Pizza Food Truck
Dallas pizzeria goes crazytown with food truck and new fried delicacy
Dallas pizzeria chain Olivella's is stepping into uncharted waters with its latest venture: a pizza truck, which will serve a delicacy called fried pizza.
The menu will vary but will include favorites such as the margherita and black truffle pizza, as well as several new items, some available from the pizza truck only, such as a 10-inch fried pizza and other Naples street foods.
With fried pizza, the crust is deep fried instead of baked. Frying the dough is said to lock in moisture, which brings out unique flavor and texture. The release says it's "similar to a VPN-style pizza," referring to the Verace Pizza Napoletana organization that certifies pizza as being authentic to the Naples style. That's a big claim.
Ordinarily, you might expect a restaurant to start out as a food truck, then graduate to a restaurant. But Olivella's food truck is a special circumstance because it fills a need: It will serve as the official pizza concessionaire for Southern Methodist University's athletics events. It will be at home basketball and football games and other sporting events, starting on September 12, at SMU's game against University of North Texas. It will be located on the Boulevard on the Hill behind the south end zone.
In addition to the above-mentioned fried pizza, menu items include arancini, aka balled risotto fried with bread crumbs, aka fried rice balls, served with garlic dipping sauce; zeppole, aka fried doughnut holes served with a Nutella dipping sauce; and chocolate salami, which is chocolate rolled up in a salami-like tube with various texture-adding ingredients and served sliced with mascarpone on top.
Each of the pizza truck menu items are designed by namesake Salvatore Olivella, the great-grandson of the founder of Trianon in Naples, Italy, and of the third oldest pizza family from Naples.
"Guided by the old family’s trove of traditional recipes, we're able to bring the authentic Italian street food experience to our customers in Texas," says Olivella's owner Charlie Green in a release.
Olivella's Pizza Truck will be equipped with a wood-burning oven for its Neapolitan and Roman-style pizzas, which will be available for private events and catering. The wood-burning oven is 4,300 pounds and was shipped from Italy, where it was built, as is often the case with Italian ovens that come to the United States.
In June, Olivella's signed a new lease to expand to the Village at Camp Bowie in Fort Worth at the end of 2015.