Where To Eat Now
Want to know the Indian restaurant all of Houston is talking about? The Dallas dining room with “crackling chicken” that’s to die for? The Austin cafe where the elite meet to eat? Just ask me.
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Where’s the scene?
Which gods have I so displeased that they have time-warped me back to the hellish days of New York’s celebrity-ridden monument to self-indulgence, Studio 54? At Houston’s brand new Ling and Javier, you can eat amid the din of weekend revelers in fur-trimmed sweaters and leather pants. Although chef Alena Pyles has promising family connections (she’s the little sister of big-time Dallas chef Stephan Pyles), I’m withholding judgment on the kitchen for now. True, the panfried grouper in almond- butter sauce (from the Cuban side of the menu) was sublime, but the stir-fried lamb (from the Chinese side) proved lackluster. At hip, bustling Ibiza, where the smart black-and-tan decor glows in the candlelight, chef Charles Clark updates dishes from his Louisiana past, such as rambunctious grilled shrimp with crabmeat cornbread and smoked-jalapeño sauce. A different kind of scene prevails at Taco Milagro, chef-owner Robert Del Grande’s relaxed, tropical taquería. This is the place where tout le Houston convenes on Sunday afternoons. The setting is replete with River Oaks dukes and Tootsies babes (and sometimes their real babes, toddling around the outdoor fountain, weather permitting). Food? Oh, yes—the bacon-wrapped-shrimp tacos are to die for. And let us not forget the legendary gay night (Sunday) at the original Ninfa’s, more like a family reunion than a bar scene. Is Ninfa’s decor dated and tatty? Yes. Are the enchiladas in green sauce still fabulous? Yes again.
In Dallas my favorite digs for practicing urban anthropology include the hot new Buddha Bar. Before ten-thirty you can dine in relative peace on moderately priced, better-than-they-have-to-be veal chops, rack of lamb, and such. After ten-thirty you have to pass muster with the doorman (jeans okay, T-shirts not) to gain admittance to the lounge area, where waitresses in clinging black dispense bellinis and apple martinis to patrons happily packed five-deep around the bar. A world apart, the marble-and-brass bar at Beau Nash reverberates with talk, music, and the occasional shriek of laughter from assorted well-dressed denizens. Me, I’ll have my pan-roasted pork chop and sweet-potato purée in the quieter, conservatorylike side dining room, thank you very much. For sushi and a younger, local-celebrity-enhanced crowd, hie yourself to Steel, a piece of work with a sweeping glass front, a granite sushi bar, and at the back, a sake bar graced by two enormous silver candelabra that look as if they came from an estate sale at Dracula’s castle. The Samba Room’s high-decibel Cuban music, fan palms, gauzy floor-to-ceiling curtains, and serpentine bar still lure the young and the restless, who refuel in the adjacent dining room on accomplished tropical-fusion fare like cumin-accented roast pork tenderloin with black beans and sweet-potato hash.
In Austin the SRO crowd in the chummy bar at Vespaio has hardly abated in the three years it has been open, for the simple reason that many people think chef-owner Alan Lazarus’ ristorante is the best eating place in the city. Instead of waiting for a table in the dining room, eat at the bar (well, provided you can get a seat there and don’t choke on the smoke). An order from the gorgeous antipasto selection or something simple like the sensational lasagne will get you served with dispatch. Nowhere is the laid-back Austin of yore on better display than at Güero’s Taco Bar, especially in the front room, where, on Sunday afternoons, you can listen to the Texana Dames belting out their Latin sounds while you eat excellent caldo de pollo chased with a margarita. The perfect Austin non-scene scene prevails at breakfast and lunch at Las Manitas, where the whole point is to disappear into a ripped-vinyl booth and inhale an order of the Mexican cafe’s superlative enchiladas de Michoacán. But pay attention and you might see former governor Ann Richards or (if he happens to be in town) presidential adviser Karl Rove, not to mention Lyle Lovett.
San Antonio’s twenty- and thirtysomethings keep Reggiano’s rocking from Thursday (bocce night) right through the weekend. The big bar-in-the-round is the place to be, with a Mexican martini in your hand. Thank goodness the noise doesn’t intrude into the spacious dining room, with its blond wood pillars and cork ceiling (smart idea, that). Chef Miguel Ardid’s Mediterranean menu sounds wonderful but sometimes the kitchen misses the mark (goat-cheese-stuffed quail was tender on a recent visit, but pork chops with pancetta and sage were tough). The breads, from restaurant owners Paul and Solomon Abdo’s in-house bakery, are consistently irresistible.
