4 things to know

4 things to know in Houston food right now: Openings, closings, and coming attractions

Fat Boots didn't last.

Photo by Daniel Ortiz

Editor's note: Houston’s restaurant scene moves pretty fast. In order to prevent CultureMap readers from missing anything, let’s stop to look around at all the latest news to know.

Openings and reopenings

The Rice Military area has a new option for flavorful Persian fare. Miri's Kitchen recently opened in the former Dunkin' Donuts/Hurts Donut space at 5801 Memorial Dr., the Houston Business Journal reports.

Prior to opening the new establishment, chef-owner Parvaneh Miri worked as a chef and general manager at Ghandi District Persian staple Garson. She brings that expertise to dishes such as lamb shank, tahdig, and an extensive selection of kebabs.

After being closed for more than a year, downtown cocktail bar One Armed Scissor has quietly returned to service. Located at 208 Travis St., the bar will open at 4 pm today and tomorrow and 8 pm on Christmas Day with a tidy menu of $10 cocktails.

Closings

A gimmicky Washington Avenue bar has shuttered after just six months. Fat Boots Trailer Park Bar is permanently closed, The Leader reports. In addition, the bar's social media pages have been taken offline, and it is listed as "permanently closed" on both Yelp and Google.

Open since May, Fat Boots positioned itself as an experiential concept where the staff sang, danced, and encouraged the crowd to participate in sing-alongs and drinking games. The intentionally campy menu included drinks served in SpaghettiOs cans and food options like Cheese Whiz with crackers. No word on whether the closure affects the company's plans to open locations in New Orleans and Nashville.

Coming attractions

Candy Shack Daiquiris founder James McGhee will open Juliet Restaurant in early 2022, according to a press release. Located at 5857 Westheimer Rd., details on what kind of food Juliet will serve are light, but McGhee has tapped some high profile collaborators to bring the concept to life.

Design will be by Collaborative Projects, best known for creating Underbelly and UB Preserv. Cocktail experts Laurie Harvey and Kris Sowell, The Ladies of Libation, will craft the drink menu.

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New York Times critic awards Houston restaurant 2 stars in glowing review

Courtesy of ChòpnBlọk

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Let’s just call 2025 the year of ChòpnBlọk. In a review published Tuesday, December 16, the New York Times has awarded the Houston restaurant two stars (“very good”).

Written by chief restaurant critic Tejal Rao, the review touts many of the same qualities that the Times already praised when it included ChòpnBlọk on its list of America’s 50 best restaurants.

Rao writes that she usually avoids restaurants that serve food in bowls, but she’s impressed by the way that chef-owner Ope Amosu has put a West African spin on the concept.

“For inspiration, Ope Amosu looked to the kind of chain restaurants that were built to scale, where flavors are often subdued to appeal to the broadest possible audience, focus-grouped to death. But the delight of ChòpnBlok is in its sure sense of self, its lively, multidimensional cooking and clear, delicious vision for modern food from the Black diaspora,” Rao writes.

She singles out specific dishes, including the Nigerian red stew with short rib, the Black Star bowl with shrimp, and the signature Motherland, made with chicken, greens, and plantains. “It’s utterly simple, but draws you in for more with the mouthwatering twang of not-too-much MSG — an international shortcut to building umami that tends to be used carefully, and layered with other forms,” she writes.

The review also touches on the way Amosu switched the restaurant from counter service to full service — described as “warm, informal, and quick with the jokes” — and his time working at Chipotle to learn the basics of the restaurant operations.

A two-star review is only the latest instance of ChòpnBlọk receiving national attention. In addition to the Times 50 best list, Esquire recently named it one of America’s best new restaurants. The Michelin Guide awarded it a Bib Gourmand designation for 2025. Amosu earned a semifinalist nomination for Best Chef: Texas in the 2025 James Beard Awards.

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