Where to Eat Now

Where to eat in Houston right now: 10 new restaurants spring to top of April's must-try list

After spending the past month discussing Houston's best restaurants as part of our Tastemaker Awards coverage, the time has come to once again look at the new restaurants making a splash across the city. Although this year has yet to match 2017 in terms of either pace or overall quality — it's hard to top a year when three of Houston's James Beard Award-winning chefs open new restaurants — a number of intriguing new options have emerged in the past couple of months.

This month's list includes two new barbecue options from pitmasters making the leap from pop-ups to full-time service, an acclaimed local chef with a new fast casual concept, and the best linguine vongole I've tried in awhile. As always, these are ordered in how quickly I think people should try them, but choose the one that seems most appealing. After all, a wine-obsessed Heights resident will probably get more pleasure out of Postino than Rodeo Goat.

Feges BBQ
After six years of pop-ups, pitmaster Patrick Feges has opened his barbecue joint in Greenway Plaza. While Feges serves well-executed versions of beef brisket, pork ribs, and a housemade sausage, it goes beyond that by also serving turkey, chicken, pulled pork, pork belly, and boudin that’s made from the trimmings of the other meats. Co-owner Erin Feges (a chef and one-time Chopped champion) has created sides like Moroccan-spiced carrots, Asian cucumber salad, and mashed sweet potato with banana that are flavorful and satisfying enough to make for a meal by themselves (order any three for $8).

Greenway Plaza has served as a successful launching pad for both The Rice Box and burger-chan, but people can still be intimidated by the parking. Feges posted a four-part video series to Instagram that explains the procedure. 3 Greenway Plaza, Suite C210

Fig & Olive
This New York-based restaurant has brought its Mediterranean-inspired cuisine to the former Saks space at the Galleria. The expansive space is light and bright, with a large patio. Meals begin with the restaurant’s signature crostini; the foie gras, burrata with tomato and pesto, and prosciutto with fig and ricotta ranked as the our favorites.

Dishes like the mushroom croquette, octopus carpaccio, and truffle risotto further the restaurant’s goal of serving generally lighter fare, while the balsamic-glazed short rib has been introduced to appeal to heartier Texan appetites. All that gets paired with a broad selection of wine and cocktails. Taken together, the accessible menu, stylish design, and prime location have Fig & Olive poised to be the city’s next see-and-be-seen spot. 5115 Westheimer Rd.

Rodeo Goat
Sometimes it seems like the last thing Houston needs is another burger joint, but DFW-based Rodeo Goat makes for a nice addition to the city’s burger offerings. Located in EaDo’s East Village development (home to Chapman & Kirby, SeaSide Poke, and three upcoming offerings from Agricole Hospitality), the space features an open kitchen (perfect for hearing the burgers sizzling on the grill) and a 200-seat, tri-level patio.

The beef burgers start with 44 Farms beef that’s ground in-house and are adorned with any number of creative toppings. Over the course of two visits, the Marvin Zindler (bacon, cheddar, jalapenos, barbecue sauce, etc), Nanny Goat (herbed goat cheese, garlic-herb mayo) and Sugar Burger (candied bacon, grilled peaches, arugula, etc) provide flavors that enhance the patty’s natural beefiness without overwhelming it. Crispy fries, Blue Bell milkshakes, and a full selection of craft beer and cocktails only enhance the experience. 2118 Lamar St., Suite 102

BCK Kitchen & Cocktail Adventures
This new concept from the owners of Bosscat Kitchen & Libations trades that restaurant’s heavy, bar-oriented food offerings for dishes inspired by its owners childhoods in the ’80s and ’90s: everything from sweet and sour meatballs and street corn to Salisbury steak, shake and bake pork chops, and ‘pasghetti O’s. It’s the sort of conceit that could go off the rails pretty easily, but the dishes wind up being elevated enough to taste good without being so frou-frou as to be unrecognizable from the cafeteria fare that inspired them.

Bosscat’s drinks and dishes always have a strong visual component, and that continues at BCK. The Berry Crunch Milk Punch (served with Cap’n Crunch berries) and the Dr Feelgood (served in a Dr Pepper can) look as good on Instagram as they taste. Standing out in a competitive Heights restaurant market is tough, but BCK’s creative menu and casual atmosphere seem poised to earn its neighborhood’s appreciation. 933 Studewood St.

