Crystal Wise
Chef Stefon Rishel
The moment you walk into Tre Mogli Cucina Italiana, the new Italian food concept from Fort Worth’s Trident Restaurant Group, you’re likely to forget this is coming from the Trident Restaurant Group.
The restaurant company that includes Fort Worth chef Stefon Rishel has made a name for itself by developing bustling, jubilant, and colorful concepts — Wishbone & Flynt on South Main and Parker County Ice House in Aledo — that feature chef-inspired takes on American classics.
At Tre Mogli, the restaurant’s interior colors and overall vibe are more subdued — walls are painted black and blue, punctuated by occasional splashes of gold. Lights are dimly lit. Couples cozy up to one another at intimate two-tops. A lighted staircase leads guests to a second floor, where there’s additional seating, an auxiliary bar, and cool lounge. It’s definitely a change of pace for Rishel and business partners Kyle Bryson and Wallace Owens.
Crystal Wise
Alex Drury and Stefon Rishel
“We want every restaurant we launch to be different, to say something new,” Rishel says. “What we don’t want to do is repeat ourselves.”
They certainly haven’t with Tre Mogli, which finds the group taking on classic Italian food, a style of cuisine they haven’t touched before. They’re not reinventing the wheel, Rishel says; they’re simply turning it their way.
“Everything is made in-house, down to the bread,” he says. “There’s one type of cheese we don’t make here, but that’s it. Everything else here is made by hand daily, from the bread to the pastas to all the sauces. We thought if we’re going to open an Italian restaurant, we’re going to do it right.”
The menu includes a half-dozen pastas, ranging from a fantastic bolognese made with a mix of pork, beef and veal, to a pomodoro with stewed tomatoes and basil, to a superb cacio e pepe bucatini.
Crystal Wise
Pork Chop Milanese
Entrees include an artfully presented pork chop, its bone protruding upward from the plate; chicken Parmesan; a built-for-two 36-ounce prime porterhouse; and a trio of salads: a Caesar, caprese, and antipasto.
Many of the entrees are served as both individual dishes and in larger, family-style portions.
The restaurant marks a dramatic departure from the group’s other restaurants not only in concept but in operation: This is the first Trident restaurant in which Rishel didn’t develop the menu.
Instead, he graciously left it in the very apt hands of Alex Drury, a 27-year-old chef whose resume includes stints at Wishbone & Flynt, Tokyo Café, and Piattello Italian Kitchen. In addition to Piattello, another contemporary Italian restaurant, Drury worked at several mom-and-pop Italian joints in his hometown of St. Louis, refining his skills each step of the way.
“That’s how I got my start, at these small, family-run Italian restaurants in St. Louis,” he says. “There are actually a lot of Italian restaurants in St. Louis, and I think I worked at all of them.”
For the dishes at Tre Mogli, Drury is taking a less-is-more approach, letting the quality of the food speak for itself.
“I keep things as simple as possible,” he says. “Nothing complicated, just classic Italian dishes done the right way. My goal is to highlight the few ingredients we use and make them shine.”
Crystal Wise
Meatball
Drury has been in Fort Worth seven years, long enough to befriend many of the area’s best-known chefs. Kevin Martinez hired him at Tokyo Café. He was one of the opening chefs at Piattello and the executive chef at Deep Ellum Funkytown Fermatorium. For a while, he worked with Dave Hollister at Wild Acre on Camp Bowie. It was Hollister who connected him to Rishel, who hired him as a sous-chef at Wishbone.
“I soon discovered his talents, and let me just say, he blew me away, especially when he started making pastas,” Rishel says. “When it came time to open our Italian concept, I knew I wanted him for the job.”
Located next door to Wishbone & Flynt, Tre Mogli takes over a South Main space that dates back to 1905. “It’s been a million different things,” Rishel says. “A car dealership, a textile development company. A banker was using it in 1980 when it caught fire. It hasn’t been in use since then.”
This was the second time Trident looked at the space. “Originally, we were looking at it for Wishbone,” Rishel says. “But we don’t try to fit concepts into spaces. We let the spaces dictate to us what concepts will work, and when we looked at it for Tre Mogli, we could tell it was the right vibe.”
The restaurant’s name translates to “three wives,” a nod to the trio of wives married to the trio of Trident partners.
“They put up with so much,” Rishel says. “Long hours, so much stress, especially when we open a new place. And for the past few years, it’s been go, go, go trying to get concepts off the ground. So, this is our way of thanking them for everything they do.”
Tre Mogli Cucina Italiana, 401 S. Main St., tremogli.com
