Shaken, Not Stirred

Posh Houston oyster spot ices competition on Esquire's 50 best martinis list

Little's Oyster Bar miss moneypenny martini

Little's Oyster Bar's Miss Moneypenny shakes up the 007 classic.

Photo by Arturo Olmas

Anytime there's a "bests" list for cocktails, it has to be taken with a grain of salt. Margarita jokes aside, Esquire has declared the 50 best martinis in America, based on the personal tastes of its reporting team.

According to the article, these intrepid food and drink experts "spent the past few years sipping hundreds of martinis across the country to find modern classics and the essential, old-school stalwarts." It's hard work, but someone's got to do it. And guess what? Texas can claim two of them.

Houston makes the list via the Golden Martini at Little's Oyster Bar.

Writer Omar Mamoon says of this martini:

Few things cut the brininess of beautiful bivalves quite like the smooth, ice cold combination of gin and vermouth. At Little's, the addition of grapefruit bitters and chamomile licorice stock adds a complex floral, anisey layer and imparts a beautiful golden hue to the drink.

And in Austin, Small Victory also makes the alphabetical list with its titular martini, about which writer Kevin Sintumuang says:

Little's Oyster Bar martinis Little's Oyster Bar's elevated martinis include classics and a Pink Chai Tini.Photo courtesy of Little's Oyster Bar

Austin is very much a beer, shot and margarita town. So when I need a break from that – and yes, you need a break from that – I find myself climbing a staircase in a parking garage to find the hidden entrance to Small Victory, where they really know how to make a martini. There’s a flow chart on the menu that will guide you through some personalization. But you can also leave it in the hands of the bartenders, who have dozens of riffs of the martini on hand. Be ready to discover a new favorite.

The Chandelier Martini is crowned the inaugural martini of the year. You can find it at the Chandelier Bar inside the Four Seasons Hotel New Orleans, and here are some cool facts about it:

It's served in a coupe glass made from the same crystal as the bar's famous chandelier.
It went through 17 iterations before landing on its current recipe.
It's made of a blend of three gins.
It gets stirred 24 times.
It's served with a second glass containing lemon peel, Castelvetrano olives, and pickled Louisiana mirliton on a bed of crushed ice.

Sintumuang calls it "an innovative martini that very much plays within the traditional rules," but perhaps more taste-testing needs to be done. After all, Houston martini fans know that the Bobby's Martini at Refuge, Terry's Martini at Squable, and the house martini at March (among others) are all worthy of recognition.

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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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