defending houston

Houston chef with Michelin-starred resume plans ambitious new downtown restaurant

Christian Hernandez worked as March's chef de cuisine.

March/Facebook

An ambitious new restaurant is coming to downtown this fall. It will be led by a chef that most Houstonians may not know much about, but they do know the prominent local restaurants where he’s worked.

Meet Barbacana. Located in the former Craft Beer Cellar space at downtown's Bayou Lofts building (907 Franklin), it will be a showcase for chef-owner Christian Hernandez. Before diving into what Barbacana will be, let’s briefly consider the man behind it.

Hernandez has a lengthy resume in Houston that includes notable restaurants such as Shade, BCN, and Pax Americana. Once a biomedical sciences major with plans to become a veterinarian, Hernandez decided to focus on culinary pursuits instead. He credits his time as a line cook at Oxheart, the groundbreaking tasting menu restaurant where Justin Yu won his James Beard Award for Best Chef: Southwest in 2016, with putting him on the path that has led him to Barbacana.

“Oxheart really opened everything up and made me realize there was more to this than flipping eggs,” Hernandez tells CultureMap. “I was a two-sport athlete in college. I was drawn to the physicality of the kitchen. Going to Oxheart, it showed me more of the finesse behind it and tied in the food science. It really opened my mind to how much deeper it was.”

Realizing he needed to hone his skills beyond the Bayou City to become the best chef possible, Hernandez sold his car and moved to New York City. He began working at Contra, an ambitious, French-influenced tasting menu restaurant from chefs Jeremiah Stone and Fabian von Hauske that earned a Michelin star during Hernandez's time as a cook there.

“A crowning achievement of my career is getting a Michelin star with those guys,” Hernandez says. “Jeremiah and Fabian taught me a lot. They weren’t scared to change. The menu changed at least every other day. Being able to stay on your toes was very important.”

After a stint in Mexico City, the chef returned to Houston where he became chef de cuisine of March, the Mediterranean-inspired tasting menu restaurant in Montrose. Working alongside executive chef-partner Felipe Riccio, Hernandez helped conduct the research and develop dishes for March’s menus devoted to regions such as the Maghreb, Andalusia and Murcia, Occitania, and a group of islands. Last year, he helped open Albi, the short-lived Eastern Mediterranean restaurant that quietly closed last month.

He’ll bring all of those experiences to Barbacana. Hernandez named the restaurant after a Spanish word that means “barbican,” which is a defensive structure that’s part of a castle — similar to “barricade” or “bastion.”

“I always loved the name ‘bastion,’” Hernandez says, but he chose something a little more unusual. “I wanted a name that sounds good and has meaning behind it.”

The chef describes his restaurant as serving Houston-inspired cuisine. Essentially, it gives him the freedom to pay homage to his heritage as a German-born Mexican-American and his professional skills cooking just about every style of cuisine from European to Mexican to Asian at a high level. He’ll utilize as many high quality, locally-sourced proteins and produce as he can.

“I love Houston. My grandma has lived here since the '80s. Houston has always been home base for me,” he says. “When I think of Houston, I think of multicultural. I wanted to showcase everyone.”

Hernandez is giving diners their first taste of Barbacana this Monday, May 6 at a pop-up at Montrose restaurant 93’ Til (1601 W Main St.). Held from 5 pm until close (or sold out), the menu previews dishes that could be served at the restaurant, such as Pollo al Carbon with hibiscus salsa and mitad tortillas; mushroom donburi; and basturma carpaccio, which the chef explains is a predecessor to the dish that evolved into pastrami. More pop-ups and dinners will follow as the chef begins to introduce the restaurant to diners ahead of its debut this fall.

When Barbacana opens, Hernandez will offer diners a range of experiences. A tasting menu will be available at a 15-20-seat counter, while the main dining room will have its own a la carte options. While the majority of the chef’s career has been in fine dining restaurants, he recognizes that not everyone appreciates — or can afford — that experience. Barbacana will blend fine dining ambitions and techniques with an atmosphere that's open to as many people as possible.

“I want all kinds of people coming in,” Hernandez says. “For that reason, it’s important that we’re not just tasting menu or a la carte. We’re branching out.”

