Monday February 4, 2008
FORT WORTH — Brix Pizzeria and Wine Bar quietly opened in Fort Worth last week, with a grand opening party scheduled for Sunday February 10.

The restaurant comes from Daniele Puleo, chef-owner of Daniele Osteria on Oak Lawn, which ranks as one of the better and more authentic Italian restaurants in Dallas. Before moving to Texas, Puleo worked for the landmark Italian restaurant Rex Il Ristorante in Los Angeles, and is a native of Palermo, Italy.

So is Charlie Cangelosi, the in-house pizzaiolo at Brix whom Puleo lured away from New York.

"The pizza is unbelievable, it’s exactly what I wanted," Puleo says. "I love pizza but I cannot eat the pizza anywhere, it's not good enough. The one we make is THE Italian pizza, no more no less, it’s exactly the same."

There's a wood-fired oven on-site where the pizza gets baked to a perfect crisp, along with panini sandwiches and a chicken dish that gets baked beneath a brick. The Salsiccia pizza has Sicilian sausage, tomato, mozzarella, bell peppers, and dry ricotta cheese. The "Brooklyn" with tomato, mozzarella, meatballs, and fresh basil has its tongue in cheek, since "you don't have meatballs on a real Italian pizza -- but it's what people ask for," says Puleo.

Brix is open for lunch as well as dinner on a busy stretch of Hulen Street. Fort Worth is lucky to get it, although there's been no shortage of great new pizza places opening in the Dallas-Fort Worth area in the past year.