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    Esquire best new restaurants

    2 Houston tasting menu temples earn Esquire best new restaurant nods

    Eric Sandler
    Nov 18, 2021 | 10:42 am
    March restaurant dining room
    March is America's sixth best new restaurant.
    Photo by Julie Soefer

    Four Texas restaurants are basking in the national spotlight. Esquire magazine named them to its list of America's 40 best new restaurants.

    They are:

    • Hestia: chef Kevin Fink's live fire restaurant in Austin (fourth)
    • March: a Mediterranean-inspired tasting menu restaurant in Houston (sixth)
    • Degust: a Spanish and Mexican-inspired tasting menu restaurant in Houston (17th)
    • Roots Southern Table:Top Chef alum Tiffany Derry's restaurant devoted to Black southern cooking in Dallas (19)

    Four writers — Omar Mamoon, Joshua David Stein, former Esquire food and drink editor Jeff Gordinier, and culture and lifestyle director Kevin Sintumuang — created the list by traveling the county. What did they find?

    "The transportive power of food, the soul-stirring nature of hospitality—real things, too," Sintumuang writes. "This is all to say that in these not normal times, we need both the normalcy and the escape of restaurants now more than ever."

    Later in the essay, he list some of the specific styles represented on the list, including "food made with raw, elemental fire and charcoal," "nonpreachy vegan meals," and tasting menus. "In the hands of the right team, they can still be a sublime, luxe experience rather than the pricey, interminable drag they oftentimes veer into," he writes.

    Both of Houston's representatives on the list represent this new breed of tasting menu restaurant. Stein hails March for its menus that take inspiration from different regions of the Mediterranean. "March, as the name implies, is a steady movement toward the avant-garde," he states.

    March's current menu devoted to Andalusia and Murcia will run through Saturday, January 8. The restaurant will reopen on February 10 with a new menu inspired by the French region of Occitania, which offers a blend of both Mediterranean and Atlantic ingredients such as salted fish, olive oil, shellfish, duck, and butter, according to a release.

    Moving on, Stein finds similar thrills at Degust, where two chefs put a playful spin on Spanish and Mexican-inspired dishes like double-fried octopus. "At first the tasting menu at Javier 'Javi' Becerra and Erico 'Rico' Mackins’s place might look like a Worship Thy Chef ordeal, but it is just the right type of weird."

    Turning to Austin, Stein praises the cooking that Fink does on Hestia's 20-foot, wood-fired hearth where temperatures can reach 1,200 degrees. "Hard to believe that the same fire that tenderly cooks the halibut — kept three feet above the flame and served with an iridescent mirror glaze of a brown-butter sauce — is responsible for the ferocious char on the dry-aged Wagyu bavette, with its sunset-red center, accompanied by lacquered layers of potato and butter coiled into a tight, croissant-like bun."

    Finally, Stein praises Derry's work at Dallas's Roots Southern Table for dishes like duck fat fried chicken and a version of shrimp and grits presented as Italian-style arancini. "Roots is plangent proof that Black southern cooking from the Creole coast, incorporating as it does elements of French, Spanish, African, and Caribbean traditions, alchemizing as it does migrations forced and otherwise, is both the country’s greatest culinary patrimony and its path ahead."

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    one last squeeze

    Ben Berg's New York-inspired, fancy burger joint will soon shutter

    Eric Sandler
    May 21, 2025 | 5:16 pm
    BB Lemon exterior
    Photo by Leah Wilson
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    The original location of Ben Berg’s fancy burger joint will soon serve its last meal. B.B. Lemon on Washington Avenue will close after service on Sunday, June 1, the restaurant announced on social media.

    In response to CultureMap’s request for comment about the decision, a representative provided a statement that reads in part:

    “It is never an easy decision to close a restaurant,” Berg said. “The love Houston has shown B.B. Lemon-Washington over the years is what made it such a special place. Thank you for making us part of your everyday moments and life celebrations.”

    The statement continues that the restaurant is “no longer part of our strategic plan,” referring to Berg’s company, Berg Hospitality Group. However, the location of B.B Lemon that opened last year in the downtown tunnels will remain open.

    Open since late 2018, B.B. Lemon takes inspiration from iconic New York City restaurant JG Melon, including its signature green-and-white checked tablecloths. Thanks to a spacious patio and a lively atmosphere, B.B. Lemon soon found favor with area residents and downtown office workers, who made it a happy hour favorite.

    Like its decor, B.B. Lemon’s menu also takes inspiration from the East Coast. In addition to a diner-style, wagyu cheeseburger, the restaurant serves an array of comfort food that includes fish and chips, a lobster roll, and blue crab beignets.

    Berg’s decision to close B.B. Lemon follows last year’s closure of Benny Chows, its New York-inspired Chinese American restaurant. In January, the company closed NoPo Cafe to make way for a new location of Bagel Bob’s HTX.

    The group also opened three new concepts in 2024: live fire steakhouse Prime 131, retro diner Buttermilk Baby, and upscale steakhouse Turner’s Cut. It will open a second location of Buttermilk Baby in Sugar Land this summer.

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