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    Foodie News

    Revival Market takes food back to blissful basics

    Sarah Rufca
    Mar 21, 2011 | 1:42 pm
    • Ryan Pera will be serving fresh cuts of some seriously good meats.
      Photo by Ruthie Johnson Miller
    • Revival Market
      Photo by Sarah Rufca
    • Shelves are lined with made-in-house goodies like Sorghum syrup, worcestershiresauce, honey and red and white wine vinegar.
      Photo by Sarah Rufca
    • Duck confit slaw with ginger lime dressing
      Photo by Ruthie Johnson Miller
    • Photo by Ruthie Johnson Miller
    • Co-owners Ryan Pera and Morgan Weber
      Photo by Ruthie Johnson Miller
    • The Revival Dog, with a smoked Mangalista pork sausage, green tomato relish,chicharrones and a pretzel bun by Slow Dough Bread Co.
      Photo by Sarah Rufca
    • Breads from Slow Dough line the entrance
      Photo by Sarah Rufca
    • From the coffee bar
      Photo by Ruthie Johnson Miller
    • Blackboards show the eat-in and prepared foods menu, plus what's available fromthe butcher counter.
      Photo by Sarah Rufca
    • Local baby carrot salad
      Photo by Ruthie Johnson Miller

    If you had told me five years ago that something like Revival Market could exist in Houston, I would never have believed you.

    But the shop, a hybrid locally-sourced grocer, butcher shop, coffee shop and restaurant that opened Monday on Heights Blvd., near White Oak Drive, has taken the burgeoning interest in local and organic food in Houston and brought it to a logical and truly exciting conclusion — a 21st-century version of a classic neighborhood market.

    Sitting on the corner of an upscale strip center, the inside of Revival wows with a mix of clean lines and rustic touches, including pine paneling reclaimed from a former Heights home and a stunning bouquet of cotton atop one of the counters.

    Co-owners Ryan Pera (formerly of The Grove) and Morgan Weber (of Revival Meats) have assembled a who's-who of local venders to stock the shelves, including fresh breads delivered twice daily from Houston's Slow Dough Bread Co., cheeses from the Houston Dairymaids, dairy products from When Back When Dairy ad Lucky Layla, sweets by Rebecca Masson's Fluff Bake Bar plus produce, fresh flowers, olive oil and more.

    There's even a map of Texas producers so customers can see where everything in the store came from.

    The idea for Revival was originally a butcher shop, so the meat counter is predictably impressive. It has the first dry curing room of any retail shop in Houston, with a selection of salumi, and will feature pork from Revival Meats but also other high-end meats like quail, duck and rabbit.

    Want something a little more exotic? They'll special order anything from Thanksgiving turkeys (get your request in soon) to bison and Texas antelope.

    There's also jars of honey sourced in the Heights by the president of the Houston Beekeepers Association ("It's probably the most local thing in the shop," says Weber) and red and white wine vinegar made from a batch started by Pera's grandfather in North Carolina.

    But Pera, who has worked under chefs including Tim Keating and Jonathan Waxman, is doing more than working the counter. Revival has a menu of sandwiches that range from andouille banh mi to a Market BLT and a smoked mangalitsa hot dog, plus salads, soups and sides, all prepared fresh to be eaten in Revival's small café seating area or front patio.

    And for a grab-and-go meal, Pera is offering a full case of goodies like Gulf shrimp salad, mac and farmstead cheese, Southern-style cornmeal, Mangalitsa porchetta, and local baby carrot salad.

    Pera said he will also be adding pizza with fresh local basil and mozzarella from Texas Mozzarella Company (and also offering the dough for sale) and Vietnamese pho.

    "I love pho but it's usually so cheap for a reason. I want to make a really good pho with local high-quality beef," says Pera.

    And Revival is also getting in the cutthroat Heights coffee battle, with a separate coffee bar that opens at 6:30 a.m. every day and sources local roasts including Katz, Amaya, and Fusion and breakfast pastries from Krafts'men. (And yes, they also do that pretty foam-heart thingin the lattes, which I love.)

    Will Revival replace Kroger in your shopping needs? Not quite. But if you make the rounds at the farmers' markets, Revival can offer the same high-end local products without the four-hour shopping window.

    And for a quick post-work stop for bread and milk (and maybe a slice of Masson's yellow cake with chocolate frosting) Revival Market has everything you want but fresher, better and more convenient.

