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    changes at cafe louie

    Promising East End Mediterranean cafe closes and rebrands as new Italian-American bistro

    Eric Sandler
    Dec 2, 2022 | 1:27 pm
    Cafe Louie exterior

    Cafe Louie has closed.

    Photo by Becca Wright

    One of this year’s most promising new restaurants has closed, but its chefs have a new concept planned for the space. Café Louieannounced that it has closed and will become a new Italian restaurant called Louie’s Italian American.

    Opened in May by chef Angelo Emiliani and his sister, pastry chef Lucianna Emiliani, Café Louie offered a Mediterranean-influenced take on the all-day cafe. Mornings featured pastries by Lucianna with savory items such as breakfast sandwiches. Chef Angelo served a more elevated dinner menu built around bistro classics such as shrimp cocktail, roast chicken, and freshly made pastas.

    The closing comes as a surprise, particularly given the restaurant’s brief tenure. During its short history, it drew considerable praise, including a top 25 ranking in theChronicle’s list of Houston’s 100 best restaurants.

    In a lengthy statement provided by a representative, Angelo Emiliani explains that the restaurant struggled to balance its fast casual breakfast and lunch service with its full service dinner offering. “The economics of a morning restaurant and a dinner restaurant are also very different, and Café Louie became financially unsustainable once we shifted to dinner,” he writes.

    As for the pivot to Italian American food, it grew out of the Sunday night dinner specials the restaurant has been serving for a couple of months. Dubbed “Red Sauce Sundays,” the prix fixe menu included dishes such as Caesar salad, wagyu meatballs, rigatoni, and chicken parmesan. As Emiliani notes, the offering proved to be a hit, drawing more diners on Sunday nights than would visit the restaurant on Friday or Saturday.

    “We poured our hearts into Café Louie and wanted nothing more than to see it succeed, but we also must be pragmatic by giving the people what they clearly want,” he writes.

    Currently, the East End restaurant is closed for renovations designed to suit its new mission as an Italian restaurant. When it reopens later this month, it will be open for dinner Thursday-Sunday.

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    a fresh start

    Award-winning Houston cocktail bar diverts to new home in Montrose

    Eric Sandler
    Jun 12, 2025 | 5:00 pm
    Diversion cocktail bar Montrose
    Photo by Manoah Rodriguez
    The Vilanova Ritual is prepared tableside in a teapot.

    An award-winning Houston cocktail bar has found a new home. Diversión will reopen Thursday, June 19 in Montrose’s food-focused Harlow District development.

    Located at 1226 W Clay Street, Diversión Montrose will occupy one of the two houses that comprise Emma Jane, the European-inspired teahouse that opened last year. It replaces the original location of Diversión that opened in early 2021 in Spring Branch. Both Diversión’s original location and Degust, its companion tasting menu restaurant, quietly closed last year.

    Known for its polished service and elaborate cocktails, Esquire magazine named Diversión’s original iteration to its list of the Best New Bar in America for 2022. That ethos has been “refreshed” to be “a more intimate and playful setting,” according to press materials.

    Patrons will find a new cocktail menu that includes drinks such as the Operation: ‘White Flame’ (vodka, dry vermouth, Earl Grey, and caviar); the Sand Dollar Beach, an on-trend mini martini; and the Vilanova Ritual, which is prepared for two people in one of Emma Jane’s signature tea pots. Food options include Korean fried chicken, a Japanese-style mushroom salad (sunomono), and caviar service with crème fraiche dip, soy caramel, and crepes.

    While the original Diversión required a special trip to Spring Branch, the new one could be one stop on an evening in the Harlow District. Located on the property that served as the home to treasured Italian restaurants Nino's, Vincent's, and Grappino di Nino, the development now includes upscale Italian restaurant La Griglia, premier sushi spot Katami, and lively patio bar Verde Garden.

    Diversión will be open Tuesday-Sunday from 5 pm-1 am.


    Diversion cocktail bar Montrose
      

    Photo by Manoah Rodriguez

    The Vilanova Ritual is prepared tableside in a teapot.

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