HRW 2022

Houston Restaurant Weeks serves up 2022 dates and new prices

Traveler's Table was among last year's top donating restaurants.

Photo by TK Images

Houston's most popular charity dining event has revealed its dates for 2022. Houston Restaurant Weeks will follow its usual schedule of running from August 1 through Labor Day weekend (Monday, September 5), which means Houstonians will have 36 days to dine out and do good.

Founded by media personality Cleverley Stone, Houston Restaurant Weeks offers diners two-, three-, and four-course prix fixe menus at set price points for brunch, lunch, and dinner. Over 200 restaurants from across the Houston area participate in the event, which raises money for the Houston Food Bank. Stone, who passed away in 2020 after a lengthy battle with cancer, liked to characterize Houston Restaurant Weeks as a "win, win, win" for customers, businesses, and the non-profit. Diners get a good meal at a discounted price. Restaurants turned a historically slow time of year into a busy one, and the food bank receives much-needed funds to aid needy Houstonians.

Now administered by Stone's daughter, Katie Stone Cappuccio under the auspices of the non-profit Cleverley Stone Foundation, HRW has announced new price points for its prix fixe menus. Instead of last year's $35 and $49 dinner menus and $20 lunch and brunch menus, diners will have the options of $39 and $55 dinners and $25 for lunch or brunch. Restaurants will donate $1 more to the Houston Food Bank at each price point than they did in 2021: $2 per $25 meal, $4 per $39 meal, and $6 per $55. The price increases reflect the higher costs restaurateurs are paying for labor and ingredients than in prior years, according to a release.

“The past couple of years have been extremely difficult for the restaurant industry, impacted by the pandemic, supply chain, labor issues, and the rising cost of food and packaging,” Stone Cappuccio said in a statement. “Surely the most difficult time for restaurants, employees, and the Houston Food Bank. We are hopeful that demand for dining and a return to normalcy will have Houstonians dining out and doing good this summer."

As always, an initial list of participants will go live on the Houston Restaurant Weeks website on July 15. More will be added prior to August 1. Last year, the top donating restaurants including B&B Butchers, Brennan's of Houston, Eddie V's, and Traveler's Table. Restaurants interested in participating may contact Stone Cappuccio via email at katie@cleverley.com.

Held during the Delta wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, HRW raised $933,820 in 2021. Overall, the event has contributed $17.6 million to the food bank since 2003.

Along with new price points, Houston Restaurant Weeks also announced that Houston-based construction firm Tellepsen will be one of the event's sponsors. The firm is a longtime supporter of the Houston Food Bank.

“For 113 years, Tellepsen has had a responsibility to give back to the community that has given us so much,” Tellepsen CEO Tadd Tellepsen said. “We exist to build projects of significance that positively impact the community. The Houston Food Bank is one of the highest impact organizations in the community. When the opportunity arose to help support them through a partnership with Houston Restaurant Weeks, we were all in. We wanted to recognize the importance of the work done by the Houston Food Bank and The Cleverley Stone Foundation.”

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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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