A HIDDEN CAFE

Cultivated Cafe and Catering brings culinary expertise to North Texas Bank and Trust

Cultivated Cafe and Catering mostly serves the employees of the bank, but the cafe is open to the public.

CHEF ED PORTILLO has been working in the food service industry since he was 15 years old.

Portillo started as a server and has grown to work in nearly every role of restauranteurship. His first bout of restaurant leadership was as an executive chef in-house caterer at The Chapel at Ana Villa in The Colony.

“(Early in my career,) a friend of mine gave me the opportunity to run a facility that was low-key and wasn’t too difficult,” Portillo says. “I ran that for about seven years and always made a profit for the owners.”

Portillo also began experimenting with different types of cuisine in his off-premise catering business. Throughout the past couple of decades, he has catered Kentucky Derby events, weddings, graduation parties and sold baked goods at farmers markets.

“I’ve worked on all aspects from mass production to fine dining,” Portillo says. “It’s a passion.”

In 2011, Portillo shifted gears and began working at The Hockaday School as a sous chef.

“It teaches you a lot, and it’s a lot of production,” Portillo says. “We fed about 1,100-1,200 kids every day.”

Last year, Portillo and two catering friends opened Cultivated Cafe and Catering.

They use the cafe’s menu to prep for catering gigs. While there is not an established catering menu for now, they are available for catering private events.

Cultivated Cafe and Catering is a small cafe located on the first floor of North Dallas Bank and Trust Co. Though the cafe mainly serves bank employees, it is open to the public for breakfast and lunch.

Cultivated Cafe has a daily menu serving breakfast from 8-10 a.m. and lunch from 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Regular breakfast items include build-yourown breakfast tacos and sandwiches, croissants, muffins, fresh-baked bagels and grab-and-go favorites. Lunch always features burgers, sandwiches and a scratch soup of the day.

Portillo and his partners don’t just stick to the typical. They’re constantly serving up foods from all genres, mixing it up for cafe regulars. And whatever they make, it’s always from scratch.

“I’ve worked in corporations when they basically open a box and put it in a pan and then heat it up and that’s that,” Portillo says. “That’s never been my cup of tea.”

One week they cooked up Italian turkey lasagna with seasoned broccoli, chicken enchiladas with homemade sauce on a bed of Spanish rice and cheesy chicken spaghetti, ready to grab and go for anyone stopping by the cafe or ordering online for pickup. Meals are typically $10-$12.

“We decide what we want to produce, where we are going to put it, how we are going to present it,” Portillo says. “The biggest thing is that you get people to eat with their eyes.”