Given his professional pedigree, Hernandez hopes his work will be of interest to both the public, as well as the sort of people responsible for media recognition and accolades like the James Beard Awards and best new restaurant lists. Those persistent rumors that Michelin is coming to Texas mean the chef might get the opportunity to build on his track record by leading a kitchen that earns a coveted star. It's a challenge he welcomes.

“I want to do the best that I can do and I’m optimistic the rest will flow from that. If I’m doing the best I can, we will get Michelin eventually,” he says confidently.

news-you-can-eat chefs openings downtown

Chris Cusack explains

Houston bar owner speaks out about surprise arrest for health code violations

Photo by Sergio Trevino

Chris Cusack owns two locations of Betelgeuse Betelgeuse.

Certainly one of the most unusual interactions between a restaurant and City of Houston officials took place on Wednesday, May 6 when Betelgeuse Betelgeuse owner Chris Cusack was arrested for health code violations at his location on Washington Avenue.

News of the arrest spread quickly across social media over the weekend. Now, Cusack is ready to tell his side of the story.

Cusack, whose time operating restaurants in Houston goes back more than 15 years to Down House and its affiliated restaurants such as Hunky Dory and D&T Drive Inn, tells CultureMap the problem began on Monday, May 4 when a health department inspector came to Betelgeuse Betelgeuse and asked to see the restaurant’s grease trap.

The only problem is that location has never had a grease trap. Prior to becoming Betelgeuse Betelgeuse, it was Liberty Station, a pioneering bar in Houston’s craft beer and craft cocktail scenes. In the early days, Betelgeuse served food from a food truck. More recently, it prepares its food next door at The Bell and Crane. Cusack acknowledges he didn’t share this information with the inspector.

“Usually I’m a charmer with the health department, but I was a little defensive. She kept asking me. I said, ‘ma’am, we don’t make food here,’” he explains. “The tone wasn’t my finest moment, but there was no name calling or anything like that. She said, ‘where does the food come from?’ I said, ‘it doesn’t matter where it comes from. It’s produced in a commercial kitchen.’”

Cusack says he knew there would be a follow up, but he was shocked when the inspector returned two days later with more colleagues from the health department, TABC inspectors, and Houston Police Department officers.

“I got somewhere between 21 and 25 citations,” Cusack says about the return visit. He got dinged for everything from graffiti in the bathroom to a missing Harris County tax stamp on the photo booth he leases from a vendor (it has both State of Texas and City of Houston stamps, Cusack says).

One inspector told Cusack he needed a food dealer’s permit. He showed the inspector that a food dealer’s permit had been issued for the restaurant's address under the former food truck’s LLC but not to the LLC that operates Betelgeuse Betelgeuse. Cusack says he had renewed the food truck’s permit in March, but that wasn’t good enough for the inspector. In Cusack’s telling, he was arrested for not having the permit, since it was also flagged as missing in an inspection from October 2025. He's the only person he knows who has ever been arrested for a misdemeanor violation of the health code.

Cusack says he spent 21 hours in the Harris County Jail. When he got out, he says he was contacted by a more senior official within the Health Department. Once Cusack confirmed he owned both LLCs, he was told he could reopen. Both locations of Betelgeuse Betelgeuse have been operating normally since Friday, May 8.

Cusack maintains he never knew about the October 2025 inspection, which is why he renewed the food dealer’s permit for the food truck’s LLC rather than applying for one under Betelgeuse Betelgeuse’s LLC. “There’s no paper trail that shows I was given this information,” he says. “I did not get the email [from the Health Department].”

As for why things got so out of hand, Cusack theorizes he was a victim of Houston Mayor John Whitemire’s crack down on “reckless behavior” on Washington Avenue and stepped up enforcement on bars generally that led to the temporary closure of near northside cocktail bar Rabbit’s Got the Gun.

Cusack says he’s a “huge supporter” of efforts to reduce crimes like street racing, drug dealing, and sex trafficking along Washington and in its surrounding neighborhoods. Still, he feels targeting by the city for being impolite to a health inspector.

He plans to fight both the arrest and the citations in court. “I want the charges dropped, and I want it expunged completely from my record. That’s the first thing, and I’m going to try very hard to do it,” he says.

“That’s going to end up costing thousands of dollars just to deal with the sheer volume,” he adds.

CultureMap contacted Mayor Whitmire’s office. A representative said the mayor was not aware of the situation and has no comment on an open investigation.

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