Pop-Up Wrap Up

Mexican celebrity chef's fantastic pop-up benefit leaves Houston fans wanting more

Friday night provided a culinary event that Houston’s dining community will be talking about for months. Celebrity chef Enrique Olvera — the only chef in the world with two restaurants, Pujol in Mexico City and Cosme in New York, on the prestigious World’s 50 Best list and part of the elite group of culinary talent featured in Netflix's Chef's Table documentary series — hosted a pop-up to benefit Big Brothers Big Sisters.

Cosme chef de cuisine Daniela Soto-Innes, who won the James Beard Rising Star Chef of the Year award in 2016, and Pujol chef de cuisine Alex Bremont joined Olvera at the event. Together with chefs from Cosme, a couple of local ringers, and a group of volunteers organized by the Aces of Taste pop-up series, the team served four tostadas to a sold out crowd of 300 diners: black seafood aguachile with yams and red onion; mussels and chorizo; scallop with jicama, avocado, and nuts; and an apple-ginger tostada with a brown butter crumble.

Bremont and Soto-Innes gave the event a homecoming atmosphere, as they have both worked in Houston before moving on to their high profile roles. Soto-Innes’s resume includes stints at Brennan’s, Triniti, and Underbelly, while Bremont worked with Andes Cafe chef-owner David Guerrero at Alma in the Energy Corridor and with Justin Yu at Oxheart.

Soto-Innes told CultureMap that she thought it was Olvera’s first trip to Houston, but it turns out he had been here once before. “I was here 30 years ago to see an Astros game,” Olvera said. “It was sixth grade. I remember because I got in an accident, and my leg was in a cast.”

It was their influence, and that of Adam Goldberg, the writer and photographer behind the popular A Life Worth Eating blog (and a must-follow on Instagram for anyone who’s passionate about food) who convinced Olvera to come to Houston for Friday’s event.

“I’ve always thought that Adam is a good person,” Olvera said. “He has a good sense of importance, and that’s why we’re here.”

According to one of the organizers, Soto-Innes and her team flew in over 100 pounds of ingredients from New York to create the dishes for the event.

“How we do it is we try to use local ingredients with dry ingredients from Mexico like corn, chiles, beans,” Soto-Innes told CultureMap. “Most of all we want people to have a lot of fun and create a really friendly ambiance.”

Tequila cocktails created by Julep owner Alba Huerta to pair with each course certainly helped create the friendly atmosphere. The event attracted a who’s who of Houston’s culinary community, highlighted by Hugo Ortega, Tracy Vaught, and Ruben Ortega. The newly minted James Beard award winner accepted a steady stream of congratulations from the crowd throughout the evening.

Others who attended the event included Killen’s Steakhouse executive chef Joe Cervantez, Gringo’s owner Russell Ybarra, chef Mark Cox, BB’s Cafe owners Maricela and Brooks Bassler, The Pit Room owner Michael Sambrooks with executive chef Bramwell Tripp, and Aqui chef de cuisine Gabriel Medina.

Judging by the reaction, Houston diners would like to see more of Olvera’s cuisine, and the chef said he would return for more pop-ups in the future. Unfortunately for Houston, he told CultureMap that constraints on his time mean the location of Cosme he plans to open in Los Angeles that will likely be his last new restaurant.

“I don’t want to become a restaurant empire. We’re almost there now,” Olvera said. “LA will be our tenth restaurant. I’m happy with that. I feel like I can see most of them.”

However, we could still see Olvera’s influence in Houston sometime in the future.

“Maybe Daniela,” Olvera said. “She’s young, too. She’s 14 years younger than I am. She still has a lot of drive. Maybe not me, but her. Together. She loves it here.”

Hopefully the restaurants she dined at during her visit, including Kata Robata, Himalaya, Underbelly, Uchi, The Pit Room, and a couple of Vietnamese restaurants, leave Soto-Innes longing to come back to Houston soon. Between the tostadas and the corn meringue she served Sunday night at the Big Brothers Big Sisters Big Taste fundraiser, she created a demand for her and Olvera’s distinctive take on Mexican cuisine that’s not likely to be sated without a dedicated outpost.

Alex Bremont, Daniela Soto-Innes, Enrique Olvera

Photo by Eric Sandler

Alex Bremont, Daniela Soto-Innes, Enrique Olvera

chefs

Houston's smallest restaurant?

Michelin-recognized Houston sushi chef fires up 4-seat Japanese skewer spot

Courtesy of Sip & Skewer

Diners sit in front of chefs cooking on a grill.

The team behind one of Houston’s Michelin-recognized sushi restaurants is opening an intimate new izakaya. Sip & Skewer is the newest concept from Hidden Omakase owner Tuan Tran and chef Marcos Juarez.

Opening Friday, February 13, Sip & Skewer is a four-seat restaurant devoted to skewered meats that’s located within Sushi by Hidden, the group’s affordable omakase restaurant in Rice Village. At Sip & Skewer, diners sit across from the chefs as they cook a 10-course, $90 meal on a Japanese binchotan grill.

“Sip & Skewer is small, loud, and intentional. The kind of hidden experience you’d find in Tokyo,” Tran said. “And with Chef Marcos guiding the team at Sushi by Hidden, this space is getting new energy from every angle.”

A four-seat restaurant within a 10-seat restaurant might seem kind of superfluous, but Tran explains that it’s part of a larger plan for his group of restaurants, which also includes West U. hand roll restaurant Norigami. It also builds on the success of Hidden Omakase, the Galleria-area sushi counter that earned a Recommended designation in the Michelin Guide.

“Sip & Skewer is part of a larger vision. It’s designed as a stepping stone toward our next concept, Kōri, a new hand roll and craft cocktail bar opening in the Heights. Our plan is to open Sip & Skewer directly next to our hand roll spot, creating a small alley of Japanese concepts that feed into one another,” Tran explains.

“This allows us to build awareness, train our team in a new format, and introduce guests to Japanese charcoal grilling in a very personal way before we scale the idea into a larger setting with Kōri. The four-seat format keeps overhead extremely low while serving as a live test kitchen and brand builder for what’s coming next,” he adds.

On a related note, Juarez and the other chefs at Hidden Omakase are dividing their time between all three restaurants. Tuam explains that it’s a deliberate strategy to ensure a consistent customer experience.

“The same team that works Michelin-recognized omakase service also runs the grill here, which keeps quality and execution consistent while allowing the chefs a creative outlet in a very different format,” Tran said. “Because Sip & Skewer is only four seats and reservations only, it does not require a dedicated full-time staff. It’s an extension of the team rather than a separate operation.”