Branch Water Tavern
510 Shepherd Street/Near
Washington Avenue
713.863.7777
If you haven’t ventured to
chef/owner David Grossman’s new restaurant and bar, Branch Water Tavern, go. Go
now, for lunch, dinner, a drink. Don’t make me pester you, you know I will.
Trapped in conversation at a cocktail party I’ll just go on about Grossman’s
charcuterie plate ($12) laden with meats and house made duck rillettes, chicken
liver pate, tiny dice of pickled vegetables and mustards too. Then I’ll bend
your ear about the crispy pork cracklings and that moist cheeseburger marbled
with 80 percent lean chuck.
The setting? It’s a dark wood clad tavern with a
masculine and clubby feel, but only in the most inclusive way.
The menu features dishes
such as chicken fried oysters with celery root slaw and Frank’s red hot ($9), a
spicy fisherman’s stew ($11), aged New York strip ($26) with marrow and the
typical steak house accompaniments and seared sea scallops with agnolotti
shaped polenta with candied tomato and truffle butter ($24). And, for dessert,
well I’m torn between the peanut better ice cream with oozing chocolate fondant
and a smear of dulce de leche and the ethereal crème fraiche cheesecake.
Evan Turner, who spent time
at Gravitas and 17 at the Hotel Alden, serves as both GM and the man behind the
bar. As the name suggests Turner and Grossman have focused on American whiskey
distillates and stock a pretty respectable selection–both mainstream and
wonderfully obscure brands. On the very first and perhaps the only snowy day
we’ll have this year, I nursed a bourbon hot toddy, watching –mesmerized– as
the fluffy white flakes fell from the sky. Later, focused, I eyed the cocktail
list, which features novelties and revisionist classics alike from a cheeky
French named Zut Alors! (gin/rosemary/lemon)
to a Shepherd Sour made with rye, Benedictine and lemon. This place is just the
ticket when you desire a laid back eating and drinking experience. I can’t wait
to go back.