Houston's next great taqueria

Historic Houston farmers market replaces Texas comfort food with Netflix star chef's hot new taqueria

Houston restaurant group Underbelly Hospitality continues to evolve as it seeks to match the right restaurant with the right neighborhood. The company’s latest move is to relocate Wild Oats, its Texas comfort food restaurant, from the Houston Farmers Market to Spring Branch and replace it with Comalito, a taqueria created by chef award-winning Mexican chef Luis Robledo Richards.

Netflix viewers will recognize Robledo Richards from his role as a judge on Sugar Rush: The Baking Point. He’s also been named the Best Pastry Chef in Latin America by the World’s 50 Best Restaurants. Instead of opening a Houston outpost of Tout Chocolat, his acclaimed chocolate shop in Mexico City, he wanted his first American project to focus on tacos.

“I don’t like fancy stuff,” the chef tells CultureMap. “I love simple things. I love tacos. If we can be successful with a taqueria, something else can come from that.”

Expected to open this fall, Comalita’s tacos will use corn tortillas that will be made onsite. The restaurant will import organic, heirloom corn from Mexico and treat it with a traditional nixtamalization process to make the masa that will become its tortillas. Approximately 1,000-square-feet of the current Wild Oats space will be allocated to tortilla production.

Taco fillings will start with two trompos (vertical spit roasters) — one with pork pastor and another with beef that’s marinated with recado negro, a spice paste from the Yucatan that gives the beef a dark, charred color. Other dishes will be prepared on a plancha, a nod to the comal that’s part of the restaurant’s name. Many of Comalito's ingredients, including spices, produce, and Texas wagyu beef, will be drawn from the market's existing vendors, including R-C Ranch.

Photo by Claudia Casbarian

Wild Oats is moving to Spring Branch.

To develop the pastor recipe, Robledo Richards said he consulted with local taco experts to identify Mexico City’s 10 best variations. After tasting through the options, he and his chefs developed a pastor that captures their favorite flavors.

“We researched to try to find what Mexico City tacos geeks consider the best. There’s all kinds of guys who publish taco guides. I have friends who have written those,” he says. “We talked about the 10 best pastor tacos in Mexico City. We went to them. This guy the pastor is more spicy, another is sweeter or saltier. That’s how we came up with Comalito’s pastor recipe.”

On the weekends, Comalito will serve brunch that will include sweet and savory breads and pastries as well as Mexican coffee. Desserts will include the chef’s take on flan, chocolate pudding, and churros.

Comalito’s cocktail program will center around tequila and mezcal-based drinks. “It’s not going to be super complicated. Simple, straightforward, delicious agave drinks, pretty much mezcal and tequila,” Robledo Richards says.

The chef acknowledges that Houstonians have extensive choices when it comes to Mexican restaurants, including Picos, which is owned by his cousin Arnaldo Richards. Still, he sees an opportunity for Comalito to find an audience based on its tortillas, traditional fillings, and agave program.

“I haven’t seen a real, Mexico City taqueria like the one we’re going to make,” he says. “If you go to traditional ones in Mexico City, there’s always something different here. We’re going to do something more in the spirit of a real Mexico City taqueria.”

Once Comalito opens, the chef plans to spend approximately 70-percent of his time in Houston and 30-percent in Mexico City. He’s bringing a team with him to open this restaurant and develop additional concepts that will follow if Comalito is successful.

“I love the city. I love the people. It’s so diverse. There’s so many opportunities to do something besides a taqueria,” he says.

As for Wild Oats, the restaurant will remain open until September 3, which will allow it to participate in Houston Restaurant Weeks. Find its two-course lunch and three-course, $39 dinner menus here.

Developed by chef-partner Nick Fine, Wild Oats tells the story of Texas food by serving classic dishes such as chicken fried steak, chili, and campechana. While it earned praise from critics, it has struggled to find a durable audience at the Houston Farmers Market.

Underbelly Hospitality president Nina Quincy tells CultureMap the company thinks the restaurant will be a better fit for Spring Branch, where it will open a new location this fall that will be paired with a second location of Underbelly Burger. She acknowledges that Wild Oats first iteration offered up too many dishes that were personal to Fine — such as the cornbread-stuffed, bacon-wrapped quail he made on hunting trips with his father — without including more iconic Texas classics like San Antonio-style puffy tacos.

“We’re going to stay true to what we do and have creative dishes with great ingredients,” Quincy says. “We’re going to have dishes that are recognizable as Texas without having to tell people a story.”

Of course, she’s thrilled to be working with Robledo Richards on a taqueria that she’s confident will be a better fit for the Houston Farmers Market.

“If you don’t love tacos, you’re not allowed to live in Texas. I think that’s in the Constitution. You can quote me on that,” she says.

Between closing GJ Tavern, opening Italian seafood restaurant Pastore, and relocating Wild Oats, Underbelly Hospitality will complete a series of moves designed to ensure its financial success going forward. Recently, the company has made a number of key hires, including CultureMap Tastemaker Awards Bartender of the Year winner Sarah Troxell, culinary director Scott Muns, and Pastore chef (and Tastemaker Awards nominee) Jeff Potts. Working with a chef of Robledo Richards’ caliber only strengthens that.

“I can’t wait to eat his food. I’m really excited,” she says.

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eat real food

Houston DJ-turned-TikTok star cooks up a cult following one recipe at a time

Courtesy of Uncle Dibbz

Uncle Dibbz, a.k.a. A.H. Bowden, has built a devoted following for his viral recipes.

For the past month, Uncle Dibbz has been, shall we say, going ham on social media with the myriad videos of alternative Thanksgiving dishes. He’s dropped how-to clips for such recipes as Cajun-roasted turkey, honey-baked ham/hens, oven-bag turkey, and six-piece fried turkey (to go). Basically, if you don’t want to cook a bland ol’ Butterball this Turkey Day, Dibbz has you covered.

