Campbell is the beverage program director for Edward C. Bailey Enterprises, which includes the Bailey’s Prime Plus steakhouses and Patrizio restaurants. The barman, who decries the title “mixologist” as a “vanity move,” started his cocktail career seven years ago—on the day he stopped drinking. After stints at some of the
Amanda Naim on baking her first batch of cookies, molding each piece of the dome, and having a steady head.
Our top-notch team of anonymous reviewers have some strong words on what to call those delicious tortillas filled with things like eggs, beans, or chorizo. Regardless of semantics, though, they all like to eat them.
Fresh into his retirement from the Houston Rockets, Yao Ming has taken up viticulture and is hoping his cachet in China will help him sell wine in his home country.
Pappy’s Bar and Grill owner is playing electric guitar and living on his restaurant’s roof in an attempt to attract business.
In a city where most food trucks are required to be mobile, a new cluster near the West Seventh Street entertainment district will be the prominent exception.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals points its Thanksgiving publicity campaign toward the small Panhandle town of Turkey.
The cult-favorite grocery chain will finally bring its discount wine, organic frozen food, and gourmet snacks to Texas.
What one man overheard at this year’s celebration of the best pitmasters in the state, righteous smoked meats, and passionate ’cue lovers.
Le Chat Noir Eatery and Dough Pizzeria Napoletana.
JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS. Making assumptions. Forming snap judgments. Call it what you will, we all do it, me included. So when I found myself at the address for Felix 55, staring at what looked like an upscale bar with a restaurant attached, my first reaction was, Michael Kramer is cooking
Bud "the Pieman" Royer of Royers Round Top Cafe shares his pecan pie recipe.
Editor’s Note: The Texas Monthly BBQ Festival is almost here! Each day until then, we’ll be talking to one of the featured pitmasters, with questions from TM staffers, esteemed BBQ experts, Twitter followers and you, the readers of this blog. Today we bring you Cliff Payne, 58, of Cousin's
Editor's Note: The Texas Monthly BBQ Festival is almost here! Each day until then, we'll be talking to one of the featured pitmasters, with questions from TM staffers, esteemed BBQ experts, Twitter followers and you, the readers of this blog. Today, it's 29 year-old Tad Honeycutt of
Kushi Yama and El Alma.
HOW PAINFUL MUST IT BE for a restaurant’s owners to admit that the place is kaput? That a once celebrated destination has come to the end of the road and needs to be—gasp—put down? But after cozy Austin restaurant Zoot departed the neighborhood where it had been for eighteen
The chef shows us a glimpse of his life outside the kitchen.
A bright red sign outlined in neon lights screams CHICKEN as you approach Ms P’s Electric Cock, a large silver trailer on a quieter part of South Congress Avenue. As you may have guessed from the attention-getting name, Ms P’s is not a place for subtlety. It is, however, a
Louis Lambert on the origins and culinary experiences behind his debut cookbook.
Blogger Lisa Fain’s new cookbook.
Restaurant Gwendolyn and Sapori Ristorante Italiano.
Lisa Fain on arguing with people about why Texas chili is superior to all others, serving chicken-fried steak to some New York friends, and starting to think that maybe her blog was more than a hobby.
Texas has a serious problem with feral hogs, which cause more than $400 million in damage every year. But it can be solved—one delicious bite at a time.
Up and McCullough Avenue Grill.
When early reports on a restaurant sound like a train wreck, I tend to wait for the debris to be cleared. And Houston’s Brasserie 19—a project of two veteran restaurateurs, Charles Clark and Grant Cooper, of Ibiza and Catalan—had clearly jumped the tracks. In the first few weeks, the Brasserie’s
Contigo and Alto Pizzeria.
Many things can be learned by butting heads with other chefs in a reality-TV cooking show. But the biggest lesson is this: If the judges ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy. And what does that translate to in real life? Substitute “clients” for “judges” and you’ve got it. Which is why
As a kid I was the pickiest eater you have ever seen, and family meals gave new meaning to the words “food fight.” But I gritted my teeth and overcame it.
Pondicheri and Malai Thai-Vietnamese Kitchen.
