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    Major Chef Return

    He's back! Buzzed-over chef Randy Rucker finally returns with a new restaurant — and the lease is signed

    Eric Sandler
    Jun 10, 2014 | 3:57 pm

    Randy Rucker is back. Two years after abandoning his plans to open a restaurant called conāt in the Museum District, the chef, who's known for his extensive use of locally raised and foraged ingredients, has emerged with plans to open a restaurant called Bramble in the former Mancuso's Italian Table space on Voss.

     

    While skeptics will say they've heard this before, Rucker, along with business partners Eoghan Dillman and Thomas J. Holmes, III, have a lease on the space. Remodeling begins this week with design work by Collaborative Projects, the firm that's currently finishing up both Julep and the Bernie's Burger Bus brick and mortar restaurant spaces. Together, the partners expect Bramble to open this fall.

     

     

      Despite the time away, the man's cooking still attracts a crowd, as evidenced by the 40-plus people who attended a six course pop-up. 

     
     

    Why now? Rucker tells CultureMap that he hadn't been inspired to cook professionally for over a year, but things have changed now that he's older and has found business partners who can fully support his vision for a restaurant.

     

    Despite the time away, the man's cooking still attracts a crowd, as evidenced by the 40-plus people who attended a six course pop-up dinner Friday night. Hubcap Grill owner Ricky Craig, Triniti chef/owner Ryan Hildebrand, pastry chef Plinio Sandalio and former Hawthorn chef Riccardo Palazzo-Giorgio were among the restaurant industry veterans who attended the dinner to see what Rucker's future holds.

     

    While Rucker tends to avoid characterizing his cuisine as being of any one style, he did offer diners a perspective on Bramble's ethos after the meal.

     

     

    The whole idea of what we’re trying to do here is reconnect y’all to your native reality.

     

    We want to show you what true luxury is. True luxury to us or to me as a restaurant is nothing you can put a price on. Anyone can go to a store and buy caviar or truffles or foie gras. . . . That’s not true luxury. To me, what luxury is white tail deer or certain things we have that are ours. . . . Blue crab, that’s what luxury is.

     

    Money is what it is. If you want to spend it, I’ll take it. But true luxury to me and hopefully to the guys is what’s ours. Our mushrooms we grow here, our wild edibles, our farmers, our ranchers.

     
     

    And yet, for Rucker's talk, Friday's meal didn't feel like a very luxurious experience, at least in the traditional sense. For example, only half the six courses were served individually. The rest were delivered on shared plates that guests had to split.

     

    The Facebook event page promised pre-dinner snacks that never appeared. For $65 per person, surely Rucker could have prepared enough food to feed everyone.

     

    Also, it seemed that each dish didn't receive the same level of attention in preparation. On the one hand, the final dish of cocks combs with Mung beans is exactly the sort of dish that demonstrates Rucker at his best — an unusual ingredient, prepared well, that delivered a rich flavor that made the gelatinous texture intriguing rather than unpleasant. A dish of raw beef was chewy but flavorful thanks to shiso peppers and a mysterious powder made from dehydrated goose.

     

    On the other, the fifth course of cured and grilled pig liver was undercooked for my portion and flat out cold for a friend's. The metallic flavor of liver can be a tough sell for even the most adventurous diner, and it becomes totally inedible when not cooked properly. And yet, another diner told me he devoured his entire portion.

     

    Similar lack of execution plagued a dish of "biscuits" with housemade buttermilk cheese curds and local honey. The flavors came together beautifully, but the biscuits never rose properly and were served as thin, pita-like strips. If Rucker had called his toasted yeast creations "dumplings" instead of "gnocchi," it might have been OK, but they were too gummy to match my expectations for Italian potato dumplings that are usually soft.

     

    After the meal, Rucker described the event as a "party," which make explain his lackadaisical attitude towards getting all the details right. After all, when would-be restaurants like Mangiamaccheroni or The Bull & The Pearl host a pop-up, it serves as both a meal and an audition for future investors. Rucker's financing is secure, and, if Friday night's turnout is any indication, his reputation among diners is still just as safe even after a two-year hiatus.

     

    Hopefully, he's able to bring the full force of his talent to Bramble, but, until it's open and consistent, a healthy dose of skepticism seems warranted.

     

    Randy Rucker working in a kitchen won't be a rare sight when Bramble opens this fall.

