11 HRW Newcomers

Enjoy Houston Restaurant Weeks 2017 at these 11 can't-miss newcomers

For food lovers in Houston, July 15 is one of the most eagerly-anticipated days of the year, because that’s the day the Houston Restaurant Weeks website goes live with menus.

Organized by TV and radio host Cleverley Stone, the month-long dining event, which runs from August 1 until Labor Day (September 4), features over 250 participating restaurants that run special two and three-course menus at set price points of $20 (lunch), $22 (brunch), and either $35 or $45 (dinner). Each meal contributes a set donation of between $3 and $7 to the Houston Food Bank.

All those meals add up. Last year’s event raised just over $2 million to feed hungry people in the Houston area, and the event has raised over $9.6 million since 2003. The event is a win for restaurants that have turned one of year’s slowest months into one of their busiest, a win for diners who get to try some of the city’s most popular establishments at a discount, and a win for the Food Bank.

While diners may choose to patronize restaurants like B&B Butchers, Masraff’s, and Peli Peli that ranked in last year’s top 10, many others will use it to try places that are either newly opened or new to the event. As an opening salvo in CultureMap’s HRW coverage (more restaurants will be added through July 31), here are 11 newcomers to consider, including the best new restaurant to open in Houston this year (so far) and the Heights spot that took the top prize at this year’s CultureMap Tastemaker Awards.

Coltivare
The Italian-inspired restaurant that took home both Restaurant of the Year and Chef of the Year in the CultureMap Tastemaker Awards makes it HRW debut with a compelling, three-course, $35 menu. To start, choose from either two small snack/salumi plates (arancini, eggplant dip, pork terrine, etc) or a more substantial appetizer or salad (chicken wings, fried cauliflower, grilled figs with prosciutto, etc).

Entree options include six different pizzas, five pastas — including the signature black pepper spaghetti — and three dishes (mussels, eggplant parmesan, or roast chicken). Finish with one of three desserts. Since Coltivare doesn’t take reservations, diners should plan to arrive either early or late to minimize their wait times. 3320 White Oak

Xochi
Hugo Ortega’s Oaxacan restaurant in downtown’s Marriot Marquis hotel may not be the concept that won him a James Beard Award in May, but it has emerged as this year’s consensus best new restaurant. Xochi is serving both a $20 three-course lunch menu, three different $45 dinner menus (four courses each, wine or spirit pairings available for an additional $28), and a four course $35 vegetarian dinner menu (plus $27 optional wine pairing).

While all of the dinner menus look compelling, the menu de mezcal, which celebrates Oaxaca’s signature spirit with dishes that include both a peach tamal and dry-rubbed pork shank (along with a $27 spirit pairing) seems particularly must try. 1777 Walker

Potente
The recent addition of former Brennan’s chef Danny Trace has made Astros owner Jim Crane’s fine dining Italian restaurant a must visit destination. For HRW, Trace is serving a four-course, $45 dinner menu that blends Italian preparations with Texas ingredients. Start with a classic dish like burrata caprese salad or Italian wedding soup. Entree options include a spicy pasta fra diavolo with Texas shrimp, Hill Country quail saltimbocca, and an eight-ounce beef filet with garlic-whipped potatoes.

Save room for dessert. Executive pastry chef David Berg offers three options, but those who pass on his signature caramel apple galette are missing one of Houston’s most underrated treats. 1515 Texas

Osso & Kristalla
Potente’s more casual sister restaurant is serving all three HRW meals. Choices on the two-course $20 lunch menu include fried calamari, tomato soup, pulled pork pizzetta, and a cheeseburger made with a pork and beef patty. Brunch starts with a prosecco cocktail, continues with a small starter, and finishes with entrees like a blueberry bacon malted waffle, eggs pomodoro, and smoked salmon rillette toast.

