolling through the room — is notable for Addison. The area is already a restaurant destination, because it’s situated between Dallas proper and the suburbs, a middle point where businesspeople and families can meet for lunch or dinner.
In Lawry’s 40 years here, customers celebrated birthdays, anniversaries, marriage proposals and more. Piccinini has given the dining room an Italian air, but the celebratory spirit remains.
“We can’t wait to hear about the memories they help create right here in our town,” said Addison Mayor Bruce Arfsten.
La Stella Italian Steakhouse and Music Lounge is at 14655 Dallas Parkway, Dallas. It opens Nov. 28, 2025. Dinner only, for now.