New Galleria Restaurant

Romantic restaurant taking over the high-profile Gigi's spot in The Galleria: Are you ready to eat in a tree?

Peli Peli, a South African restaurant in Vintage Park, is taking over the former Gigi's Asian Bistro space in The Galleria. Over its five year history, the restaurant has become one of the most popular destinations in Northwest Houston, consistently winning online polls for its romantic atmosphere and inventive cuisine.

"We’ve been trying to get inside the Loop for almost two years," general manager and co-owner Thomas Nguyen tells CultureMap. "The problem we’ve had is no one knows who we are. I don’t blame them. We’re out in the suburbs."

Nguyen, chef/owner Paul Friedman and partner Michael Tran have come close on spaces on Washington Ave and at Gateway Memorial City, but they couldn't strike a deal. "I’m used to hearing that I’m a finalist for a spot, and we haven’t been the victor until today," Nguyen says.

Diners will have the experience of feeling as though they're sitting in the tree during their meal.

Thankfully, a real estate agent convinced a Simon Mall executive to try Peli Peli for lunch. "He loved it. He thought that was the fresh energy that the Galleria needed, and I’m so thankful for that," Nguyen says.

Eager to get a jump on the remodeling project, the restaurant retained an architect before finalizing the lease. If the deal had fallen through, "We would have been out 10 or 15 grand. We just felt like it was a risk we had to take," Nguyen explains, but the head start puts them on track to be open for the busy Christmas shopping season, pending the usual caveats about permitting and construction delays.

The plan calls for two of the Vintage Park location's signature Acacia trees — one in the dining room and one in the bar. Diners will have the experience of feeling as though they're sitting in the tree during their meal.

In terms of the food, Nguyen says Friedman knows he needs to up the "wow factor" to impress The Galleria crowd. "We’re going to come out with more items that are unique and specific to South Africa. We’re going to go through a lot of test tasting to see what we can do," Nguyen says. "I really want to surprise people."

Friedman will spend 90-percent of his time at the new location, but Vintage Park regulars shouldn't worry about the quality dipping in his absence. Nguyen says he and Friedman have been monitoring how the chefs perform without Friedman on the line for the last two years. "We’re confident they’ll be able to maintain the standards we’re used to, and Paul will oversee the team at The Galleria," Nguyen says.

Nguyen compares going from Vintage Park to The Galleria to a college football player going to the NFL. "If I’m really going to be a restaurateur, I need to be with the best of the best. I want to know if our food is able to compete with the best that Houston has to offer," he says.

"We have a lot of work to do in the next six months. It’ll be interesting to see what happens."

Chef Paul Friedman will bring his South African restaurant Peli Peli to the Galleria later this year.

Courtesy photo

Chef Paul Friedman will bring his South African restaurant Peli Peli to the Galleria later this year.

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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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