Dinner starts with an amuse bouche of artichoke hummus. The three-course $35 menu starts with classic dishes like fried calamari, prosciutto and melon, or burrata caprese salad. Entree options include a mozzarella-stuffed meatball with rigatoni, Sicilian barbecue shrimp, and four cheese tortellini. Keep dessert classic with Italian cake, tiramisu, ricotta cheesecake, or berries with mascarpone cream. 1515 Texas

Provisions
The casual half of The Pass & Provisions will serve both a two-course lunch and a three-course $35 dinner during HRW. Both menus features the same three starters (red oak salad, watermelon and tomato gazpacho, and spicy tuna sourdough toast) and overlapping main dishes like green pea cavatappi and smoked pork sausage, but the dinner menu includes an eggplant parmesan pizza and three dessert options that aren’t being served during lunch. 807 Taft

Le Colonial
This Vietnamese restaurant in River Oaks District has earned a reputation as a pleasant place to dine thanks to its beautiful decor and lively bar scene. The three-course $45 dinner menu offers diners the opportunity to sample Le Colonial’s lighter, fresher take on traditional Vietnamese dishes.

Start with steamed dumplings filled with chicken and mushrooms, summer rolls filled with shrimp and rice noodles, or crispy spring rolls packed with shrimp and pork. Entree options consist of a classic Bo Luc Lac cuisine as well as grilled salmon and asparagus or shrimp in green curry sauce. While both strawberry panna cotta and a chocolate mousse dome sound pretty good for dessert, a mango sundae should prove to be a tempting choice. 4444 Westheimer

Relish Restaurant & Bar
This River Oaks restaurant serves the sort of well-executed comfort food that someone could eat once a week or more. The three course $35 menu features some of chef Dustin Teague’s best dishes, including starters such as duck liver mousse and a daily crudo. Entree options consist of fried chicken, New Orleans-style BBQ shrimp, and an eight-ounce filet. Dessert choices keep things classic; the seasonal fruit crostata looks like the most appealing option. 2810 Westheimer

Brasserie du Parc
Already known for his acclaimed Galleria-area restaurant Etoile, chef Philippe Verpiand opened this restaurant that looks out onto Discovery Green in January. The three-course $35 dinner menu serves up classic French fare.

Of the five appetizer options, beef tartare, chicken liver pate, and chilled tomato soup are the most intriguing. While it would be hard to pass on steak frites as an entree, seafood risotto and beef bourguignon are compelling alternatives. Just leave room for one of the three dessert options; skipping sweets at a French restaurant is folly. 1440 Lamar

Cafe Azur
While Brasserie du Parc serves mostly traditional French cuisine, Cafe Azur offers a lighter, more seafood-oriented take on Gallic dishes. The two-course $20 lunch menu includes dishes such as fish soup, chickpea fries, veggie fettuccine, and mussels Marinere.

While at dinner, the three-course $35 steps things up a bit a taleggio cheese-topped butternut squash, squid ink risotto, and an eight-ounce flat iron steak. Dessert options consist of a strawberry cake, apple and jalapeno crumble, and a classic floating island. 4315 Montrose

Bayou & Bottle
Instead of traditional courses, this comfortable lobby bar in downtown’s Four Seasons Hotel offers a $35 menu that gives diners the opportunity to choose two dishes from a list of 13 possibilities. Some, like Korean BBQ wings, beef fat fries, and chips and queso are all clearly intended to be appetizers. Others, like steak frites, a cheeseburger, and pan-seared scallops, are more entree oriented.

Regardless of one’s choices, the friendly, accommodating staff won’t judge anyone for doubling down on either style of dish. Just leave room for one of the three dessert choices: chocolate brownie, PB&J sundae, or strawberry shortcake. 1300 Lamar

Eloise Nichols Grill & Liquors
Keep things Southern with this more upscale concept from Adair Kitchen owners Nicholas Adair and Katie Barnhart. The three-course $35 dinner menu starts with choices that include caramelized Brussels sprouts, spicy fried chicken nuggets, and venison sausage. Vegetarians will choose to dine on the “super foods” bowl, but omnivores will likely skip it in favor of choices that consist of shrimp and grits, a sweet tea-brined pork chop, and grilled half chicken.

Finish the meal with chocolate hazelnut cake, peach crisp or key lime pie. 2400 Mid Ln

Click the video below from our partners at ABC13 for more details.

Tastemaker Awards Chef of the Year winner Ryan Pera is including Coltivare in HRW for the first time.

Eight Row Flint Coltivare Revival Ryan Pera

Photo by Joshua Black Wilkins

Tastemaker Awards Chef of the Year winner Ryan Pera is including Coltivare in HRW for the first time.

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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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