I had decided that I still wanted to eat meat, but I wanted an option where the animals had been well cared for during their lives. Morgan’s pork chops and pork collar steaks started finding their way to our table, where they were a huge hit with our family.
Not too much later, Weber, along with business partner and chef Ryan Pera (formerly at The Grove, right in photo above), opened Revival Market, a place where they could sell not only Revival’s meats but create a venue for many other small producers to sell their products throughout the week. Suddenly, it was possible to get Wood Duck Farm’s outstanding baby salad greens, Mill Kings’ dairy-fresh milk, Slow Dough’s pretzel bread and a variety of locally raised fruits, vegetables, honey and herbs all week long.
Located just up the street, the duo’s new restaurant, Coltivare, is a natural progression for Morgan and Ryan, and it’s going to serve an important function: expanding the consumer market for locally produced foods. Ranchers and farmers have more opportunities to make money when a greater number of folks are eating what they produce. If ranching and farming makes a decent income, operations can expand and more people are able to get into the game. It’s a simple supply-and-demand equation.
Musings on economics aside, is Coltivare, which just opened last week, actually any good? Based on my visit during their soft opening, it’s not good — it’s great. The ingredients may be Texan, but the methodology is pure Italian: Take prime ingredients and prepare them in the way that best allows the ingredients to shine.
We began the meal with a gorgeous salad of pickled butternut squash and deconstructed Brussels sprouts (photo below). It was a beautiful, inspiring riot of colors. The lightly acidic squash slices and the curvy Brussels sprout leaves allowed for a great deal of texture and contrast. The chopped shallots used as a garnish are soaked in balsamic vinegar—a neat trick that not only adds even more tang but looks a bit like caviar, too.
For the pasta-lovers, Coltivare’s simple spaghetti dish is the stuff of dreams. It has very few ingredients—pasta, black pepper, Parmigiano Reggiano and olive oil—but when all of those are of high quality, the dish becomes greater than the sum of its ingredients.
They’re still tweaking how to bake in their wood-fired oven. I love bubbly, crispy crust with plenty of char, but our bone marrow and rapini pizza was unfortunately burned on the bottom. The potential of the dish is there, though. It didn’t look like much at first, but when I realized how much the bone marrow had enrichened the crust as it melted in the oven I appreciated the subtle deception. I’ll be ordering this again to see if it reaches its full potential.
As you might guess, all of the meats offered are humanely raised. We selected the wood-grilled chicken (photo below) with chili pepper agrio dolce (a sweet-sour sauce), pine nuts and pickled grapes. Let me warn you now: If you order this, you’d better like heat because this didn’t hold back. Those with a more delicate palate may want to instead gravitate towards the butcher’s cut steak. Expect that dish to change regularly. Sometimes it will be beef, other times a cut of lamb or pork.
A whole, wood-roasted fish is also on the menu and will be whatever is fresh and available from fishmonger extraordinaire P.J. Stoops (who has recently been hosting pop-up dinners and building excitement for his forthcoming Northern Thai restaurant, Foreign Correspondents).
The desserts are all of a comfort-style variety and perfect for the cold weather Houston’s been having lately. You really can’t go wrong whether you choose the pear crostata with its rustic envelope of flaky pastry or the assorted cookie plate (photo below) that is served with a tiny jar of chocolate hazelnut milk for dipping and sipping. The olive oil polenta cake is mighty fine, too. It’s topped with locally made vanilla ice cream, grapefruit and orange slices (because it’s citrus season … in a few months, those might be replaced with Texas blueberries and peaches).
Coltivare’s menu, which will be executed by chef de cuisine Vincent Huynh along with Pera, has a great foundation yet will be ever changing based on what is in season, local and available. I can’t wait to see the big adjacent garden flourish in the springtime. In the meantime, I’m happy to take a seat inside and see what fun new surprise they’re cooking up next.
COLTIVARE, 3320 White Oak, 713-637-4095