Top Restaurants

Only one Houston restaurant makes magazine's list of Top 30 in the South

According to Southern Living, Underbelly is one of the South's 30 best restaurants.

Photo by Julie Soefer

Underbelly, the Montrose restaurant from James Beard Award winner Chris Shepherd with the stated mission to tell "the story of Houston food," may be three years old, but it's still racking up acclaim.

On Tuesday, Southern Living magazine named it as one of the South's 30 best restaurants. The restaurant is the only Houston establishment to make the list and one of only three from Texas.

By now, Houstonians are probably well aware of the reasons that Southern Living cited in awarding Underbelly earned its spot. The magazine mentions both the restaurant's in-house butchery program and the way Shepherd used a trip to Vietnam in January to enhance his menu. That sort of commitment to innovation apparently impressed the judging panel, which included high profile chefs like Charleston's Sean Brock, Donald Link of New Orleans, and Billy Allin from Georgia.

While it seems obvious that the magazine would include a restaurant that's as celebrated as Underbelly on a list like this, lots of similarly high profile establishments didn't make the cut. Indeed, many of the other restaurants are even newer than Underbelly is. Rather than Qui, Odd Duck or Uchi, Austin's representative is Launderette, the eclectic neighborhood restaurant from chefs Rene Ortiz and Laura Sawicki that opened in February. Similarly, the John Besh empire's work in New Orleans is represented by Shaya, the white-hot modern Israeli restaurant instead of more established locations like Domenica or Restaurant August that also opened this year.

Cured, the San Antonio restaurant from chef Steve McHugh that features an extensive array of cured and pickled items, rounds out the Texas members of the list. Houstonians will have an opportunity to sample the cuisine of list-topper Husk when its chef/partner Sean Brock visits Houston as part of Underbelly's Southern Smoke charity fundraising event. In the meantime, the city can be happy to know that at least one magazine thinks Underbelly is continuing to push Southern cuisine forward.

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BOGO Banh Mi

Houston Vietnamese restaurant rolls out new Spring Branch outpost

Courtesy of Saigon Hustle

Saigon Hustle will open its new location on Thursday, October 10.

A rapidly growing Houston Vietnamese restaurant has big plans for National Banh Mi Day, which is this Thursday, October 10. Saigon Hustle will mark the occasion by opening its new Spring Branch location.

Located in a converted gas station at 1223 Witte Road, the new Saigon Hustle both preserves all of the things that have made the original Garden Oaks location a success for founders Cassie Ghaffar and Sandy Nguyen and takes advantage of having twice as much space to add new menu items and a more complete dining experience.

Saigon Hustle Spring Branch rendering A rendering previews the restaurant's new location.Courtesy of Saigon Hustle

By going from just over 800-square-feet to 2,000, Saigon Hustle will be able to offer indoor seating for the first time. Total capacity is about 70 diners.

“The dine in is huge. We don’t have a lot of customer interaction [at Garden Oaks],” Ghaffar tells CultureMap. “We’re excited to have the customer facing side, interacting with them, watching them eat our food, without losing the drive-thru.”

A larger kitchen means that Saigon Hustle will be able to add pho to its menu for the first time. Diners will have their choice of chicken — made with sous vide chicken breast — or beef, which will come with the traditional round eye, brisket, and meatballs.

“There are so many people who come in expecting pho. When they can’t get it, they walk out,” Nguyen says.

As for the rest of the menu, it will include all of the banh mi, egg rolls, spring rolls, and rice dishes that have made the original a hit. Beverage options include both Vietnamese iced coffee and a tea bar that includes both milk tea and Thai-style iced tea.

Saigon Hustle Cassie Ghaffar Sandy Nguyen Saigon Hustle co-founders Cassie Ghaffar and Sandy Nguyen.Photo by Al Torres

Perhaps even more importantly, this new location is the first since Ghaffar and Nguyen partnered with Savory Fund, a venture capital firm that’s invested in a diverse range of concepts including Austin-based Detroit-style pizzeria Via 313. Originally, Saigon Hustle received a $1 million investment; since then, Savory has committed to helping it grow to as many as 40 units in Texas and the Midwest, Ghaffar and Nguyen say.

“Being a business person, this was the vision from day one. This [investment] has manifested the route we were aiming toward,” Ghaffar adds. “We’re very fortunate Savory believed in us and is helping us create a legacy for our families.”

Saigon Hustle will celebrate its opening with buy-one-get-one free banh mi sandwiches from 10 am - 3 pm on Thursday. Beginning Friday, October 11, it will open daily at 10 am.

news-you-can-eat openings spring branch