    Here's hoping that five years from now we won't be able to imagine Houston without it.

    unspecified
    news/restaurants-bars

    he finished the job

    Houston chef Tristen Epps dishes on his Top Chef victory — and what's next

    Eric Sandler
    Jun 13, 2025 | 9:05 am
    Top Chef Tristen Epps
    Photo by David Moir/Bravo
    Kristen Kish, Tristen Epps, Gail Simmons, and Tom Colicchio.

    Houston has played a leading role in America’s culinary scene, but the city has never been home to a Top Chef winner — until last night. In the final episode of season 22, chef Tristen Epps earned the title and a $250,000 cash prize.

    Epps secured his victory by remaining true to the Afro-Caribbean cuisine that helped him secured an impressive four Elimination Challenge wins and $35,000 in additional prize money from two Quickfire wins and as a member of the team that won the show’s signature Restaurant Wars challenge. His four-course menu took a panel of celebrity judges on a journey that also referenced the finale location of Milan, Italy.

    In particular, Epps wowed the panel with his second course — Chicken “Durango” with injera shrimp toast and shellfish jus — that referenced both the Ethiopian chicken stew doro wat and the Italian dish pollo durango, a sly nod to the history of imperialism between the two countries. He finished his savory offerings with Oxtail Milanese Crepinette with Carolina Gold rice grits, curry butter, and bone marrow gremolata, which earned praised from the panel.

    “Historically, we’ve been underserved oxtail,” Top Chef alum and James Beard Award winner Gregory Gourdet said during the episode. “Tristen took the time to pull it, create that beautiful, huge, maybe too big, portion of oxtail. And cover it with that gremolata. He did not forget the bone marrow. That’s very, very smart.”

    Throughout Top Chef’s run, Epps has been holding a series of pop-ups devoted to everything from hot dogs to steakhouses. Now, he can turn his attention to Buboy, a tasting menu concept that will celebrate the Afro-Caribbean cuisine he championed throughout his time on the show.

    CultureMap caught up with Epps on Friday morning for a brief chat about his victory and what’s next.

    CultureMap: What do you remember from the day you cooked that final dinner?
    Tristen Epps: It was an extreme amount of focus. A lot of writing in my notebook. I didn’t want to laugh. I didn’t want to cry or do anything except finish the job, regardless of whatever the outcome would have been. I remember wanting to call my mom. I really wanted to talk things out so I could calm myself down and stay within my focus. Once I got into cooking, I felt so much at ease. It’s my happy place. It’s my serenity.

    CM: How did you feel when you saw Gregory Gourdet on the panel? Did you feel like you had an advocate in the room?
    TE: I’ve cooked with gregory before, a long time ago. It was really fun. I loved what he was doing.

    I felt like I had kind of an advocate. I was worried my food wold be too spicy or too overpowering [for the European chefs]. Seeing Gregory was really good, especially with what I was doing.

    CM: Other chefs, including Gregory Gourdet and Houston chef Dawn Burrell, have done well on the show with Afro-Caribbean cuisine but they didn’t win. How important was it to you to finish the job and use those flavors to win the title?
    TE: To me that was super important. There’s adventurous people who make phenomenal food. They’ll go once because it’s interesting, bu they’re usually skeptical. When you don’t nail it, they say, that’s why I go to the regular places that are familiar.

    Finishing the job was really important to me. People have come up short on this. I wanted to get this right for everyone who’s made that step forward and created the ladder.

    CM: What have your last 12 hours been like since the episode aired? Have any celebrities reached out to you?
    TE: A lot of calls, a lot of good luck. A lot of everything. It’s been amazing.

    A lot of past Top Chef winners reached out to me, giving me a lot of support and telling me what they did after they won.

    [ESPN football commentator] Mina Kimes did, which was really cool.

    CM: What are your plans for the prize money?
    TE: It’s going to go to Buboy. Now that the cat’s out of the bag, it can go a little faster.

    CM: You’ve been holding a series of pop-ups that range from tasting menus to hot dogs? What’s next?
    TE: Part of getting the restaurant open has been introducing myself to all of Houston. These pop-ups represent my interests and my fun. They’re the things that Buboy is going to represent. It can be fun, it can be a conversation, it can be educational, it can push the limits of cuisines we know. It’s an expression of culture in whatever way I see fit that day.

    The hot dog concept will probably be a separate venture, but who’s to say there’s not a hot dog at the end of that meal?

    Top Chef Tristen Epps
      

    Photo by David Moir/Bravo

    Kristen Kish, Tristen Epps, Gail Simmons, and Tom Colicchio.

    chefsinterviewq&atop cheftristen epps
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