When you sit down at Calabrese, one of Southlake’s most beloved Italian restaurants, bold flavors arrive before the first plate even touches the table. Warm bread emerges from the kitchen, its crust soft enough to break by hand, and alongside it comes a dish of butter so fragrant it almost speaks for itself. A waitress leans in with a smile and offers a secret: “This butter is infused with herbs grown in our own garden.”
That garden is not an afterthought. It is part of the restaurant’s soul, a vision imagined by Shawn Horne, Calabrese’s Director of Leisure and Good Times. He believed that authenticity in Italian cooking came not only from treasured recipes and traditional methods, but also from the honesty of fresh, seasonal ingredients. Shawn pictured a garden where basil, rosemary, and peppers were harvested just steps from the kitchen, where vegetables were cultivated with the same devotion that shaped the restaurant’s handmade pastas and wood-fired pizzas. To bring that dream to life, Calabrese needed someone who understood the language of the soil.
They found that person in Mustafa Yigit.
Known affectionately as the Turkish gardener, Mustafa’s story began thousands of miles away in the fields of his childhood home in Turkey. Farming was never just work for him. It was love, patience, and gratitude expressed through the earth itself. As a boy, mornings began with roosters crowing and afternoons stretched beneath the sun, his hands stained with soil as he learned the rhythms of planting and harvest. Evenings ended with baskets brimming with tomatoes, peppers, and herbs, carried home as both sustenance and a gift. Among those rows, his gift revealed itself: an effortless kinship with the land, admired by neighbors and cherished by family.
But his life was shaped by more than farming. Wrestling, one of Turkey’s most honored traditions, called for the same strength, resilience, and discipline that he found in the garden. On the mat, he learned endurance and respect; in the garden, humility and patience. Together, those lessons forged a character both steady and strong. His dedication carried him farther than most could imagine. He earned a place on the Turkish national wrestling team and traveled to Seoul, South Korea, to compete in the Olympic Games. For his family, it was a moment of immense pride, proof of the strength and perseverance that defined him long before he ever planted roots in Texas soil.
When life eventually carried him across oceans to Texas, Mustafa left behind familiar fields but not the values they had instilled. At first, the land felt foreign, its texture unfamiliar and its weather unpredictable. Yet the hum of bees, the press of soil between his fingers, the joy of watching shoots stretch toward the sun, these constants tethered him back to Turkey even as he built a new life in Texas. Farming was not something he could leave behind. It was woven into his very being. In many ways, the garden became his bridge, allowing him to remain rooted in his heritage while also cultivating a new legacy in an unfamiliar place. What was once survival and tradition in Turkey became artistry and connection in Texas.
What began as a personal devotion soon became something greater when Calabrese embraced his work as the living heart of their culinary vision. Menus and planting schedules began to move in harmony, recipes guiding what to sow, while the garden offered flavors that inspired dishes which could not have existed without its harvest. Mustafa walked his rows with care, gathering only what had reached its perfect moment: peppers glowing with color, herbs releasing their fragrance at the brush of his hand. In the kitchen, chefs transformed his harvest, roasting, searing, and simmering ingredients alive with the garden’s vitality. The result was food that seemed to breathe with life, carrying what Mustafa calls a “bright freshness” in every bite.
At times, the rhythm of the garden even reshaped the menu. When Zafarana peppers from Italy arrived late, Calabrese turned instead to Mustafa’s harvest, building dishes around the smoky-sweet heat of Calabrian peppers grown in Texas soil. Guests discovered new favorites and came to expect that certain plates would carry the distinct signature of his garden. Herbs became a hallmark: basil, rosemary, mint, cut fresh each morning and so aromatic they seemed to perfume the dining room before ever touching a dish.
For guests, the experience is more than food. It is the sense of tasting something authentic, alive, and cared for. The flavors linger on the palate, but what lingers longer is the feeling. They leave knowing they have eaten something grown with devotion, prepared with respect, and offered with love.
Diners may never meet the gardener whose hands nurtured their meal, but they carry away the memory of his labor in flavors that stay long after the table is cleared. A tomato that bursts with sweetness, basil that clings to the senses, peppers with depth that warms the palate, these are Mustafa’s quiet signatures, as present as the chef’s hand or the fire of the oven.
For Mustafa, the work is not mechanical but deeply spiritual. Each harvest ties him back to the gardens of his youth, to the discipline of the wrestler, to the patient rhythms that shaped his life. The Texas soil beneath his feet may differ from the fields of Turkey, but in it he continues the legacy of connection, resilience, and devotion. His partnership with Calabrese thrives not on transaction but on trust. The restaurant honors his labor, and in return he offers them honesty, produce raised with reverence for both the land and the people it nourishes.
That honesty finds its way to every guest who sits down at Calabrese. It arrives disguised as simplicity, bread, butter, basil, pasta, yet it carries a deeper story. From Turkish soils to Texas harvest, Mustafa Yigit has built a life where devotion meets purpose, where every seed holds both memory and promise. His legacy is not only in the vibrant flavors on each plate, but in the reminder that when food is grown with love and tended with faith, it becomes something far greater than a meal.
Even from a continent away, his family in Turkey can know this: Mustafa has carried their lessons with him. Every pepper he plants holds the memory of his childhood rows. Every sprig of basil carries the patience his parents taught him. Every harvest is a reflection of the love and faith that shaped him. His garden in Texas is not separate from the gardens of home; it is their continuation, a bridge across oceans.
And perhaps that is where his story shines most. In the proud discipline of an Olympian and the quiet devotion of a gardener, Mustafa embodies the strength to compete on the world stage and the humility to kneel in the soil. He has tended the earth on two continents, carried forward the traditions of his family, and created a legacy that is as nourishing as it is lasting. His journey is a reminder that greatness is not only measured in medals or accolades, but also in the quiet constancy of love, labor, and faith.
Mustafa’s story is one of resilience and devotion, carried from the gardens of Turkey to the soil of Texas. His life speaks through the flavors he cultivates, each harvest a bridge between past and present, home and new beginnings. At Calabrese, his hands shape more than a garden; they shape connection, tradition, and love. For every guest who tastes his work, and for every family member back home who knows his journey, the legacy is clear: roots planted in faith can grow across continents and still bloom into something extraordinary.