Revival Market co-owners Ryan Pera and Morgan Weber. (photo courtesy of Reality Photography)

Those who live in The Heights area of Houston know Revival Market. It’s a warm and friendly place at the corner of 6th Street and Heights Boulevard offering fresh foods sourced from local farmers, ranchers, cheese makers, and food artisans as well as a wide array of seasonally-inspired prepared foods, charcuterie, and house-made staples like vinegar, pickles and jams. It’s all in the name of being a modern version of the kind of market your parents or grandparents would visit on a daily basis. The kind where you knew the butcher by name. In this case, it’s co-owner Morgan Weber, a butcher and pig farmer by trade. And the man behind all of delectable prepared foods throughout the market is celebrated chef and co-owner Ryan Pera. This dynamic duo have just announced their next neighborhood endeavor, an authentic Italian restaurant, Coltivare, with an expansive urban garden alongside. Texas Monthly caught up with Pera and Weber for a few more details.

Texas Monthly: Revival Market has been open for a little over a year. What has the response been and how have y’all grown throughout the past year?

Ryan Pera: It’s been amazing to see Revival Market grow since day one. We’ve really gotten better at our own jobs and growing the market not only in the types of products we provide but in clientele as well. I’m a trained chef. Morgan is a trained [butcher] and farmer and neither of us had retail experience. We knew we had a steep learning curve going in. But it’s been really fun to learn along the way.

Morgan Weber: We didn’t quite know how it was going to go with the community. Were people going to come and shop here everyday or were they just going to come in on a Sunday and buy a bunch of groceries? We’re a whole-animal butchery. One day we may have a lot of rib-eyes, the other day you may not and we weren’t sure how that was going to go over, but it’s all been very well received. People love coming in and finding things that are newly available for that day that weren’t available before.

TM: Do you feel like you’ve gotten to know your regular base of customers? 

Pera: I think we have a great core of regulars which was part of the impetus to move to a restaurant as well, to extend that client base to Cultivare, our new restaurant concept.

TM: So was the idea for Coltivare Chef Pera’s way to get back into a restaurant kitchen atmosphere? 

Pera: Absolutely not. Morgan had to twist my arm to do this. I love the pace of working at Revival and having hours during the day. I didn’t miss the restaurant world, but I’m excited to get back into it. It sprouted from the idea of doing special dinners throughout the year that were so much fun for us and our customers. That eventually evolved into the idea of doing a restaurant. When we saw this space open up just three blocks away, we realized we wanted to make it happen.

Weber: The space has 3,000 square-foot open area next to it that we want to develop into a garden that could function to supply both Revival Market and the restaurant with produce. As of now, it looks like it’s going to work with the City of Houston for us to be able to do that.

TM: Having an urban garden of this size, is that something unique for Houston?

Pera: Having a garden like this is rare. Not unusual. When I worked at The Grove downtown, we had a rooftop garden, but not to this extent. Something we want to do with this space is make it very utilitarian to truly function as a farm for restaurant. We’re really excited to talk to different horticulturists who are willing to help us out with it.

TM: How will Chef Pera divide time between Revival Market and Coltivare? 

Pera: Well, I’ll be executive chef and will oversee everything, but we have two extremely talented young gentlemen who will be at each of the locations. It will be my first time as a dual executive chef, but that’s just part of they way it is in this day in age. It’s just a natural progression. But I put a lot faith in Vincent Huynh who will be at Coltivare and then Adam Dorris has been working at Revival Market for a year and is just great.

TM: What will Weber’s role be with the new restaurant? 

Weber: I’ll be a big part of the front of the house. I hate going into stuffy restaurants. So it’s my job to make sure that the personality of this restaurant is very laid back, very family-friendly and warm. That’s something we’ve really worked on at the shop and we want that same feeling to be at the restaurant. We are all into what we’re doing and sharing that with our customers and we want them to feel that in a restaurant setting. We want it to be like it’s an extension of having dinner at our houses.

TM: What are you plans for your beverage program at Coltivare?

Weber: We will have a pretty aggressive cocktail and wine program that I’ll be spearheading. We have a sommelier who will be joining us down the road and with my former experience with Anvil, cocktails are really dear to my heart. So I want to work on crafting a cocktail menu that has the same principles that Ryan is going for in the food menu. We want it to be about simplicity and great products and letting the technique and ingredients do their thing.

TM: What is behind the name Coltivare? 

Pera: It means to cultivate and grow. My grandfather is from Genoa, Italy and I studied abroad in Italy when I was younger. I feel like that culture is just in my blood. So we wanted to bring that back to this part of Houston. There are some great Italian restaurants in Houston, but this will have its own niche and style for this kind of neighborhood. We want this place to be about a week night type of restaurant, not just for special occasions. That just adds to the neighborhood part of it.

It’s also very important to us to use the seasonal ingredients that are around us. There will be no fine dining about it. It will be as rustic and earthy and friendly as we can get and really letting the food and ingredients speak for itself. We definitely envision walking out into the garden before a shift and that could go on the menu right then and there.

Weber: And we also want to use the products at Revival as well, like our cured meats. That’s the beauty of having Revival and this restaurant, the cross utilization of these kitchens so that we can share these things between places.

Coltivare is scheduled to open sometime in Spring 2013 but you can keep tabs on the restaurant’s development with Weber and Pera by visiting Revival Market, open daily. 

- Jessica Dupuy