first look
Cool Cat
Chef Jaime Fernandez’s soon-to-open pizzeria brings new flavors to a classic dish. BY ANDREW MARTON PHOTOS BY CRYSTAL WISE
When was the last time you enjoyed toasted fava beans tossed in the tickling heat of chile[chili] powder? And how about devouring those beans as a winning bar snack to accompany a swig of local craft beer?
Not recently? Thought so. Well, consider those mildly fiery favas as merely the first salvo from the envelope-pushing kitchen of Black Cat Pizza, whose planned June opening will endow the burgeoning South Main Street quarter with one of its first full-service restaurants. Jaime Fernandez, head chef and owner, decided the name of his first venture should riff off the city’s “Panther City” nickname. “Since ‘Panther City Pizza’ might be too much of a –– pardon the pun –– mouthful,” Fernandez said, “Black Cat Pizza was our fun name showing we weren’t taking ourselves too seriously but still showing our love for the city.”
The 31-year-old Fernandez was born in Tulancingo, Mexico, but came with his parents to the United States at the tender age of two, growing up in San Antonio. In his teens, Fernandez worked stints at several restaurants before enrolling at Austin’s Le Cordon Bleu cooking school. With diploma in hand, he embarked on a culinary odyssey that included working at a two-Michelin-star restaurant in Pamplona, Spain.
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Returning from Europe, Fernandez cultivated his restaurant roots from San Antonio to Austin before landing in Fort Worth, where he began experimenting with scratch-made pizza dough. “The first couple of times, it was terrible tasting, like cardboard,” Fernandez recalled. “But I soon got better at it for sure.” During the summer of 2018, while Fernandez was a line cook at the popular Near Southside institution Ellerbe Fine Foods, he began staging pop-up pizza trials at nearby Stir Crazy Baked Goods. Selling well at Fernandez’s initial pop-ups were his classic pies of cheese, pepperoni, and pepperoni and mushroom, along with specials featuring such inspired ingredients as Chinese roasted duck. Last fall, Fernandez couldn’t have been happier when he finally discovered the vacant building at 401 Bryan Ave. in the newly blossoming South Main District. “What we like is that this part of town still has an industrial vibe to it –– not too developed,” he said. Black Cat’s interior creates its own industrial
June 2019
