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.