Fresco Cafe Italiano
A new restaurant that features an Italian chef making fresh pasta should be cause for a foodie frnezy, but Fresco has been mostly flying under the radar since it opened last September. Still, chef-owner Roberto Crescini's food deserves more attention. The former executive chef at Bellaire’s Enoteca Rosso opened this unassuming restaurant on the Southwest Freeway that serves nine styles of housemade pasta and seven different sauces.

While it’s possible to build a bowl with a pasta and a sauce, Crescini also serves some set combinations, including one of the better versions of linguine vongole I’ve had in some time. Another special featured housemade Italian sausage. We matched our pastas (cooked properly al dente, natch) with a crispy, thin crust pepperoni pizza with so-so dough but great sausage. Reasonable prices (almost nothing over $20) and free BYOB more than make up for the no-frills decor and counter style service. 3277 Southwest Freeway

Postino WineCafe
Just as establishments like Better Luck Tomorrow and Holman Draft Hall are blurring the line between bar and restaurant, this Arizona-based concept blends a wine bar and restaurant. That starts with the cafe’s space at Heights Mercantile, which features a variety of seating options (tables, booths, wine bar, patio, couches) designed to cater to customers who want to work on a laptop or canoodle during a date.

Open beginning at 11 am during the week and 9 am on the weekends, Postino encourages patrons to have a glass or two of wine at lunch by pricing its eclectic by-the-glass list at just $5 until 5 pm. On the culinary side, the dozen bruschetta options are priced at a reasonable four for $15, which is perfect for sharing with another person. I could quibble that my panini wasn’t quite toasted enough to melt the cheese, but that seems like the sort of thing that’s easy to fix on a future visit. 642 Yale St.

The Chicken Station
Former Latin Bites chef Roberto Castre has launched this new fast casual concept that serves Peruvian roasted chicken. Located along the light rail line in the East End, the Chicken Station matches its chicken — which does a good job of delivering both juicy meat and crispy skin — with a host of sides: everything from french fries and yucca fries to plantains, mixed vegetables, creamy corn, and fried rice. Castre also serves a range of salads, sandwiches, desserts (the alfajores cookies are especially delicious), and Peruvian classics like salchipapas (fries topped with chopped hot dog and sauces). If Castre ever expands the concept to a location that’s closer to home, I’ll be there twice a month. 7001 Harrisburg Blvd.

Willow’s Texas BBQ
Feges BBQ isn’t the only smoked meat purveyor attracting attention. Pitmaster Willow Villarreal recently made the transition from weekly pop-up to almost-daily service with a new food truck that serves at Big Star Bar from Thursday to Sunday. Villarreal’s cuisine has been earning raves from barbecue bloggers, but my two visits have been uneven; once, the brisket matched the quality of brick and mortar restaurants but another the fat hadn’t fully rendered. Still, the ribs had been properly cooked on both visits and the sides, including Tex-Mex style charro beans and classic Southern greens, make this a truck worth visiting. 1005 W 19th St.

Flip 'N Patties
Speaking of food trucks, this Filipino truck made the jump to a West Houston brick-and-mortar location back in January. Favorites from the truck days like the namesake burger (beef patty topped with a cheesy-stuffed fried mushroom), lechon kawali (pork belly bites), and lumpia (egg rolls) all match or exceed the quality of what was served on the truck, and the menu has expanded with additional sides and salads. First-rate french fries and the crispy, juicy chicken pupu plate are also worth trying. No wonder the lines at peak times can snake out the door. 1809 Eldridge Parkway

Blue Nile
The venerable Ethiopian restaurant recently added a second location in the former home of Luigi’s in the Greenway Plaza/Upper Kirby/River Oaks area. Not being very experienced in the cuisine, I dined with two friends who suggested an extensive sampler platter that offered different versions of kitfo and tibbs, two of the restaurant’s signature meat dishes. Unfortunately, the individual dishes flavors blurred together, especially when wrapped in the spongy injera bread that’s a staple of the cuisine. With a couple of appetizers and dessert, our meal somehow cost over $150, which seems excessive when most of the entrees are priced between $15 and $20. Next time, I’d skip the sampler and just go with one entree per person. 3030 Audley St.