Sapristi! is where Fort Worth’s social set hangs out, nibbling tapas and rosemary-dusted fries (the best things on the menu, in my opinion). The wide-ranging selection of wines is well priced (many bottles under $30), and the place, with its dark wood floors, Tiffany-style stained-glass lights, and bentwood chairs, doesn’t have a self-conscious bone in its body.
My boyfriend eats only red meat. Where should I take him?
In Houston have him sink his incisors into the prime beef, dry-aged for at least 28 days, at Pappas Bros., the city’s most elite, and frequently mobbed, steakhouse. The working phones on each table recall the glamorous speakeasies of the Prohibition era. At the Palm, Houston’s edition of the nationwide chain, a pure power scene prevails, with guys in pressed jeans and custom boots at the bar and equally well-heeled folks (including whole families) at the tables.
In Dallas many people refuse to go anywhere but Bob’s Steak and Chop House, a clubby, centrally located beef-eater’s emporium that attracts both the expense-account and the more-dressed-down trade. Of course, Del Frisco’s still gets the cigar-and-designer-perfume crowd, if you want to drive that far north to join the riotous pack around the hand-carved bar. The Dallas outpost of Pappas Bros. falls somewhere in between, as luxurious as Del Frisco’s but slightly less intense. Early adopters of trends, though, will want to check out the newest steak-and-seafood house in the city, Perry’s, with classy appointments and a simple but sumptuous menu.
Plenty of Austin carnivores still swear by Ruth’s Chris (for the predictable men’s-club look, fantastic prime beef, and sides like creamed spinach) and Sullivan’s (slightly less expensive Certified Angus Beef, a forties look, and a name that pays homage to bare-knuckle boxer John L. Sullivan). But the raves these days are going to Fleming’s, barely eight months old, where chandeliers, varnished woods, and deep, burgundy-colored booths create a seductive atmosphere where you can pop the question or cinch a deal.
Fort Worth also has a Del Frisco’s, and late last year, when other restaurants were hurting, the Bimmers and Jaguars were still pulling up at the corner here. This is a city that takes prime tenderloin seriously.
I want to impress the boss.
If God were an interior designer, heaven might well look like Mark’s, the luminous but chic converted Houston church where chef-owner Mark Cox regularly performs good works (transcendent snapper over mushroom risotto) but also commits the occasional transgression (way-too-salty lobster bisque). My other current choice is tawny, tony Pesce, the de rigueur hangout for actual and wannabe CEOs (get chef Mark Holley’s divine lump-crab cakes or meltingly delicious Moroccan lamb stew).
In Dallas dinner in the swank, minimalist environs of Salve!, whose pale gray interior and wall of windows put one in mind of an upscale aquarium, will definitely garner points with the boss for good taste. Your culinary acumen will shine if you recommend chef Steven Kelley’s extraordinary brodo con funghi, a deep-flavored mushroom broth swirled with truffle oil.
If Ripley’s Believe It or Not had a category for restaurants where it’s actually possible to talk without having to shout, the Driskill Grill, in Austin’s sedate and proper, almost Victorian Driskill Hotel, would qualify. From chef David Bull’s kitchen emerge boss-pleasing triumphs like Chilean sea bass in a gingery orange-wasabi broth accented with darling little crab-stuffed egg rolls.
In San Antonio Le Rêve is so exceptional that I’m breaking my own rule about not including places that have stars in our Restaurant Guide. There was a night here that I almost swooned, the food was so fantastic. Chef Andrew Weissman’s barely seared Hudson Valley foie gras redefined “decadence,” and his Chilean sea bass on braised leeks was ambrosial. The small, chic room and deferential servers strike a proper but not haughty note.
Are there places you’re dying to go back to?
Although not everything I’ve eaten there has been perfect, I now count myself among those who are raving about Aries, located in a simple, remodeled two-story Houston house with burgundy walls and filmy curtains. Chef Scott Tycer’s pink Sonoma lamb chop with lamb crépinette (a spunky homemade sausage) won me over. And I’m in love with the sophisticated cottage setting of Da Marco, where chef Marco Wiles does intriguing things with disparate ingredients to create new Italian classics (beets, celery, and Parmesan merge into an amazingly delicious salad; the lemony flash-fried young artichoke is eye-rolling good).
In Fort Worth I’m hot for Fizzi, a bubbly newcomer where champagne flows and also appears in many dishes. The multilevel setting, with light taupe walls and navy-blue light fixtures, showcases Mediterranean cuisine like chef Bobby Albanese’s exceptional seafood lasagne with smoked shrimp, kalamata olives, and fontina cheese atop a snazzy yellow-bell-pepper sauce.
My Library