Who is Dibbz, you say? Well, he’s a North Jersey-born, Georgia-bred, Houston-based chef who’s been building quite the foodie rep online. Several videos across his TikTok, Instagram and YouTube pages, from his Cajun-boiled fried chicken (2 million on IG) to his “Propose to Me Pasta” (12.3 million on TikTok), has amassed millions of views. But Dibbz (government name: A.H. Bowden) wasn’t always a culinary content creator. He used to spin music back in Atlanta as DJ DiBiase, named after retired wrestler Ted “The Million Dollar Man” DiBiase. “DiBiase is a mouthful to say, so people just always call me ‘D’ or ‘Dibbz’ for short,” says Bowden, 37, during a Zoom interview.

@uncledibbz PROPOSE To Me PASTA 💍 🍝 Trust your Uncle! This SEAFOOD Pasta will seal the deal 👌🏽 Get my recipe below ⬇️ or on uncledibbz.com [@uncledibbz Link in Bio] 🌐 **Ingredients:** - 8 ounces spaghetti - 1 lb mixed seafood (shrimp, scallops, crab meat, etc.) - 2 tablespoons olive oil - Fresh chopped basil - 2 cloves garlic, minced - 1/2 cup white wine - 1/4 cup heavy cream - 2 tablespoons unsalted butter - Salt and pepper to taste - Uncle Dibbz Delta Dust [link in bio] - Fresh parsley, chopped (for garnish) - Grated Parmesan cheese (for garnish) **Instructions:** 1. Cook the spaghetti pasta according to the package instructions until al dente. Drain and set aside. 2. In a large skillet, heat the olive oil over medium heat. Add the minced garlic, chopped basil and sauté for about 1 minute until fragrant. 3. Add the mixed seafood to the skillet. Season with Uncle Dibbz Delta Dust to taste and cook for 2-3 minutes until cooked through. Remove the seafood from the skillet and set aside. 4. Pour in the white wine to the skillet and let it simmer for 2 minutes, allowing the alcohol to cook off. 5. Stir in the heavy cream, butter, Uncle Dibbz Delta Dust seasoning, salt, and pepper. Cook for another 2-3 minutes until the sauce thickens slightly. 6. Add the cooked spaghetti and cooked mixed seafood to the skillet. Toss everything together until well coated with the sauce. 7. Remove from heat and garnish with fresh parsley and grated Parmesan cheese. 8. Serve hot and enjoy the flavorful Seafood Spaghetti. That's good Shawty! #UncleDibbz #ThatsGoodShawty #Pasta #marryme #proposal #bride #wife #husband #relationshipgoals #datenight #easyrecipe #seafood #cajun #cooking #fyp #foryou #viral #houston ♬ original sound - Uncle Dibbz 🍴

He was making a nice living as a DJ, even serving as rapper Big K.R.I.T.’s touring DJ for a while. But when the pandemic hit, the gigs obviously dried up.

“I was living in Miami at the time,” he says. “And, you know, when you have a lot of time on your hands to think – but also need to figure out a way to, you know, sustain an income and everything like that – the ideas start coming,”

Like most DJs at that time, he was doing live mixes on Instagram. But his days throwing cookout parties in Atlanta inspired him to start doing his cooking videos, where he used his very own seasoning. Of course, he had a lemon pepper blend, which he used in a lemon pepper hot wings video that currently has over a half-million views on TikTok.

“I'm about to go live to DJ later that night, and my phone was just going off with orders,” he recalls. “So I'm like, where are these orders coming from? And it's not from my friends. I'm seeing the cities and the states. I don't know these people.”

Thanks to his videos, which usually end with him saying his signature line “That’s good shawty!” (that’s also the name of his cookbook he released last year), Dibbz went into the seasoning business full time. He eventually hired another person to help send out the piles of orders he was receiving.

He even got an order from former Dallas Cowboy Emmitt Smith, one of his favorite athletes. “I remember doing a book report on him when I was in fourth grade,” he boasts.

Although Dibbz has a flair for making meals that border on decadent, he’s an ardent practitioner of cooking with natural ingredients, especially in his seasoning. He has several low-sodium seasoning, including Bebe’s Salt Free – named after his mother, who had open-heart surgery a few weeks before the pandemic started.

“I don't think a lot of people understand the amount of toxins and chemicals that go into a lot of these seasonings,” he says. “You're starting to see it in the news now. A lot of the foods with certain dyes are being taken off the shelves and things like that.’

Soon, Dibbz moved himself and his new business to Houston, a favorite place to perform as well as a town whose hip-hop got him into music. He cites local chopped-and-screwed gods DJ Screw, Michael 5000 Watts, and OG Ron C as his holy trinity of influences. To give props to the music of his new home, he created a hot sauce – called HXT Sauce – whose uncharacteristically large bottle resembles Promethazine cough syrup (aka the key ingredient in lean, the preferred purple cocktail for the city’s rap community).

“It's not necessarily about promoting that usage,” he says. “But, at the same time, it’s just a homage to one of the factors and influences of screwed-and-chopped music.”

Dibbz still indulges in spinning records from time to time. The Waxaholics’ DJ Big Reeks has gotten him to break out the vinyl a few times during his Thursday-night sets at Alley Kat Bar & Lounge in Midtown. But creating new recipes, dropping delicious content and proving you can eat and live in a hearty, healthy fashion still remains his full-time mission.

“I’m not just talking about eating cauliflower rice all day and every day, but just eat real food,” he says. “We're eating fake food. That's the bottom line. We're eating fake food and my whole purpose is to inspire people to eat real food and that starts with real ingredients, real herbs, you know – real natural seasonings.”

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