albi back
River Oaks Mediterranean fine dining restaurant reopens with elevated menu and cocktails
Albi has reopened in River Oaks with a new menu.
After a two-week closure, Mediterranean fine dining restaurant Albi has reopened its doors. The restaurant is now open for dinner Tuesday-Sunday.
Albi co-owner Nano Fakhoury tells CultureMap he worked with the Demi Luka consulting group on the new menu. Founded by a group of former chefs associated with Doris Metropolitan and Hamsa, the Demi Luka team helped Fakhoury simplify Albi’s menu with new items such as lamb chops, osso buco, and skewers that include ribeye, chicken, or King Trumpet mushroom.
“My vision has always been to do a Mediterranean restaurant with all the original dishes, but I want to elevate the plates,” Fakhoury says. “I want to bring more freshness to the plate. I want to add our flavors to it.”
Other new dishes include seafood gnocchi with octopus, shrimp, mussels, and pepperoncini sauce and stuffed branzino. Similarly, the menu includes new cocktails such as the 'Phoenician Fog' and the 'Pistachio Turkish Delight' as well as Middle Eastern-inspired riffs on classics such as the Pisco Sour and Old Fashioned.
The changes come after the departure of original executive chef Christian Hernandez and his sous chefs. Fakhoury says the restaurant’s remaining cooks are learning the new menu under his supervision.
“What we’re going through right now is we have a sous chef that stayed with us from the previous team, but we still haven’t decided on an executive chef,” he says. “[The consultants] are working alongside our chefs to train them and help build the team.”
