Meet The Tastemakers

The best restaurants and bars in Houston to savor a glass of wine

In the run-up to the Tastemaker Awards, CultureMap’s annual celebration of the best of Houston’s bar and restaurant scene, we’ve already looked at the nominees for this year’s best bars and bartenders. Now the time has come to celebrate another aspect of the beverage world: the best wine programs.

Sure, just about every restaurant serves wine, but which places do it a little better than the rest? For answers, we turned to our panel of industry experts, who chose this year's nominees based on a variety of factors. Quantity is important, of course, but a good program pairs well with the restaurant’s cuisine and offers choices at a number of price points. The staff needs to be well-trained to guide customers towards choices that they might not be familiar with.

Which program stands out from the rest? Find out April 18 at the Tastemaker Awards party. We’ll gather at Asia Society Texas to celebrate the nominees and reveal the winners. Get your tickets now before they sell out.

13 Celsius and Camerata at Paulie's
Seeing as we’ve already discussed Houston’s two best wine bars in the Bar of the Year article, this entry will be brief. Both offer an appealing selection that ranges from mainstream choices to deeper cuts designed to appeal to hard core oenophiles (and industry insiders).

First time visitors shouldn’t be afraid to put their staffs to the test. Tell them what kind of wine you usually drink, and challenge them to find something new. The results should prove both educational and enjoyable.

Caracol
On their nomination ballots, some of our panelists wrote “Caracol” and others simply wrote “Sean Beck,” the longtime beverage director for the H-Town Restaurant Group that owns Caracol (as well as Hugo’s, Backstreet Cafe, Xochi, and others). Either way, our panelists recognize that Beck is a man who knows a lot about wine, spirits, and beer. At Carcol, the wine list focuses on seafood friendly vintages, including sparkling wines, riesling, and lighter reds like Pinot Noir. After all, when a menu leans towards bright, acidic flavors, covering them up with big, tannic Cabernet Sauvignon just won’t do.

Coltivare
It’s no surprise that our panelists opted to highlight Coltivare’s wine program. The Italian-inspired restaurant in the Heights is also up for Restaurant of the Year and Chef of the Year honors. Just as with the food features carefully selected local ingredients, Coltivare’s wine selection features small production vintages from independent wineries that are as delicious as they are affordable. General manager Jeb Stuart and his cordial staff can be counted on to offer advice on what to pair with the restaurant’s housemade charcuterie, innovative salads, or creative pizzas.

Oporto Fooding House & Wine
As its name implies, wine is just as important as food at this Midtown gem. Beverage director Samantha Porter’s list focuses on the wines of Spain and Portugal to offer a diverse array of selections that pair with chef-owner Rick Di Virgilio’s diverse menu. Diners are certain to find a number of appealing choices whether they’re sitting on the patio enjoying baked oysters or gathering with friends for a full meal in the stylish dining room.

Pappas Bros. Steakhouse
When someone is looking to splurge on a bottle of wine, both locations of this luxurious steakhouse offers lots of intriguing options from both Europe and America. Creating a good experience is more than just a matter of acquiring expensive bottles, Pappas Bros backs up its selection with some of the city’s more knowledgeable professionals: starting with Master Sommelier Jack Mason (one of only three in Houston) and Advanced Sommeliers Steven McDonald, Bill Elsey, Brandon Kerne, Chris Walter, and Lindsay Thomas.

Pax Americana
Finding the right wine to pair with Pax Americana’s eclectic menu could be a challenge, but proprietor Shepard Ross’s deep knowledge of American varietals makes it easy. Whether a diner is searching for a couple of glasses to pair with a course or a blowout splurge for a special occasion, Ross’ wide-ranging list features lots of appealing choices. In keeping with the restaurant’s historic name, last year Ross added a section called “The Marshall Plan,” which features unusual European and South American selections.

State of Grace
That this River Oaks restaurant has been nominated for both Restaurant of the Year and Neighborhood Restaurant demonstrates that our panelists use it for both casual meals and fancy occasions. Thankfully, general manager Matt Crawford’s diverse list offers a range of options: everything from sparkling wine to pair with the restaurant’s well-regarded oyster offerings to big red for the steaks that come off the wood-fired hearth. Crawford recently became Houston’s newest Advanced Sommelier, which ensures the list will be in good hands for a long time.

Underbelly
Beverage director Matthew Pridgen describes Underbelly’s wine list as consisting of “wines that are produced by real families from real places.” Pridgen takes a light-hearted approach by including tasting notes from chef-owner Chris Shepherd and Houston hip hop superstar Bun B as well as his own thoughts on topics ranging from Texas wine to those ubiquitous numerical scores. Best of all, the restaurant’s wines are available for retail purchase, just in case someone can’t resist taking a bottle or two home.

Sean Beck, Caracol.

Courtesy photo

Sean Beck, Caracol.

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eat real food

Houston DJ-turned-TikTok star cooks up a cult following one recipe at a time

Courtesy of Uncle Dibbz

Uncle Dibbz, a.k.a. A.H. Bowden, has built a devoted following for his viral recipes.

For the past month, Uncle Dibbz has been, shall we say, going ham on social media with the myriad videos of alternative Thanksgiving dishes. He’s dropped how-to clips for such recipes as Cajun-roasted turkey, honey-baked ham/hens, oven-bag turkey, and six-piece fried turkey (to go). Basically, if you don’t want to cook a bland ol’ Butterball this Turkey Day, Dibbz has you covered.

