A Night To Remember

Paying $12,000 for a Titanic dinner that suspends you in air? H-Town's all in ondoomed ship fever

Suspended high above the restaurant's dining room, the Macy's Table adds a wholenew level of opulence to the Titanic's renowned luxury.
First-class dining, as reimaged on the cover of the 1997 bestseller Last Meal onthe Titanic.
Last Dinner on the Titanic
Grab a seat at the Macy's Table at Cullen's for a $12K recreation of the finalfirst-class dinner on the Titanic.
Cullen's executive chef Paul Lewis
Cullen's Upscale American Grille wil offer its Titanic Experience dinner untilearly September.

Houston is in the grips of Titanic fever this week, with Saturday marking the official 100th anniversary of the mighty ocean liner's demise in the chilly North Atlantic.

While area history buffs can explore the world's most infamous shipwreck with the 3D re-release of James Cameron's beloved 1997 film or the Houston Museum of Natural Science's Titanic: The Artifact Exhibition, this is the week for the most macabre-slash-entertaining Titanic history lessons of all . . . recreating the final meal served to first-class passengers the night of April 14, 1912.

Perhaps the most high-profile Titanic dinner in Houston is the 10-course meal at Cullen's Upscale American Grill, which has garnered national attention not only for its $12,000 price tag (for a table of 12), but also for its setting in a private dining area dramatically suspended high above the restaurant's main dining room.

"There's this fascination with the notion of getting invited to the lord's house or being asked to a first-class dinner on a luxury liner like t he Titanic," said Cullen's executive chef Paul Lewis.

On Saturday, radio station News 92 FM will host the inaugural dinner, with more being offered through early September. For each meal, $1,000 of the $12,000 price tag will be donated to the Houston Museum of Natural Science.

"People are interested in these lavish traditions from the past," Cullen executive chef Paul Lewis tells CultureMap, noting the popularity of period television shows like Downton Abbey. "There's this fascination with the notion of getting invited to the lord's house or being asked to a first-class dinner on a luxury liner like the Titanic."

Lewis laughs, noting this is the most historical meal in his decades-long career. "The whole idea seemed crazy at first, but we started researching the dinner and found the meal's incredibly well-documented," he says. "We put our own spin on it based on what we do in kitchens today."

While many dishes like Oysters a la Russe, Consommé Olga and Chicken in Sauce Lyonnaise have varied little in the past century, portions have been scaled down for modern diners and presentation has been somewhat altered. Cullen's general manager Ryan Roberts told CultureMap that guests also can expect top-notch service at the Titanic meal, with elaborate place settings and wait staff serving food directly onto the plates.

Across town and at home

Cullen's is only one of many Titanic-themed dinner parties in Houston this week though. The Museum of Natural Science had its own popular (and considerably less expensive) multi-course recreation of the last first-class menu at Charivari on Wednesday.

Thanks to books like The Last Dinner on the Titanic, recipes and menus from the infamous meal are widely available for those interested in taking historic dining by the horns.

CultureMap's own Clifford Pugh, for example, will be attending a private in-house "last meal" with particularly authentic atmosphere on Saturday. For the event, host Mark Hanna has asked guests to wear Edwardian formal garb with each guest getting assigned a real-life Titanic passenger on the party invitation. At the end of the evening, the true fate of each character will be revealed.

"I researched at least 75 people in first through third class," Hanna says. "I tried to match every guest to an original passenger with a similar background."

"I researched at least 75 people in first through third class," Titanic party host Mark Hanna says. "I tried to match every gue st to an original passenger with a similar background."

To help with the onslaught of courses and massive amount of tableware — each guest will go through 14 separate utensils, seven glasses and 10 plates — the host has hired three servers and a cook. That's in addition to the group of musicians paid to play throughout the night.

"I very well may be living under a bridge after this," Hanna laughs. "Luckily, I hired a photographer so people will believe me when I tell them I've lost my home because of a Titanic dinner party."

When he heard that a wine list for the final meal that fateful evening had never been discovered, former Houston Chronicle wine writer Michael Lonsford decided to take matters into his own hands and create a special pairing for each course for his own Titanic party.

