Free-Wheeling Wallingford Restaurant Thackeray Will Switch to Italian

Heavy Restaurant Group, which owns Purple, Barrio, and Meet the Moon, among others, is closing its sprawling, free-wheeling Wallingford restaurant Thackeray after brunch on Sunday, March 3. The space on the ground floor of the Brooks Running building will reopen a few weeks later as Fiasco, an Italian restaurant.

“Although our business has been slowly growing, we feel it’s best to call it quits and create a new restaurant that is more appropriate for the neighborhood and surrounding communities,” the restaurant group said in a statement. Thackeray opened in December 2016 with lunch, dinner, and brunch items like mezze spreads, braised meatball subs, hamachi crudo, lemon-anchovy charred broccoli, Ethiopian-spiced fried chicken, ancient grain risotto, and a house burger.

Fiasco will take an entirely different tack, with the likes of salumi, salads, grinders, pizzas, and pastas. Like Thackeray, it will serve lunch, happy hour, and dinner, and weekend brunch will see some of the more popular dishes from Thackeray. The bar menu will skew toward vermouth-based cocktails, local and Italian beers, and Italian wines.

Claret, the small wine bar tucked inside Thackeray, will also go on hiatus starting March 3. It will reemerge when Fiasco opens, with the addition of a wine bottle shop.

• Fiasco [Instagram]
• Take a Peek at Thackeray, Heavy Restaurant Group’s Bohemian Bar [ESEA]
• All Coverage of Thackeray [ESEA]