Foodie News

Join the crowd: Another hip Austin restaurant eyes Houston for expansion

At Austin restaurant Foreign & Domestic, chef/owner Ned Elliott's constantly changing menu has made it a top destination both for Austinites and visitors. Despite the three hour drive, F&D (as it's known) has always had its share of Houston fans, and Elliott has come to Houston for pop-ups at both Paulie's and as part of chef Justin Bayse's Les Sauvages pop-up series in 2011.

Given his local fan base, it should come as little surprise that Elliott has considered opening a second location in Houston, tweeting last week that he looked at the space that housed the (temporarily?) closed Daily Review Cafe.

"I fell in love with Houston. I like the energy. It feels right," says Elliott.

"I looked at the Daily Review about three years ago, maybe eight or nine months after we opened," Elliott tells CultureMap, but he couldn't agree on terms with the landlord. "I can't justify a lease for an insane amount of money. I think at the time it expired in 2020. What happens after the five years we've been open and people want to get out or whatever?"

Elliott thinks 2014 is the year when he'll renew his efforts to open a location in the Bayou City. "I've just been talking to people and want to be open by this time next year . . . Time to get pen to paper and really make it work."

Although he hasn't narrowed down his prospects to any specific spaces, Elliott knows he wants to be inside the Loop. Although he says he's proud that his restaurant and places like The Tigress Pub and Drink.Well helped bring people into the restaurant's neighborhood in North Austin, "we’re perceived as being off the beaten path. For myself, I don’t really want to do that again . . . The location has to be spectacular."

Still, when the right opportunity presents itself, Elliott would like to be part of the Houston scene. "I fell in love with Houston. I like the energy. It feels right," he says. "I think the restaurant scene there is awesome. It’s really awesome to see it grow. It’s such an enormous city that I think it’s still underserved with great quality, chef-driven restaurants."

Austin mainstay Uchi has prospered at its Houston location, and other Austin-based concepts as Torchy's Tacos, Plucker’s Wing Bar and Freebirds World Burrito have successfully expanded to the Bayou City. As CultureMap previously reported, Doc's Motorworks is current building a Houston outpost on the Westheimer Strip.

Foreign & Domestic chef owner Ned Elliott wants to open a second location of the Austin restaurant in Houston next year.

Ned Elliott Meatopia in San Antonio November 2013 Austin chef

Photo by Eric Sandler

Foreign & Domestic chef owner Ned Elliott wants to open a second location of the Austin restaurant in Houston next year.

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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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