It helps if you understand just how small Barley Swine is: thirty-odd chairs along a short bar and around tall tables in a limestone building on a South Austin thoroughfare. It’s so compact that the minute you sit down you become best friends with the strangers on either side of
Francesca's at Sunset, San Antonio, and Saldivia South American Grill, Houston.
PICTURE YOURSELF ON A Mexican-tiled patio as sunlight filters through a rustic roof made of slender wooden latillas. A margarita stands at the ready, droplets of moisture condensing enticingly on the chilled glass. Within arm’s reach on your left is a cast-iron dish piled with chunky guacamole. On your right
Watching lawmakers bicker over the state budget in Austin reminds us of the old adage about what politics and sausage have in common. Fortunately for sausage, its approval ratings are through the roof. “It’s become easier to stuff sausage at home, since more places are selling small grinders and stuffers,”
How had six years gone by since I attended the Buffalo Gap Wine and Food Summit? It’s the best of the small-scale wine and food fests in Texas–maybe in the country–and the most scenic, with walk-around tastings under the live oaks behind the Perini Ranch Steakhouse and a
Long before this month’s “Cook Like a Texan” package, in December, 1983, Texas Monthly published a cover story boldly headlined “The Texas Food Manifesto”. The author was Alison Cook and even today, more than 27 years later, the story is an astonishing tour de force. And an enormously
Photograph by Jody Horton Talk about the saying, “nothing succeeds like success”: The instant that Austin’s Franklin Barbecue moved into its new, bigger, brick-and-mortar location at 900 West 11th (512-653-1187), it had already outgrown the space. I asked owner Aaron Franklin about this
(scroll over the photos to see captions; click to see full photos) Imagine a farmers market on steroids. Now add alcohol. Hey! You’ve got the Texas Hill Country Wine and Food Festival’s sold-out Sunday fair. Despite the scorching 85-degree weather, everyone had a grand time at this large gathering of
There’s something deliciously naughty about attending a beef grilling event at an exotic game ranch in Texas. Add celebrity chefs, the open flame, and a corridor of wine purveyors to that mix and you’ve got yourself a party. In other words, the Texas Hill Country Wine and
The first person I think of when it comes to cooking like a Texan is Enrique Madrid. You probably have someone you think of, your father, perhaps, or your grandmother. I think of Enrique, a historian, archaeologist, cook, defender of the borderlands, author, and lecturer whose family has been living
Philippe and Haddington's.
Houston
(Ground beef guru Josh Ozersky, from a 2008 Nightline appearance) Wednesday at approximately 4 p.m., culinary event planner Mike Thelin was driving around Austin in search of hardwood briquettes, trying to fill a last-minute request from one of the many chefs participating in the Texas Hill Country Wine and Food
As they say, there’s good news and there’s bad news. The good news is that three Texas chefs are final nominees for the James Beard Foundation awards for Best Chef: Southwest–they are Bruce Auden (Biga on the Banks, San Antonio); Bryan Caswell (Reef, Houston); and Tyson Cole (Uchi, Austin). That’s
Gabrielle Hamilton owns Prune Restaurant, in New York. You might have even eaten there. A tiny, awkward place in the East Village. Very much a stop on the food-lover’s circuit. Well, now she’s written a passionate, pull-out-the-stops, utterly intense memoir of her life as a chef, and I cannot
No knock on Tim Byres of Smoke restaurant, in Dallas. He’s great. He certainly is a worthy “people’s choice” for Best New Chef in the Southwest, which is a recent nationwide online competition dreamed up by Food & Wine magazine. (The winner was announced today.) But here’s my problem:
Tango & Malbec and Seasons 52.
Austin
Hey! Texas didn’t do badly at all in the semifinalists lineup for the Oscars of the culinary world, the James Beard Foundation Awards. The list was announced this morning. There are two more voting rounds to go before the winners are announced at a gala at Lincoln Center in New
Food & Wine has a new spin on their highly anticipated ten-best-new-chefs awards. They’re doing an additional people’s choice list, and voting has begun. It will be much, much more inclusive, and six Texans have been nominated for the Southwest region. In fact, Texas totally dominates the list of
The line up for this year’s Texas Hill Country Wine and Food Festival (it runs March 31-April 3) is exceptional–more modern, more in touch with what’s going on in Texas culinary circles today. And the public is picking up on that fact; first-day ticket sales hit an all-time high,