Who is Dibbz, you say? Well, he’s a North Jersey-born, Georgia-bred, Houston-based chef who’s been building quite the foodie rep online. Several videos across his TikTok, Instagram and YouTube pages, from his Cajun-boiled fried chicken (2 million on IG) to his “Propose to Me Pasta” (12.3 million on TikTok), has amassed millions of views. But Dibbz (government name: A.H. Bowden) wasn’t always a culinary content creator. He used to spin music back in Atlanta as DJ DiBiase, named after retired wrestler Ted “The Million Dollar Man” DiBiase. “DiBiase is a mouthful to say, so people just always call me ‘D’ or ‘Dibbz’ for short,” says Bowden, 37, during a Zoom interview.

@uncledibbz PROPOSE To Me PASTA 💍 🍝 Trust your Uncle! This SEAFOOD Pasta will seal the deal 👌🏽 Get my recipe below ⬇️ or on uncledibbz.com [@uncledibbz Link in Bio] 🌐 **Ingredients:** - 8 ounces spaghetti - 1 lb mixed seafood (shrimp, scallops, crab meat, etc.) - 2 tablespoons olive oil - Fresh chopped basil - 2 cloves garlic, minced - 1/2 cup white wine - 1/4 cup heavy cream - 2 tablespoons unsalted butter - Salt and pepper to taste - Uncle Dibbz Delta Dust [link in bio] - Fresh parsley, chopped (for garnish) - Grated Parmesan cheese (for garnish) **Instructions:** 1. Cook the spaghetti pasta according to the package instructions until al dente. Drain and set aside. 2. In a large skillet, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the minced garlic, chopped basil and sauté for about 1 minute until fragrant. 3. Add the mixed seafood to the skillet. Season with Uncle Dibbz Delta Dust to taste and cook for 2-3 minutes until cooked through. Remove the seafood from the skillet and set aside. 4. Pour in the white wine to the skillet and let it simmer for 2 minutes, allowing the alcohol to cook off. 5. Stir in the heavy cream, butter, Uncle Dibbz Delta Dust seasoning, salt, and pepper. Cook for another 2-3 minutes until the sauce thickens slightly. 6. Add the cooked spaghetti and cooked mixed seafood to the skillet. Toss everything together until well coated with the sauce. 7. Remove from heat and garnish with fresh parsley and grated Parmesan cheese. 8. Serve hot and enjoy the flavorful Seafood Spaghetti. That's good Shawty! #UncleDibbz #ThatsGoodShawty #Pasta #marryme #proposal #bride #wife #husband #relationshipgoals #datenight #easyrecipe #seafood #cajun #cooking #fyp #foryou #viral #houston ♬ original sound - Uncle Dibbz 🍴

He was making a nice living as a DJ, even serving as rapper Big K.R.I.T.’s touring DJ for a while. But when the pandemic hit, the gigs obviously dried up.

“I was living in Miami at the time,” he says. “And, you know, when you have a lot of time on your hands to think – but also need to figure out a way to, you know, sustain an income and everything like that – the ideas start coming,”

Like most DJs at that time, he was doing live mixes on Instagram. But his days throwing cookout parties in Atlanta inspired him to start doing his cooking videos, where he used his very own seasoning. Of course, he had a lemon pepper blend, which he used in a lemon pepper hot wings video that currently has over a half-million views on TikTok.

“I'm about to go live to DJ later that night, and my phone was just going off with orders,” he recalls. “So I'm like, where are these orders coming from? And it's not from my friends. I'm seeing the cities and the states. I don't know these people.”

Thanks to his videos, which usually end with him saying his signature line “That’s good shawty!” (that’s also the name of his cookbook he released last year), Dibbz went into the seasoning business full time. He eventually hired another person to help send out the piles of orders he was receiving.

He even got an order from former Dallas Cowboy Emmitt Smith, one of his favorite athletes. “I remember doing a book report on him when I was in fourth grade,” he boasts.

Although Dibbz has a flair for making meals that border on decadent, he’s an ardent practitioner of cooking with natural ingredients, especially in his seasoning. He has several low-sodium seasoning, including Bebe’s Salt Free – named after his mother, who had open-heart surgery a few weeks before the pandemic started.

“I don't think a lot of people understand the amount of toxins and chemicals that go into a lot of these seasonings,” he says. “You're starting to see it in the news now. A lot of the foods with certain dyes are being taken off the shelves and things like that.’

Soon, Dibbz moved himself and his new business to Houston, a favorite place to perform as well as a town whose hip-hop got him into music. He cites local chopped-and-screwed gods DJ Screw, Michael 5000 Watts, and OG Ron C as his holy trinity of influences. To give props to the music of his new home, he created a hot sauce – called HXT Sauce – whose uncharacteristically large bottle resembles Promethazine cough syrup (aka the key ingredient in lean, the preferred purple cocktail for the city’s rap community).

“It's not necessarily about promoting that usage,” he says. “But, at the same time, it’s just a homage to one of the factors and influences of screwed-and-chopped music.”

Dibbz still indulges in spinning records from time to time. The Waxaholics’ DJ Big Reeks has gotten him to break out the vinyl a few times during his Thursday-night sets at Alley Kat Bar & Lounge in Midtown. But creating new recipes, dropping delicious content and proving you can eat and live in a hearty, healthy fashion still remains his full-time mission.

“I’m not just talking about eating cauliflower rice all day and every day, but just eat real food,” he says. “We're eating fake food. That's the bottom line. We're eating fake food and my whole purpose is to inspire people to eat real food and that starts with real ingredients, real herbs, you know – real natural seasonings.”

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