Every so often in my critical life, a dish will make time seem to pause and then stretch, as I find myself marveling, “How can anything taste this good?”
These moments of acute wonder and thanksgiving don’t come around that often. I had experienced two of them on consecutive days in Lafayette in early March, so I figured I wasn’t due for another one for awhile.
Then boom! Coltivare’s lemon ricotta dip, with spring peas and herbs right out of the Gulf Coast Italian restaurant’s kitchen garden, caught me by surprise recently. I ordered it for a solo snack, thinking I’d take the leftovers home.
There were no leftovers.
This was dinner, I realized as the cool citric flavors, the minty herbal twinges and heartbreakingly fresh green pea essence swept over me. The colors popped. The whipped-ricotta smoothness seemed miraculous in an age in which newly ubiquitous ricotta dips can be grainy and chalky and downright unpleasant.
These were exceptional ingredients masterfully handled by chef Ryan Pera and his lieutenants. The lilting ricotta came from Dallas’s Mozzarella Company, a distinguished pioneer in the world of Texas cheese. The vividly green local peas—some whole, some coarsely chopped—and the dark emerald mint leaves came together in a sluice of fruity lemon mosto, the Ligurian olive oil pressed with fresh citrus.
Slices of Magnol Bakery’s wheaty sourdough batard, one of the city’s finest loaves, were on hand for scooping duty. But I ended up forking the ricotta melange right into my mouth, the better to appreciate its astonishing immediacy.
Dishes like this are the reason I make a pilgrimage or two to Coltivare each spring, so I can try the latest iterations of the restaurant’s seasonal classics. Pera and company are constantly tweaking and improving, so there’s always the prospect of encountering, say, the best version in memory of their Yukon Gold potato pizza — the potatoes always sliced paper thin. This season it features leeks, Texas 1015 onions, Berkshire bacon and creamy crescenza cheese, another Mozzarella Company product with a lift of tartness.
Coltivare’s idiosyncratic puffed, foccacia-like crust, with its satisfying elasticity and high, glazed crown, was the backdrop that made it all dance. And a rich local duck egg to sploosh over the pie made a crowning touch.
I must salute a new dish of farro grains, fresh spring favas and peas jumped up with preserved lemon. I will admit to having a horror of the grain-bowl trend, but the nutty flavor of these springy wheat grains — energized by tingly lemon rind and set against the soft green flavors of new legumes —managed to rearrange my thinking.
And that’s almost as good as stopping time.
"dish" - Google News
April 21, 2023 at 10:00PM
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Coltivare in the Heights has possibly spring's best dish - Houston Chronicle
"dish" - Google News
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