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Star chef picks Montrose space for highly anticipated Houston restaurant

Aaron Bludorn will open a restaurant this summer.

One of this year's most eagerly anticipated new restaurants has started to reveal itself. Chef Aaron Bludorn, formerly the executive chef of New York's acclaimed Cafe Boulud, has claimed the former Pass & Provisions space at 807 Taft St. for his Houston restaurant.

Currently slated for a mid-to-late summer opening, details are otherwise light for the still-unnamed establishment. In a release, the chef reiterates the comments he made to CultureMap last summer that the restaurant will be "polished and charismatic." While it will have French elements — as one would expect from someone who worked for America's most famous French chef — it will not be an explicitly French restaurant.

One intriguing detail is that Bludorn plans to keep the space's two-in-one format. While the overall concept has yet to be defined, that does present the possibility of offering diners different experiences under one roof.

Reality TV watchers may recognize Bludorn's name from his time on Netflix's cooking competition show The Final Table. Paired with Scottish chef Graham Campbell, the chef demonstrated an ability to blend French technique with a number of international cuisines. In the Japan episode, Yoshihiro Narisawa called Bludorn's uni panna cotta "perfect."

Bludorn announced last summer that he would leave New York and move to Houston. Victoria, the chef's wife, grew up in Houston and is the daughter of Pappas Restaurants co-owner Chris Pappas. Since moving to Houston, the chef has popped up at various events, including Southern Smoke and the Around the World in 10,000 Bites dinner. He'll be competing in this year's Truffle Masters event on Monday, January 27.

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New York Times critic awards Houston restaurant 2 stars in glowing review

Courtesy of ChòpnBlọk

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Let’s just call 2025 the year of ChòpnBlọk. In a review published Tuesday, December 16, the New York Times has awarded the Houston restaurant two stars (“very good”).

Written by chief restaurant critic Tejal Rao, the review touts many of the same qualities that the Times already praised when it included ChòpnBlọk on its list of America’s 50 best restaurants.

Rao writes that she usually avoids restaurants that serve food in bowls, but she’s impressed by the way that chef-owner Ope Amosu has put a West African spin on the concept.

“For inspiration, Ope Amosu looked to the kind of chain restaurants that were built to scale, where flavors are often subdued to appeal to the broadest possible audience, focus-grouped to death. But the delight of ChòpnBlok is in its sure sense of self, its lively, multidimensional cooking and clear, delicious vision for modern food from the Black diaspora,” Rao writes.

She singles out specific dishes, including the Nigerian red stew with short rib, the Black Star bowl with shrimp, and the signature Motherland, made with chicken, greens, and plantains. “It’s utterly simple, but draws you in for more with the mouthwatering twang of not-too-much MSG — an international shortcut to building umami that tends to be used carefully, and layered with other forms,” she writes.

The review also touches on the way Amosu switched the restaurant from counter service to full service — described as “warm, informal, and quick with the jokes” — and his time working at Chipotle to learn the basics of the restaurant operations.

A two-star review is only the latest instance of ChòpnBlọk receiving national attention. In addition to the Times 50 best list, Esquire recently named it one of America’s best new restaurants. The Michelin Guide awarded it a Bib Gourmand designation for 2025. Amosu earned a semifinalist nomination for Best Chef: Texas in the 2025 James Beard Awards.

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