h-town bound
Star chef bolts New York City and plots new Houston restaurant
A talented chef is bringing his Michelin-star resume to Houston from New York. Aaron Bludorn announced that he's leaving his position to as executive chef at Café Boulud to open a restaurant in Houston.
Bludorn tells CultureMap that the new restaurant will be "a modern French-American restaurant in a polished and charismatic setting." The chef added that he's targeting 2020 for the opening but is keeping details such as the name and location under wraps for now.
Superstar chef Daniel Boulud paid tribute to Bludorn in an Instagram post of his own, writing "I’m so proud of how he has grown into his position with focus, ambition and confidence, always keeping a positive attitude, and with incredible respect to me, our team at Café, and our community for whom he participated in many fundraising events."
Considering his professional experience includes 10 years working at Café Boulud for superstar chef Daniel Boulud — including six as executive chef — that's reason enough for excitement, but his wife, Victoria Pappas Bludorn, brings significant experience to the project, too.
In addition to being the daughter of Pappas Restaurants co-owner Chris Pappas, she worked as an "operations assistant at the Dinex Group, which is the New York management company for the restaurants of Daniel Boulud," according to the couple's wedding announcement in the New York Times. Just to be clear, the restaurant won't be affiliated with Pappas Restaurants, per a representative, but it certainly can't hurt to have grown up in such a successful family.
Reality TV watchers may recognize Bludorn's name from his time on Netflix's cooking competition show The Final Table. Paired with Scottish chef Graham Campbell, the chef demonstrated an ability to blend French technique with a number of international cuisines. In the Japan episode, Yoshihiro Narisawa called Bludorn's uni panna cotta "perfect" but eliminated the duo for making the portion too large.
Needless to say, Houstonians are unlikely to complain about "too much" uni. They'll certainly want to keep their eyes on Bludorn's progress as he moves toward opening his Houston restaurant.