    Randy Rucker Bramble pop-up dinner June 2014
      
    Photo by Eric Sandler
    Randy Rucker working in a kitchen won't be a rare sight when Bramble opens this fall.
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    roll out

    Self-taught chef slices into Houston with high-quality sushi to go

    Eric Sandler
    Jul 17, 2025 | 5:57 pm
    Kaisen Sushi Houston nigiri
    Courtesy of Kaisen Sushi Houston
    Each order of nigiri comes with a house made sushi sauce.

    The ghost kitchen phenomenon may have diminished somewhat since the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic, but the idea of a delivery and to-go-only restaurant still draws talented chefs who want to focus on food at a lower overhead than a traditional brick-and-mortar. One of those chefs is Sunny Bertsch, whose restaurant Kaisen Sushi Houston is already drawing buzz from inner loopers looking for a more affordable, at-home sushi experience.

    Located at the Blodgett Food Hall in Third Ward, Kaisen Sushi serves typical nigiri, maki, and temaki (hand rolls), along with a steak bowl. Prices are a little lower than what someone would find at a typical sushi restaurant, with an eight-piece nigiri set priced at $18.99 when ordered through the Blodgett Food Hall website (expect to pay more if ordering via a third-party delivery service such as Uber Eats or DoorDash).

    While Bertsch’s food may be familiar, his story is not. The diners who’ve rated Kaisen with 4.9 stars on Google may be surprised to learn that he’s only been cooking professionally for two years. As Bertsch tells CultureMap, prior to becoming a professional chef, he worked in fields as varied as aerospace and dog walking.

    “I’d always been interested in cooking,” he says. “I was blessed to be born into a great Korean American family. My dad and my grandparents always cooked great food. I learned by osmosis.”

    Bertsch began his career as a private chef by working for friends. He built his business by catering lunches to powerhouse law firm Vinson & Elkins. Eventually, his clients asked for private sushi dinners, and he had to figure things out.

    “I got an opportunity to do a sushi omakase. It was brutal. It was messy. But I knew once I did that, I wanted to dedicate my life to sushi,” he says. “Since then, I have studied and practiced. I threw a lot of money and time and fish at it.”

    Bertsch improved his speed and knife skills by taking a $13-per-hour job at Japanese grocery store Seiwa Market. While there, he says he made thousands of pieces of nigiri, rolls, and sushi bowls. That experience, along with meals from similar to-go-only concepts in New York and San Francisco, convinced him to open Kaisen as a ghost kitchen.

    “So far, I’ve spent $90,000. That’s more than the average investment for a food hall kitchen,” Bertsch explains. “I’m a clean freak. I’m a technology freak. I’m an authenticity freak. I outfitted my kitchen in the way I thought was necessary for long-term success.”

    Just as he spared no expense in specing out his kitchen, Bertsch puts thoughtful touches into his food, too. For example, every order of nigiri comes with a dipping sauce Bertsch makes himself from low sodium soy sauce, kombu, vinegar, and sake.

    “It’s a complex sauce that’s less salty and tastes good,” he says. “You know when you don’t have it and you’re given cheap soy sauce.”

    Similarly, his California rolls use imitation crab (as do most restaurants), but it’s seasoned with a housemade, Japanese-style kewpie mayo, freshly squeezed lemon juice, and sesame oil for more umami and less sweetness. Since the chef uses more crab mix than other restaurants do in their rolls, Kaisen’s California roll not only tastes better — at $11.99, it’s a better value, too.

    The chef showcases Japanese techniques and Korean influences with his $25 steak bowl. A USDA Choice ribeye or strip is cooked sous vide with a marinade made from garlic, tamari, and seasoning salt. Once a diner orders the entree, the steak is seared in a pan, basted with Kerrygold butter, seasoned with furikake and sesame oil, and served with short-grain sushi rice and microgreens from local farm Zero Point Organics.

    Word of mouth has been building. Even though it’s only been open for a month, Kaisen already has over 2,000 followers on Instagram. Once he’s able to hire a full roster of cooks, Bertsch plans to expand the menu and offer lunch service. Despite some challenges, he’s pleased with the restaurant’s progress.

    “The support I've gotten on social media has blown me away,” he says. “It’s been amazing. I could not have done it without Instagram. It blows my mind.”

    Kaisen Sushi Houston nigiri
      

    Courtesy of Kaisen Sushi Houston

    Each order of nigiri comes with a house made sushi sauce.

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