a chef's touch

Star Woodlands chef beefs up Rice Village casual dining staple with tasty menu adds, HH, and more

A Rice Village staple for affordable, casual dining has upgraded its offerings with a new look and dishes created by one of the Houston area’s top chefs. The changes at Black Walnut Kitchen & Bar position it as a go-to destination for all-day dining.

Located at 5510 Morningside Dr., Black Walnut closed in July for renovations. When it reopened in October, the restaurant added a wider, covered patio that seats 60 people along with an interior that’s brighter and flows more smoothly. Over time, similar changes will be made to the restaurant’s eight other locations throughout Houston and Dallas.

Along with the interior changes comes a host of new dishes created by Austin Simmons, who seres as the executive chef for all three restaurants in the Woodlands Hospitality Group — Black Walnut; The Kitchen, a fast casual all-day restaurant in The Woodlands; and Tris, a fine dining restaurant with a steak program built around Gyulais wagyu beef.

Utilizing the skills of an accomplished chef to enhance its offerings is good news for Black Walnut’s customers. For now, the new dishes are only available at Rice Village, but they’ll spread throughout the company over time.

The changes start at breakfast and brunch, with additions such as Cinnamon Roll Pancakes, buttermilk pancakes, and the Greek breakfast that comes with two poached eggs plus chicken and vegetables in a white wine and parmesan sauce. At lunch and dinner, look for additions designed to make draw more dinner crowds such as Gumbo “ya-ya” with chicken, sausage, and shrimp and five new pastas, including grilled shrimp Alfredo and bolognese made with beef and lamb. Simmons also tweaked the dessert menu with cookies that are baked fresh daily and milkshakes that use soft serve ice cream that’s made in house.

To further enhance Black Walnut’s evening offerings, the restaurant offers happy hour Monday through Friday from 3-6:30 pm. It features select cocktails for $8 along with $5 wells, house wines by-the-glass, and draft beer. A happy hour bites menu includes $10 burgers (choice of beef or turkey) plus queso, chicken lettuce wraps, and more.

“After being part of the Rice Village community for 18 years, it’s very exciting to turn a new page with these fresh updates and chef-driven menu” Woodlands Hospitality Group president Eric Lysaker said in a statement. “With extensive dinner entrées offered daily, a full bar menu, and weekday happy hour, we offer an elevated dining experience that goes well beyond brunch.”

Photo by Perrin Projects and Aker Imaging

Black Walnut reopened after extensive renovations.

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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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