Inside State of Grace

Great expectations: Sneak peek at new River Oaks restaurant from Hotlanta chef who's coming home

One of the fall's most anticipated restaurants will make its debut at 11:30 am on Monday. Chef Ford Fry, the Houston native who has owns nine restaurants in Atlanta, will open his River Oaks restaurant State of Grace a year and a half after signing a lease for the space on Westheimer across from Lamar High School.

Fry tells CultureMap that he understands that he's entering the market with high expectations.

"Coming to Houston has been kind of like a movie where everyone hypes it. Then the movie starts and the movie sucks, and everyone is pissed," he says. "This is a lot of hype for me. Now we have to perform on a whole different level, and that starts with the look and feel of the place. It carries on to the food."

To deliver the food, Fry tapped former Ciao Bello executive chef Bobby Matos to run the kitchen. "I’m planning on being down here, but the reality is it’s not about me. It’s about Bobby," Fry says.

Designer Elizabeth Ingram crafted the look and feel, which recalls an upscale Central Texas hunting lodge. Dozens of pairs of antlers — as many as 100 — hang on the walls. The marble bar, which runs almost the full length of the main dining room and looks towards a massive oak tree, adds a further upscale touch. Expect the Westheimer-facing Oyster Room to be particularly popular, as it will be primarily reserved for walk-in diners.

"When we hired Elizabeth to be our in-house design person, my interview for her was to do a mood board. I described this restaurant. It took a lot of inspiration from German heritage, German immigration into Texas," Fry says. "I think her goal in designing a restaurant is to make it look like it’s evolved over time, so there’s different pieces from different eras."

Outside of the private dining room, the decor doesn't project River Oaks luxuriousness in the same way that SaltAir Seafood Kitchen does, but it's an undeniably good looking space that should help State of Grace achieve its mission to be a comfortable neighborhood restaurant.

Something for everyone

Beyond the decor, the restaurant's menu — created by Fry, Matos and Fry's vice president of culinary Drew Belline — offers something for just about everyone. In addition to the dishes revealed during last month's farm dinner, mains run the gamut from seafood to steaks to Korean-style fried chicken. State of Grace's burger has butter in the patty and is cooked on a plancha to deliver crispy edges and a juicy interior. Callbacks to Fry's Houston childhood include cheese enchiladas "ala Felix" and a "nod to Hofbrau" salad.

"We kind of styled the menu around not so much a genre but just food that is really something people want to come and eat multiple times," Matos says. "It’s a neighborhood restaurant. It’s not Italian, it’s not French, it’s not German, it’s not a steakhouse. We kind of tie all that in."

Many of the entrees are prepared on a massive, wood-fired hearth that serves as both grill and oven. Yes, that makes it at least the third new restaurant of 2015 to employ a wood burning stove, after Bramble and Hunky Dory. A six-seat chef's counter provides a direct view of the action and could be used for tasting menus down the road.

"What’s really unique about it is that hot box that comes off it," Matos explains. "It’s hollow underneath so the smoke circulates through it. Everything will have a little smoke: even fish that’s sautéed in a pan."

Raw bar

Of course, the raw bar will be a major draw. State of Grace will serve both Gulf and East Coast oysters as well as a massive shellfish tower that Fry previewed on his Instagram account. "Our oyster bar is one of my favorite things that’s happening at this restaurant," Matos says. "The oyster program we’re trying to put in will rival anybody in the city as far as selection."

Initially, the restaurant will be open for lunch Monday through Friday and dinner every day, which will give the neighborhood a rare, high-quality dining option on Sunday nights. Fry and Matos concede that brunch is probably inevitable given the restaurant's proximity to three large churches, but they haven't set a date. Late night dining on Friday and Saturday is also a possibility, which could be a welcome alternative to nearby options like House of Pies and Whataburger.

"Really super affordable with the burger and maybe a funky dog, steak frites, poutine," Fry says. "I think what makes it work in Atlanta is to super underprice the food, like, probably at cost, pretty much."

In conversation, Fry refers to State of Grace as his "first" Houston restaurant, but he cautions that he doesn't have any immediate plans for a "second" Houston outpost. "Would I want to do more restaurants in Houston? Definitely. But is there anything in the works? No," he says. Instead, he's close to signing on a location in Charleston and scouting possibilities in Nashville.

Of course, if State of Grace lives up to expectations, Fry may soon find himself shopping for more real estate.

Wood-roasted duck mole for two.

Ford Fry/Instagram

Wood-roasted duck mole for two.

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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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