LoFi Pizza & Wine Bar
1301 E 15th St
Tulsa
It’s been only seven months since a fire destroyed our beloved Hodges Bend and Lowood. The loss of those East Village anchor businesses, both owned by Tulsa-based restaurant group GB Provisions, left two very specific holes in the neighborhood and the city at large, each its own unreplicable thing—jazz nights with craft coffee, grilled branzino garden parties under the district’s signature filament string lights.
The mourning hit harder because the restaurants were so very specific. It should be no surprise, then, that at the brand-new LoFi, helmed by Lowood’s executive chef Trevor Tack, the air of curation looms large. In the old Prairie Fire Pie location at the edge of Cherry Street — on a strip of road already rich with wood fire (Smoke) and pizza (Hideaway) and wood-fired pizza (Andolini’s) — what does LoFi’s wood-fired pizza menu bring to the table? It turns the tables. Literally.
Pre-opening, LoFi promised a “drinks-forward” establishment with a lot of food, inspired by a wine bar-with-DJ concept that Tack and other members of the GB Provisions team visited while traveling. True to that promise, patrons are greeted by a prominent pair of vinyl turntables in the entrance where a host stand might normally be, then seated with four pages of menu: two with wine options, one with beer and cocktails (some on draft), and one page of food.
Two of us visited on a quiet afternoon shortly after the grand opening, at a time of day when having a DJ would have felt obscene, so the decks were unmanned, making their obstruction of the entryway feel a bit strange. But I really like a small business whose theme is just “stuff we like.” LoFi is a cheekier phoenix than the ashes it leaves behind: A mounted steer head on the wall is a nonsequitur. There’s a drawing of a pizza rat on the food menu, which boasts a list of pizzas, starters, and snacks that feel vaguely … globetrotting? … with only one menu item, the Crossfade, that expressly references the musical inspiration behind it all.
For wine aficionados and those aspiring, LoFi’s two pages cover all the bases, ranging from $4.50 a glass — the lowest by-the-glass price I’ve seen maybe anywhere — to $200+ a bottle, but due to the broad daylight I ordered one of two offered mocktails, the Lazy River: coconut cream, lime cordial, pineapple, citrus, and a cinnamon stick garnish. It tasted mostly of pineapple juice, and I do not begrudge it.
Here’s where it gets good, though. Since the shaky supply chain issues of yore (2020), I’ve leveled up what I call my bunker foods — specialty items dried, preserved, cured, fermented, whatever. Any food I could buy now but plan to eat way later at my nuclear fallout tapas bar is alright by me, so we started with the boquerones from the “Cured & Preserved” section of the menu and the slow-braised white beans from the “Vegetables & Snacks” department.
Let’s start with the boquerones, and by “let’s” I mean we did, and you should as well. Boquerones are cured white anchovies, plated here in a pool of leche de tigre (a bright, ceviche-style sauce) made bright orange with piquillo peppers, tiny pickled peppers, crushed green olives, and microgreen cilantro. Together they made a startlingly pretty plate. It was sparse but not obnoxiously so, and unabashedly vinegary through and through, the type of flavor combo that makes you curious and hungry and thirsty at the same time. It was … perfect, maybe?
The white beans left me with more questions than answers. They’re not exactly a vegetable and not exactly a snack. They arrived in an entree-sized bowl, semi-mashed, with two small pieces of toast topped with mashed soft and sweet confited garlic. The beans were good, but they were also beans, and after the toast, we were left with an entire bowlful with no obvious next move. The disparity between bean and bean-holding items prompted a “Now what?” from my dining companion. They left me feeling unresolved.
We skipped from one wine region to another for the pizza selections. First, the Alsatian, a white pizza with a bechamel sauce with sliced potatoes and red onion. Visually, this one inspired admiration for the attention to detail. Even bad pizza is pretty good pizza, but it’s obvious when you’re eating a pizza someone cares about, and someone cared about this pizza. The razor-thin red onion and potato slices were topped with fluffy, Microplaned pecorino romano that I got all over myself while biting into the crisp, bendless sourdough crust that had just enough char to let you know it’s wood-fired without tasting like it’s too wood-fired. I do recommend using the “lemon cheek,” which was not a cheek cut here but just half of a lemon, because squeezing it all over somehow made each ingredient on the pizza individually perceptible.
From France, it was a short jaunt to Oregon wine country for the McMinnville Hot Pie, a familiar combo of spicy red sauce, cupping pepperoni, sliced pickled cherry peppers, and hot honey. A variation of this type of pizza is on almost every pizza menu in the city, and I have tried most of them. This was the hottest, by a long shot, even without a bite of pepper. It was so hot that it garnered my respect after just the first bite. If you’re going to say something is hot, please, please make it hot. And they did.
I look forward to learning more about what makes LoFi live up to its name and theme: a nighttime visit is in my near future, with maybe a glass of the cheapest wine and also something a little nicer (not in that order). I liked the food (even the perplexing beans). An afternoon visit to a hotspot the day after its grand opening isn’t the litmus test for vibes, but on the strength of the boquerones alone I know there’s something special here I haven’t fully clocked yet.
Oh, and LoFi’s reservations page touts “a meticulously curated music selection” and “an enchanting blend of flavors and beats.” We tabbed out to the Talking Heads’ “Burning Down the House.” Considering its origin story? Cheeky, indeed.
Next from Becky: Mayfest keynote address from Meow Wolf founder Vince Kadlubek, May 11