"For almost half a decade, I've been planning this dinner," he says. "I've spent the past three years acquiring the right wines and even have a bottle of Madeira from 1912. One of my guests has been kind enough to donate a 1912 bottle of Chateau Lafite, which is pretty close to something the passengers may have had that night."

As far as food is concerned, Lonsford said he has managed to avoid hiring extra servers and cooks by having his guests bring and serve a specific course — not a bad way to offset the cost of a 100-year-old bottle of wine.

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Chris Cusack explains

Houston bar owner speaks out about surprise arrest for health code violations

Photo by Sergio Trevino

Chris Cusack owns two locations of Betelgeuse Betelgeuse.

Certainly one of the most unusual interactions between a restaurant and City of Houston officials took place on Wednesday, May 6 when Betelgeuse Betelgeuse owner Chris Cusack was arrested for health code violations at his location on Washington Avenue.

News of the arrest spread quickly across social media over the weekend. Now, Cusack is ready to tell his side of the story.

Cusack, whose time operating restaurants in Houston goes back more than 15 years to Down House and its affiliated restaurants such as Hunky Dory and D&T Drive Inn, tells CultureMap the problem began on Monday, May 4 when a health department inspector came to Betelgeuse Betelgeuse and asked to see the restaurant’s grease trap.

The only problem is that location has never had a grease trap. Prior to becoming Betelgeuse Betelgeuse, it was Liberty Station, a pioneering bar in Houston’s craft beer and craft cocktail scenes. In the early days, Betelgeuse served food from a food truck. More recently, it prepares its food next door at The Bell and Crane. Cusack acknowledges he didn’t share this information with the inspector.

“Usually I’m a charmer with the health department, but I was a little defensive. She kept asking me. I said, ‘ma’am, we don’t make food here,’” he explains. “The tone wasn’t my finest moment, but there was no name calling or anything like that. She said, ‘where does the food come from?’ I said, ‘it doesn’t matter where it comes from. It’s produced in a commercial kitchen.’”

Cusack says he knew there would be a follow up, but he was shocked when the inspector returned two days later with more colleagues from the health department, TABC inspectors, and Houston Police Department officers.

“I got somewhere between 21 and 25 citations,” Cusack says about the return visit. He got dinged for everything from graffiti in the bathroom to a missing Harris County tax stamp on the photo booth he leases from a vendor (it has both State of Texas and City of Houston stamps, Cusack says).

One inspector told Cusack he needed a food dealer’s permit. He showed the inspector that a food dealer’s permit had been issued for the restaurant's address under the former food truck’s LLC but not to the LLC that operates Betelgeuse Betelgeuse. Cusack says he had renewed the food truck’s permit in March, but that wasn’t good enough for the inspector. In Cusack’s telling, he was arrested for not having the permit, since it was also flagged as missing in an inspection from October 2025. He's the only person he knows who has ever been arrested for a misdemeanor violation of the health code.

Cusack says he spent 21 hours in the Harris County Jail. When he got out, he says he was contacted by a more senior official within the Health Department. Once Cusack confirmed he owned both LLCs, he was told he could reopen. Both locations of Betelgeuse Betelgeuse have been operating normally since Friday, May 8.

Cusack maintains he never knew about the October 2025 inspection, which is why he renewed the food dealer’s permit for the food truck’s LLC rather than applying for one under Betelgeuse Betelgeuse’s LLC. “There’s no paper trail that shows I was given this information,” he says. “I did not get the email [from the Health Department].”

As for why things got so out of hand, Cusack theorizes he was a victim of Houston Mayor John Whitemire’s crack down on “reckless behavior” on Washington Avenue and stepped up enforcement on bars generally that led to the temporary closure of near northside cocktail bar Rabbit’s Got the Gun.

Cusack says he’s a “huge supporter” of efforts to reduce crimes like street racing, drug dealing, and sex trafficking along Washington and in its surrounding neighborhoods. Still, he feels targeting by the city for being impolite to a health inspector.

He plans to fight both the arrest and the citations in court. “I want the charges dropped, and I want it expunged completely from my record. That’s the first thing, and I’m going to try very hard to do it,” he says.

“That’s going to end up costing thousands of dollars just to deal with the sheer volume,” he adds.

CultureMap contacted Mayor Whitmire’s office. A representative said the mayor was not aware of the situation and has no comment on an open investigation.

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