What to Eat at Wildcraft Sourdough Pizza, Opening Monday in Culver City

Fried green olives with crushed almonds at Wildcraft

Wildcraft Sourdough Pizza is currently soft-serving friends and family on Culver Boulevard, opening to the public this Monday at 11:30 A.M. This tight everyday Italian concept was conceived by Abigaile owners Jed Sanford and Chris Stone, with the Hermosa Beach restaurant’s SGV-raised chef, Tin Vuong, and partner Michael Barson, who studied pizza-making in Naples before opening, taking the role of GM. The restaurant, resplendent in white tiles and a colorful mixed-media mural tailored to the eastern wall’s every inch by artist Kelcey Fisher, centers on a selection of fifteen ten-inch, hand-formed pizza pies made with Vuong’s daily-nurtured, wild yeast sourdough starter, topped with Grana Padano, sea salt, EVOO, a crush of market vegetables, and a plethoric selection of meats. Pizzas are broken down into “red” and “white” sections, with pies like Manila clam and pork belly, carbonara, and chorizo and scamorza, priced between $10 and $18 depending on the degree of indulgence.

In addition, the restaurant features porchetta panini on a limited daily basis, snack plates of aranicini, meatballs, and burrata bearing the chef’s deft touch, hearty vegetable sides of foraged mushrooms on polenta and charred cauliflower, and ultra-fresh salads. Salted caramel budino makes it reuired appearance for dessert.

The line-up of beers, which skews local and features two of Abigaile’s own brews, is solid and vast, boosting Culver City’s already rich beer bar scene with more than 25 taps, some of which are pouring wines from Palmina and other California vintners.

Chances are this one is going to be slammed, offering Culver City a well-cultivated everyday option in a slim room ruled by an astute chef and his Stefano Ferraro oven. Check out our slideshow of some of Wildcraft’s dishes.

Wildcraft Sourdough Pizza, 9725 Culver Blvd. Culver City; 310-815-8100.

By Kelcey Fisher.

With fennel sausage, parm, and almonds.

In moscato with roasted grapes, speck, and walnut-raisin toast.

Houseground pork and beef with tomato gravy, sage, and Grana Padano.

Beers include Sculpin IPA, Old Viscosity, Abigaile Anniversay Ale, Green Flash, and Monkish Vigil.

Vuong’s Neapolitan-influenced pizza with flor di latte mozzarella lays on the more pliable, softer end of the pizza spectrum, with the forward flavor and sharp spike of sourdough. 

With besciamella sauce, pancetta, pork belly, provolone, mozzarella, and cracked egg.

A softer structure than the butterscotch budino of Mozza that inspired the dessert’s ubiquity, the dessert employs light Nutella whipped cream, with crushed almonds, chocolate, and biscotti.

With Peggy Hong, the chef who will oversee daily operation at Wildcraft while Vuong attends to Abigaile and “a few new projects.”