two years in the making

Woodlands favorites fire up a fresh new restaurant in River Oaks

One of The Woodlands’ most successful hospitality groups will soon make its inner loop debut. Fielding’s River Oaks will open this Sunday, December 8.

Located on the first floor of the Novel River Oaks luxury apartment development, Fielding’s River Oaks builds on the success of Fielding’s Culinary Group’s two popular restaurants — Fielding’s Local Kitchen & Bar and Fielding’s Wood Grill. CEO Cary Attar and executive chef Edel Goncalves will lead the new establishment.

The approximately 6,000-square-foot restaurant will seat about 200 people, divided between a dedicated bar/lounge area, a spacious dining room, and a private dining room. Two patios, including one with cabanas, will add more seats at some point after the opening. As shown in the photos above, the restaurant has been decorated for the holiday season with wreaths, poinsettias, and garlands.

Initially, the restaurant will only open for dinner with a social hour from 3-6 pm daily. Lunch will follow a week after opening on Tuesday, December 17. In January, Fielding’s will add brunch and a daily continental-style breakfast built around coffee and grab-and-go pastries such as croissants that will be made in-house.

At dinner, Goncalves will put his French training to create an eclectic, globally-inspired menu that utilizes the restaurant’s wood-fired grill and oven as well as an extensive program of breads and pastries that are baked in-house. Meals at Fielding’s will begin with bites such as yellowtail crudo, a wagyu sando, or foie gras with curry apple butter. Starters include karaage-style fried quail with Thai peanut sauce, a potato pancake with smoked salmon tartare, risotto with clams, fried okra, and French onion soup.

For entrées, diners have options such as pizzas, pastas — including radiatori with beef cheek bourguignon; spaghetti with cheese, lemon zest, and caviar; and bucatini with piri piri shrimp — or seafood entrees that include salmon, branzino, and cod. Meat lovers will find an Iberico pork chop, dry-aged duck, and steaks from Texas-based 44 Farms such as a filet or dry-aged New York strip.

Lunch will feature many of the options from the dinner menu along with an expanded selection of salads and sandwiches. They include a smash burger, shrimp banh mi, croque monsieur, and crispy chicken sandwich.

Beverage options start with a 1,400-bottle wine inventory, many of which are displayed in temperature-controlled cases at the restaurant’s entrance. As at Fielding’s Local, the restaurant will use a lower markup to entice oenophiles to discover new favorites. Similarly, the cocktail program uses quality spirits paired with freshly squeezed juices. Non-alcoholic cocktails will also be available.

“Fielding’s River Oaks is a concept nearly two years in the making,” Attar said in a statement. “We’re excited for lunch, social hour and dinner service to begin in December, and we’re confident it will add a distinctive layer of upscale offerings to the Houston restaurant scene, just in time for the holiday season.”

Courtesy of Fielding's

Fielding's River Oaks will open on Sunday, December 8.

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Esquire's Best New Restaurants

Esquire names Houston's Afro-Mexican eatery to best new restaurants list

Photo by Leonid Furmansky

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Houston chef and restaurateur Chris Williams is basking in the national spotlight. Esquire has named Late August, his Midtown restaurant that explores the intersection of African American and Mexican culinary traditions, to its list of The Best New Restaurants in America, 2024.

Published Tuesday, December 3, 35 restaurants make the cut. As is typical for endeavors like these, the five boroughs of New York City lead the way with eight restaurants, followed by Los Angeles with five. Four Kings, a Cantonese restaurant in San Francisco, earns Restaurant of the Year. The diversity of the included restaurants has puts Esquire food and drinks editor Jeff Gordinier in a contemplative mood.

“There never really has been any fixed, singular definition of American food, because the country and its cuisines — influenced by wave after wave of new arrivals — have remained in a state of perpetual transformation,” Gordinier writes in his introduction. “The ultimate answer to Jasper’s question is that American food, like American music, is something that’s always in motion.”

Despite the list's coastal focus, Texas isn’t completely ignored. In addition to Late August, Mābo, a Japanese restaurant in Dallas, earns a spot on the list. The magazine also awards Pastry Chefs of the Year to Texans Tavel Bristol-Joseph and Karla Espinosa for Nicosi, a 20-seat restaurant in San Antonio that serves a dessert-focused, eight-course tasting menu.

At Late August, which opened in March in Midtown’s the Ion mixed-use development, contributor Joshua David Stein praises Williams and executive chef Sergio Hidalgo for “bravura acts of culinary invention” such as citrus pork confit with mustard-and-collard-greens masa and field pea hummus topped with fried grasshoppers.

Late August has already received some national attention. It is Houston’s only Black-owned restaurant to earn a spot in the Michelin Guide, where it received a Recommended designation.

Omar Mamoon hails Mābo as the best place in America to eat chicken yakitori, a Japanese grilling technique. “At Mābo, his eight-seat counter, chef Masayuki Otaka prepares a two-hour meal in which poultry is the star. He sources free-ranging heritage breeds from Pennsylvania, and he lets you order additional skewers — maybe you’re in the mood for more tail, or for the fatty triangular nub known as the pope’s nose — when the planned courses have reached their completion,” he writes.

Bristol-Joseph and Espinoza bring pastry chefs’ perspective to tasting menus at Nicosi, which also earned a Recommended designation from Michelin. The restaurant famously doesn’t allow photos and doesn’t give diners a menu, allowing them to experience the dishes without any preconceived notions.

“We live in a society where people take photos, and they totally miss what the chef is describing,” Bristol-Joseph said on a recent episode of CultureMap’s What’s Eric Eating podcast. “I was looking at that trend and saying, ‘how do I create a space that forces everyone to be present?’ We’re not going to have a menu in front of you. I’m going to speak, and you’re going to listen or else you’re not going to know what you’re having.”

In 2023, Esquire named Houston’s Nonno’s Family Pizza Tavern as its Pizza Joint of the Year. Este, a Mexican seafood restaurant in Austin, was Texas’ only representative on the Best New Restaurants list.

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