Crystal Wise
As if Kevin Martinez isn’t busy enough.
Martinez — one of the city’s most well-known and most talented chefs — can be seen anywhere, anytime, in Fort Worth. He is a constant blur of activity, working as the executive chef at Tokyo Cafe one minute, throwing together a pop-up event the next. One night he might be selling ramen out of his food cart, Yat-Ai, another night he might be helping run a macaroni and cheese cooking contest.
While some chefs are happily complacent, Martinez is joyfully busy.
“I’m always up to try something new,” he said recently, sitting a few feet away from proof of just that.
Martinez is chatting with us at the newly opened Heirloom, a food truck parked at Archie’s Gardenland, the long-running, monolithic garden and nursery on the city’s west side. You can’t miss the strikingly yellow cafe tables and chairs that serve as the truck’s dining area.
Crystal Wise
Heirloom is indeed a new adventure for the 37-year-old Martinez, who has made a name for himself as executive chef at Tokyo Cafe, a fast-paced Japanese restaurant with a large, expansive menu.
An offshoot of Tokyo Cafe, this is not. Heirloom’s menu is small — only three to four dishes per day — and made up primarily of Martinez’s interpretations of classic American dishes.
The menu changes daily. So far, dishes have included a smoked beet salad with goat cheese and arugula; a grilled ricotta cheese sandwich; basil tomato soup; a crawfish and shrimp po’boy; a smoked bologna sandwich; and desserts such as banana pudding and pineapple upside down cake. Eventually, his weekend menu will feature more brunch-y items such as migas.
A mainstay is a salad made up of heirloom tomatoes, grown on-site, just a few feet from the truck, and mozzarella that Martinez makes himself. The ultimate goal, he says, is to make just about everything on-site, plucking fruits and veggies from the ground or trees. Heirloom is, after all, surrounded by a big garden.
“You’ve heard of farm to table,” he says. “I like to call this garden to table.”
The menu’s smoked items are prepared a few feet away, in a vintage smoker that’s been in the Archie family for generations. In fact, it was Randall Archie, the fourth-generation owner of the nursery, who floated the idea for a food truck to Martinez.
“I didn’t really know him that well, but I knew he had food trucks parked here from time to time,” Martinez says. “He said he wanted something more permanent, something different than what he’d been doing.”
Martinez looped in Mary and Jarry Ho, the owners of Tokyo Cafe, and together with Archie, they developed the truck’s concept. Not even a year later, Heirloom opened for business this past March.
Crystal Wise
Instead of being parked on the street like previous food trucks there, Heirloom rests next to a new elevated patio, built by Archie in the heart of the nursery, giving diners a picture-perfect view of the lush plants and trees that populate it.
Martinez will now do double-duty between Tokyo Cafe and Heirloom, par for the course for a chef who likes to stay busy. For the time being at least, Heirloom is open only for lunch from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., Wednesday through Sunday. But Martinez has already hosted one dinner event, and he’s planning more.
“We’re definitely looking at doing more dinners, and if things go well, maybe expanding the space,” he says. “We have a lot of plans.”
6700 Z Boaz Place, facebook.com/heirloomfw