Postino is a welcome addition to The Heights.

Photo by Becca Wright

Postino is a welcome addition to The Heights.

where-to-eat the-heights news-you-can-eat dinner lunch brunch

a love letter to Brennan's

Chris Shepherd salutes his favorite Houston restaurant — and its new hot dog tower

Courtesy of Brennan's of Houston

The zinc bar tops are an ode to Parisian restaurants.

those that don’t know, it’s a place where I had the opportunity to hone my skills as a young cook and is absolutely a place that I still call home.

It was the restaurant that I wanted to work at so badly after graduating culinary school. I had applied once before, but did not get the job. I was disappointed, but now that I look back I am really happy I didn’t get the job. I wasn’t ready and I know that now. I took a job at a country club at the time and thought that I was going in the right direction in my career. I worked hard at that job, was promoted to sous chef and made some really amazing friends but something was missing.

Becoming a Chef at Brennan’s

My friend Randy Evans was working at Brennan’s, which is why I wanted to work there. I wanted to continue the push for knowledge and skills. Randy stopped by my apartment on his way home after work to have a drink and a chat, and I asked him how his night was. He told me that they did 400+ covers for service and it was exhilarating. He then asked how my night was, my answer was that I put out the taco buffet and was home early.

That moment is when my head started to spin. I questioned a lot of the things I was doing. Please don’t get me wrong, the job I had was a really great one, and I know it’s the right fit for a lot of people. It just wasn’t for me, and that night changed a lot for me.

Randy and his wife Melanie invited me to dinner at Brennan’s for my birthday. That night I met Mark Holley, Jose Arévalo, and chef Carl Walker. Mark asked me what I was doing and where I wanted my career to go. I started working at Brennan’s two weeks later.

I worked there for nine years, because I was given the ability to learn as much as I could. I was able to work my way through the kitchen, while Randy and I pushed each other as hard as we could to learn as much as our brains could hold, and we had great mentors that helped us with that. I learned how to cook like a good cook, practiced technique, repetition, creativity, and leadership — I was being trained to be a chef and not just a cook.

I was questioned about every new dish I would create by Alex Brennan-Martin, chef Carl, chef Jose, chef Mark, and my friend Randy about the thought process, the flavors, the techniques, and, most importantly, “the whys” behind the dish. They believed in me and taught me to believe in myself. Randy and I studied everything that had to do with food and wine. I mean, there is literally a magazine named Food & Wine and years later, I now get to work for that publication. How cool is that????

I had the opportunity to take that passion into the dining room and become “The Wine Guy” aka the sommelier because I wanted to know how the dining room worked as well. At the same time Randy was promoted to executive chef, and it was a great feeling for both of us. We will be out in Sonoma next month as we celebrate 30 years of working in this industry together, and we owe a lot of this to this restaurant and the people that work there. So when I say it’s a special place to me, now you have some context to why. But enough about me — let’s talk about what’s really exciting me at Brennan’s right now.

Brennan’s New Bar

I have seen the bar at Brennan’s remodeled a couple of times over the years but nothing like what was unveiled recently. They nailed it. With this remodel they made the bar bigger and more exciting. The restaurant has always been a fine dining restaurant — a special occasion restaurant where you celebrate birthdays, anniversaries, and other momentous life occasions. This restaurant has more regulars (people that are there literally all the time) than any other place I’ve worked — multiple generations of those regulars!

When they looked at the bar, they knew they wanted a fine casual bar. But what does that mean, exactly? They built basically a restaurant inside a restaurant that gives you a place to go watch an Astros game while having a delicious cocktail, an amazing bottle of wine, and shrimp po boy or a hot dog and slider tower. Yeah, you read that right. I’ll talk more about that in a bit.

