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Chefs blazing trails in Houston
As city diversified, food grew innovative,
international
   
Deborah Cannon AMERICAN-STATESMAN
By Dale Rice and Kitty Crider
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Wednesday, January 28, 2004

HOUSTON -- Ever since this city struck oil and
acquired air conditioning, the city has had a taste
for the finer things in life. 

World-class opera. Chic shopping. Fabulous art. Luxury
cars. Posh parties. 

Along with it all came the food. Even when most of
Texas was still a culinary backwater, Houston was
dining in style. 

The decades of good eating also have produced an
evolution in taste. Reaching beyond a penchant for
prime steaks and caviar, Houston has embraced New
American cooking, been a pioneer in Southwestern
cuisine and exploded with international flavors in the
past two decades. 

Now, Tony Vallone -- who had the hottest restaurant in
Texas 25 years ago -- no longer is the only name in
town. There's Kim Son, Fogo de Cho, Churrascos,
Marrakech, Nara and Hugo's -- all on a single street
that has become a main artery in Houston dining. 

That thoroughfare -- a long-running, east-west
geographical reference point for visitors -- will be a
valuable player in this weekend's Super Bowl
extravaganza. 

"Westheimer is a destination street," says Ann
Criswell, who was food editor for the Houston
Chronicle for more than three decades. "There is every
kind of food. It is a wonderful example of Houston's
diversity." 

Westheimer Road -- which traverses the city from the
southern edge of downtown westward past U.S. 610 and
the Galleria to eventually cross the outer loop -- may
not lead directly to any stadium seats, but it can
lead to a smorgasbord of dining experiences. 

In its vast number of excellent and diversified places
to dine, the street represents the culinary history
and growth of Houston (this, to no surprise, is where
Austin's Chuy's Comida Deluxe, Katz's New York-style
deli and Sullivan's Steakhouse expanded). 

On Westheimer or within a few blocks of it, there are
hundreds of places to dine, from small Vietnamese
spots where a meal is less than $10 to one of the
nation's top restaurants, Cafe Annie, where the price
of dinner may rival that of a Super Bowl ticket. 

And it all has happened in the last 30 years. When
Criswell became food editor in 1966, she says, the
city was basically beer and barbecue. But in the 38
years that have followed, she has seen amazing
development. 

"It just knocks your socks off that there are that
many different kinds of food and good food," she says.
"It is like a different city now." 

The early trendy spots covered two types of food:
upscale American and European, with places like
Damian's, Tony's and Brennan's building reputations
that have lasted until today. Then Houston's dining
scene moved beyond Texas beef and the Continent to
embrace the rest of the world. 

Nicaragua native Michael Cordua, a graduate of Texas
A&M University, captured the Latin beat in the late
1980s when he opened Churrascos, a South American
steakhouse. By 1994, the self-taught chef had opened
other restaurants and made Food & Wine's list of the
Top 10 young chefs in the country. He now is
considered one of the country's leaders in Nuevo
Latino food. 

In that process, Cordua also helped make room for a
wider variety of Mexican blends and other Latin
American offerings. 

The Mexican El Tiempo, for example, serves a variety
of upscale fajita plates that include pairings with
quail and lobster tail. At the Brazilian Fogo de Cho,
servers in gaucho attire slice meat tableside from
sword-length skewers. 

"Houston is a very international city. Pretty much
every cuisine is represented in some part of the
city," says Robert Del Grande, chef-owner of Cafe
Annie. 

Tim Keating, executive chef at the Four Seasons in
Houston, says that people come from all over the world
-- drawn in part by the exemplary medical facilities
and the many foreign consulates. "That affects the
cuisine." 

"Twenty years ago we did not know which end of
lemongrass to use," Del Grande says. Now people cook
with it at home. 

It began after the Vietnam war with an influx of
Vietnamese people who helped spawn markets and
abundant food sources for Asian restaurants. 

Those places quickly came to feed more than their
native people, with Houstonians eagerly exploring
Vietnamese fare, which in turn helped open the door
for other Asian cuisines such as Thai and Japanese. 

That movement came as Houston's oil economy
diversified, bringing an influx of high-tech and other
business people who had appetites for diversified
cuisines. 

But their palates didn't always wander far from Texas.
Many of them stayed close to home for the Southwestern
influence of Del Grande, whose Southwestern-inspired
Cafe Annie is one of the top restaurants in the
nation. 

Another of the country's top chefs, Jean-Georges
Vongerichten of New York, this month opened Bank in
the downtown Hotel Icon. It's another sign of
Houston's gastronomic growth, which also has attracted
a good amount of national acclaim since the late
1980s. 

Robert McGrath, currently chef-owner of the Roaring
Fork in Austin and Scottsdale, Ariz., was Houston's
first chef to be named to Food and Wine's top 10 list
in 1988. Since then, the same honor has gone to Cordua
of Churrascos and Americas in 1994, Monica Pope of
Boulevard Bistrot in 1996 and Scott Tycer of Aries in
2003. 

"Robert (Del Grande), with his Southwestern cuisine,
was on the cutting edge," says Susan Auler, founder of
the Texas Hill Country Wine & Food Festival and
co-owner of Fall Creek Vineyards. "That encouraged
other chefs to do innovative things." 

In the process, Auler says, Houston's cuisine
"loosened up" and became more adventuresome and
exciting. 

"It spawned a whole generation of young chefs that
came along with it," she says. 

That growth hasn't been limited to international and
fine dining. Houston has its share of fun American
spots, too, such as James Coney (for hot dogs),
Crescent City Beignets (for Cajun), Harlon's BBQ House
(self-explanatory) and Empire Cafe (for a great
breakfast). 

Several of those have extended their influence beyond
Houston, following other trailblazers that got their
start there. Chains such as Pappadeaux, Ninfa's,
Carrabba's and Truluck's began in Houston and expanded
to other parts of Texas, including Austin, exerting an
influence as they did. 

Houston restaurateurs such as Tony Vallone and Damian
Mandola also have trained a cadre of younger
professionals who've gone off to make their own
culinary mark. 

"Lots of people I worked with in Houston are all over
the place now," says Rebecca Rather, the owner of
Rather Sweet Bakery in Fredericksburg, who got her
start at Tony's. 

It was a great training ground, she says. "I learned
so much from being in the kitchen at Tony's. We served
presidents, movie stars, socialites. If they wanted
baked Alaska, you made it." 

While that ice-cream-and-meringue dessert may not be
on your Super Bowl menu, practically anything else you
might want to dine on can be found in Houston -- along
Westheimer, a road of diversity and good taste. 

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