Rising Star Chefs of the Year

These 11 rising star chefs truly shine in Houston's dynamic dining scene

Presenting the nominees for the CultureMap Tastemaker Awards Rising Star Chef of the Year. As selected by our panel of restaurant industry experts, these are the culinary minds to watch in the future.

Collectively, these 11 nominees represent a diverse array of influences, experiences, and culinary perspectives, but they are united by a relentless spirit of creativity that’s pushing Houston’s dining scene forward. Fittingly for a city as diverse as Houston, their work covers genres that range from barbecue and burgers to elevated tasting menus.

Look for them at their restaurants; most importantly, try their food. The results of their work speak for themselves.

Who will win? Find out July 22 at the Tastemaker Awards party. We’ll dine on bites from this year’s nominated restaurants before emcee Bun B reveals the winners. Buy tickets now.

AJ Ede - Brasil
Brasil has been a Montrose staple for close to 30 years, but it’s never exactly been known as a food destination — until chef Ede took over the kitchen. A veteran of some famous New York kitchens (he doesn’t like to name drop them), Ede knows that even casual food benefits from good ingredients and precise technique, as in his Cheeseburger in Paradise that lifts up a double cheeseburger with 44 Farms beef and a housemade jalapeno sauce or the weekly specials that utilize seasonal produce. Beyond the dishes he creates, Ede also serves as a mentor for Brasil’s cooks, teaching them the skills they’ll need to further their careers.

Benchawan Painter - Street to Kitchen
After working at Salt Air Seafood Kitchen and Theodore Rex, chef Benchawan Painter turned the following she developed with pop-up dinners and a weekly presence at the Urban Harvest Farmers Market into a well-regarded new restaurant in the East End. Known to friends and diners as "Chef G," her “unapologetically Thai” dishes blend family recipes with carefully selected local ingredients, as in Thai krapow basil from local urban farm Plant It Forward. Street to Kitchen’s recent launch of dine-in service should allow Painter to showcase even more of her talents.

Chase Voelz - Bludorn
One of the reasons Bludorn has been such a smash hit since day one is its rock solid consistency, which is a testament to the skills and discipline of both chef-owner Aaron Bludorn and chef de cuisine Chase Voelz. After working for chef Bludorn at New York’s acclaimed Cafe Boulud, Voelz spent time at Roister in Chicago where he learned the techniques necessary to prepare the prime rib that has become one of Bludorn’s must-order specials. As chef Bludon begins to travel to culinary events, count on Voelz to serve as the steady hand who keeps the kitchen operating smoothly.

Christine Ha & Tony Nguyen - Xin Chao
Having established their reputations separately — Nguyen at Viet-Cajun restaurant Saigon House and Ha as a Masterchef winner and James Beard Award nominee for The Blind Goat — the two chefs teamed to create one of 2020’s most exciting new restaurants. Xin Chao mixes traditional Vietnamese flavors with Texas touches in dishes such as bo luc lac with American wagyu beef, smoked duck salad, and flat rice noodles paired with smoked beef rib. Recent additions like soft shell crab with tamarind gastrique demonstrate that this dynamic duo is just getting started.

Cuc Lam - Yelo
"The only person I would consider is Cuc Lam," her business partner Alex Au-Yeung said when they announced Yelo last year. "If she wouldn’t do it, I wouldn’t do it."

Clearly, Au-Yeung knows how to pick a collaborator — just ask all the people flocking to Katy to sample Lam’s creative banh mi. The chef nails both the classic varieties and puts her own spin on the form with new tastes like the "Pho-Rench Dip" with pho vegetables and dipping sauce and an innovative take on Vietnamese meatballs (xiu mai) that carry the flavors of Chinese BBQ.

Jordan Economy - Dak & Bop
From fine dining to food trucks, this chef has worked at just about every class of restaurant, but Economy seems to have found a home at this Korean restaurant. Working in collaboration with owner Jason Cho, Economy’s kitchen turns out creative mashups that blend Southern, Italian, Korean, and other flavors to create dishes such as a bulgogi French dip, smoked kimchi fried rice, and a Nashville hot tofu sammy. Economy will take another step forward later this year when Cho and his business partners open Karne, a modern take on a Korean steakhouse.

Michelle Wallace - Gatlin's BBQ
If Wallace had done nothing else than create the smoked seafood gumbo that occasionally shows up on the Gatlin’s menu, it would have been enough to earn this nomination. Add in the restaurant’s creative sandwiches, first weekend catfish specials, and other innovative fare, and it’s easy to see why her culinary partnership with Gatlin’s pitmaster-owner Greg Gatlin is generating so much buzz. As the Gatlin’s brand grows beyond barbecue, Wallace will have an even more essential role to play.

Niki Vongthong - Hidden Omakase
The talented chef started turning heads during stints at Uchi and Aqui, but she really came into her own over the past year. Her Sen pop-up — named for the word that means “noodles” in Thai and Lao — showcased her ability to create traditional Thai dishes like boat noodles and larb, fitting for a member of the family that established legendary Houston restaurant Asia Market. Vongthong took over the kitchen at Hidden Omakase in March, where she’s been hosting sold out seatings for 12-plus course tastings that bring all of her influences together.

Peter Nguyen - Riel
After working for some of the best chefs in Boston, Nguyen is making his mark on Ryan Lachaine’s Montrose restaurant. The chef is responsible for some of the menu’s most exciting new dishes like the honey walnut crawfish that puts a Texas spin on the Cantonese classic. Nguyen’s steady presence in the kitchen also allows Lachaine to supervise his restaurant at the Virgin Hotels Nashville with the confidence that Riel is in good hands.

Travis McShane - Ostia
The Kingwood native spent 10 years working for celebrity chef Jonathan Waxman in New York and Nashville before coming home to open his first solo project. At Ostia, McShane showcases the Mediterranean flavors he loves — including his version of Waxman’s celebrated roast chicken with salsa verde — made with ingredients that speak to the season. McShane’s homecoming has been a smash hit, and we can’t wait to see what he does next.

Christine Ha and Tony Nguyen - Xin Chao.

Photo by John Suh/Xin Chao

Christine Ha and Tony Nguyen - Xin Chao.

tastemakers

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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