BRW 2023

Houston's Black Restaurant Week returns with more than 70 mouthwatering options

One of Houston’s most popular dining events has returned for 2023. Black Restaurant Week takes place from April 2-16.

Founded in 2016 by Warren Luckett, Falayn Ferrell, and Derek Robinson, the event shines a spotlight on Black-owned restaurants and other culinary businesses and serves as a showcase for African American, African, and Caribbean cuisine. Organizers cite a 15-percent increase in business for participating restaurants as proof of the event’s popularity.

“From being overlooked for revitalization funds to inflation, most Black-owned culinary businesses cannot afford advertisements/PR/marketing to build awareness and attract consumers,” Luckett said in a statement. “That’s why we proudly do this for free — it’s peer-to-peer support for 10 or 14 days within each market and for the past seven years.”

This year’s event features more than 70 restaurants, caterers, and food trucks. Below are five restaurants that have opened new locations in the last year or so along with one of Third Ward’s most popular breakfast spots.

Bungalow Downtown Dining
Part of ALife Hospitality Group (Lost & Found, Kamp, etc.), this luxurious restaurant on Main St. is participating in its first BRW. The $65, three-course menu begins with appetizers such as spicy seafood bisque and wagyu meatballs. Entree choices include filet mignon with garlic butter, a pork chop with chimichurri, and Texas redfish topped with crab. Finish with one of three desserts.

Kuji’s Kitchen
At this new coffee shop and restaurant in the South Park neighborhood, chef Keisha Griggs has partnered with Houston farmers Jeremy Peaches of Fresh Life Organics and Ivy Walls to serve healthy, Caribbean-inspired dishes made with locally-sourced ingredients. The restaurant’s BRW menu include choices such as a Classic Sunday plate that comes with Trinidadian Stew Chicken, Macaroni Pie, and Coconut Red Beans; a Trinidadian flatbread stuffed with curry chickpeas; and a smoked salmon burger topped with a fried egg, pickled red onions, caper-avocado mayo, and Dijon mustard.

Mo Better Brews
Third Ward residents have been flocking to this vegan coffee shop and restaurant since it opened in 2021. For BRW, it will be featuring specials such as the Blvd. Burger, chicken-fried mushrooms and grits with three different sauces, gumbo, and chicken fried mushrooms and waffle

1929 Po-boy Kitchen
Located at Lyric Market in the Theater District downtown, this Louisiana-inspired eatery offers a compelling menu of sandwiches, gumbo, seafood, and more. At lunch, the restaurant is offering a two-course, $25 menu that include choice of cucumber salad or fried green tomatoes and a choice of Buffalo chicken po’ boy or shrimp and grits. The $45, three-course dinner menu features entree choices such as beef rib yakamein, blacked catfish po’ boy, and whole fried snapper. Add strawberry lemonade or blueberry limeade for $3.99 more.

The Smoke
Among the newest additions to downtown’s Finn Hall food hall is this barbecue joint from Oxtail Mash Up winner Reginald Scott. The restaurant’s BRW offerings include chicken boudin with choice of side ($15) and a stuffed turkey leg with a side ($25).

Stuff’d Wings
Located in the Ion mixed-use development, this food truck-turned-restaurant sells chicken wings and chicken tenders stuffed with fillings like dirty rice and mac and cheese. Its BRW special is four stuffed tenders with fries and a purple lemonade for $14 (usually $18).

Courtesy of The Smoke

Chef Reginald Scott serves barbecue at The Smoke.

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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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