Crystal Wise
Landon and Jennifer Cabarubio, with chef Marcos Quintanar
Along with birria and barbecue, pizza has been one of the city’s hottest cuisines for some time now. The past few years have seen an influx of new pizza places in Fort Worth serving just about every kind of pie you can imagine, from New York-style to Detroit-style pizza.
Jennifer and Landon Cabarubio noticed something missing, though: vegan pizzas. Not just pizzas loaded with veggies — most pizza restaurants serve veggie pies in one form or another. But pizzas in which every ingredient, from the toppings to the crust to the cheese, is plant-based.
Thus was born Pizza Verde, the couple’s forthcoming vegan pizzeria, located on the west side near Camp Bowie Boulevard. Slated to open late October/early November, the restaurant will occupy the space recently vacated by local favorite Rocco’s Wood Fired Pizza.
Landon and head chef Marcos Quintanar, both veterans of Mellow Mushroom, will specialize in a style of pizza that Jennifer calls “neo-Neapolitan.”
“The easiest way to describe it is that we are heavily inspired by traditional Neapolitan pizzas, which use high heat, quick cook time, and typically have a softer center,” she says. “We have tweaked the cooking process to get a crispier crust.”
Pizza dough will be made in-house and fermented for at least 24 hours, Jennifer says, and all the toppings are vegan, including the housemade mozzarella cheese, which is almond based.
Crystal Wise
The Margherita pizza
Featured pizzas will include a potato leek pie, made with an olive oil and garlic base, diced potato, leeks, rosemary and lemon aioli drizzle, and a kimchi pizza, made with a hot oil and garlic base, kimchi, spinach, sesame seeds and gochujang, a Korean red chili paste.
In all, there will be about 10 pizzas, Jennifer says, plus an assortment of entrées and small plates, such as fried mozzarella, salads, and desserts that will include salted caramel gelato, sorbets, and vegan cheesecake.
Pizza Verde is the latest vegan restaurant to open in Fort Worth, a city primarily known for beef. Until fairly recently in Fort Worth restaurants, vegans were pointed in the direction of salad bars as their only options.
Now the city has a small circle of vegan restaurants from which to choose, including Spiral Diner, a Near Southside joint serving vegan versions of comfort food staples; Belenty’s Love, a recently opened vegan Mexican restaurant near TCU; and Planted Bakery, a vegan bakery and café in the Wedgwood area.
All Fort Worth natives, Landon, Jennifer and Quintanar began testing the waters for a vegan pizzeria last year by hosting a series of pop-ups at another local pizza joint, Black Cat Pizza.
“The pop-ups were a practical way to test the market, develop a menu, get some experience, and to start marketing ourselves as we were saving up with hopes of opening our own brick-and-mortar restaurant,” Jennifer says. “It became clear after the first few events that the community was just as excited about our concept as we were, and when the pop-ups continued to sell out and be consistently busy, we became confident that the demand was there.”
Landon and Quintanar were already pizza pros, having fine-tuned their pizza-making skills at Mellow Mushroom. Before his time at Mellow Mushroom, Quintanar worked at Lonesome Dove Western Bistro, Zio Carlo Magnolia Brew Pub, and Chimera Brewing.
“He’s kind of our secret weapon,” Jennifer says. “Landon met Marcus at his very first job at Mellow Mushroom, where Marcus trained him and taught him how to toss pizza. They developed a friendship, and when we settled on the idea of a pizzeria, he was the first person we contacted. This is all very full circle.”