As part of the renovation, Alex Brennan-Martin installed black and white tile floors and zinc bar and table tops, just like you’d find in any cafe in Paris. The light fixtures are made of whiskey decanters. If you spend some time looking around, you will notice there are nods to the almost 60 years of history of Brennan’s of Houston. It’s beautiful and relaxing at the same time as you either look into the bar or out into the beautiful and iconic courtyard that is just so reminiscent of New Orleans.

Now let’s talk about the important stuff: cocktails, food, and wine! The cocktail program has really taken a shift to fun, thoughtful but still tipping a hat to the classics. Let’s start with two styles of the Old Fashioned. There is the “Old” Old Fashioned which is the classic bourbon, bitters, muddled brandy, cherry, orange and a sugar cube — classic, right? Then we have the “New” Old Fashioned which is bourbon run through a Yama Still, a still that is traditionally used to make the best cold brew coffee where water slowly drips through coffee beans extracting the the best flavor of the beans. In this case instead of the beans, the middle infusion chamber is filled with the oranges and cherries. The bourbon slowly drips through the chamber infusing all of those delicious flavors and ends up on the other side. It’s outstanding.

The Parisian Gas Lamp is a cocktail that pays tribute to the iconic glass lamps in the restaurant and is made from Cognac, Cointreau Noir, and flambéed orange peel. They have also added some frozen cocktails like the Bananas Faster (not Foster but Faster), which made from rum, banana purée and vanilla soft serve, perfect if you are too full for the classic dessert.

I also want to remind you that you can get those infamous 25 cent martinis at lunch Monday through Friday with the purchase of an entree. The wines by the glass are fantastic, but the whole wine list is deep and one of the best around. It is filled with true gems from all over the world, don’t sleep on it because it’s a well put together novel!

This is not just your regular food menu. As I said before, they have literally developed a restaurant inside of a restaurant for you to enjoy. When I first sat down, I was really surprised to see the menu. Traditionally a bar menu has four or five items on it but not this one — this one has more than 25 items, and most are designed specifically for the bar.

Yes, you can get the famous snapping turtle soup, the seafood gumbo, and a Jill Jackson Salad, but that’s just the beginning. Raw and roasted oysters, seafood towers, flatbreads, and snacks like pimento cheese and deviled ham with fire’crackers, muffuletta sliders, and even New Orleans-style po’ boys. That’s just where the madness begins! The team has added some really amazing items like some over-the-top seafood nachos with fried oysters, shrimp, crabmeat — if you’d like to add caviar, they sure as hell will let you!

Then we get to the piece de resistance, the tower of power, the all-gas-no-brakes kind of dish that I am in love with: The Hot Dog and Slider Tower. Full Tilt Hot Dogs, prime brisket sliders, all fries (house made fries, sweet potato fries, tater tots) with Creole chow chow, comeback sauce, and Andouille sausage queso for dipping! Even writing this I’m overwhelmed with joy.

Full Tilt Foods is a company that my wife and I started, and we now make the official hot dog of the Houston Texans and The Houston Livestock Show and Rodeo. Brennan’s is the first place outside of NRG stadium to carry them, and they are meaty hot dog heaven. The sliders are rich and delicious from that prime brisket, and this is one of the best shareable, show stopping dishes out there and absolutely worth a try.

It's nice to see a bar that is open all day, not just to have a fantastic beverage but to enjoy some delicious food with friends and loved ones in a fine casual atmosphere. I have been in love with this restaurant for most of my life, and I think what they have done gives folks an option to either come in and have an amazing dinner or relax with friends, have a hot dog tower with some great cocktails, and watch a game on the TV.

Thanks team for reading along on my love story to a restaurant. We all have our special places that hold those memories to us. What’s yours? Let me know your story.

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Share your favorite Houston restaurants with Chris via email at chris@chrisshepherd.is.

Chris Shepherd won a James Beard Award for Best Chef: Southwest in 2014. The Southern Smoke Foundation, a nonprofit he co-founded with his wife Lindsey Brown, has distributed more than $12 million to hospitality workers in crisis through its Emergency Relief Fund. Catch his TV show, Eat Like a Local, every Saturday at 10 am on KPRC Channel 2 or on YouTube.

Photo by Andrew Hemingway

The zinc bar tops are an ode to Parisian restaurants.

chris shepherd cocktails news-you-can-eat openings