Dough It Up features a wide variety of classic Italian dishes, such as eggplant parmesan. (Courtesy Dough It Up)
A Cedar Park restaurant offering traditional Italian cuisine is celebrating its first year in business.
Dough It Up—which will open a Leander location later this fall—offers a wide variety of salads, sandwiches, pastas and pizza. Owner Mimoza Hajmeli emphasized that the restaurant uses "clean" ingredients and draws on her experience in the Italian food industry.
Respecting the craft
Except for its tiramisu, Dough It Up makes its meatballs, focaccia, sauces, salad dressings and pasta on-site.
The restaurant's lasagna reflects the traditional recipe from the Emilia-Romagna region of Italy. (Courtesy Dough It Up)
The menu incorporates traditional approaches to dishes, like the Lasagna alla Bolognese. The dish is cooked in the style of Hajmeli's home region of Emilia-Romagna as it features housemade pasta sheets with béchamel sauce and no ricotta.
The eggplant parmigiana and focaccia are also popular, Hajmeli said. The vegan pasta uses only semolina and water, and Dough It Up leaves out ingredients like canola oil.
The drink menu
Dough It Up offers wines sourced exclusively from Italy and selected to complement the restaurant’s dishes. While most of the wines are organic, two are biodynamic—produced organically using holistic techniques like hand-picking. The restaurant also serves beer.
The concept also offers wine dinners on the third Wednesday of every month. During these dinners, four different wines and dishes are offered at $55 per person as a sommelier details the wines and pairings.
Meet the owners
Dough It Up isn’t Hajmeli’s first foray into the dining world. In Italy, she worked as a quality assurance manager in the food industry. After relocating stateside 13 years ago, an Italian restaurant asked her to be a general manager.
“When they heard that I was coming from Italy, they told me, ‘Who better could present their culture than somebody coming straight from Italy?’” Hajmeli said.
After managing the restaurant for two years, Hajmeli bought the Liberty Hill Beer Market before selling it to its current owners. Now, Hajmeli is focusing on growing the Dough It Up brand.
Looking ahead
The restaurant will celebrate a year of business in Cedar Park Oct. 25 and plans to open a Leander location along Ronald Reagan later this fall. Hajmeli hopes to use the same approach at the new location.
“Same thing, same price, same concept,” Hajmeli said.
Beyond a new location, Hajmeli also hopes to introduce gelato, happy hour and catering options.
