Bistro Menil Is Shuttering After 10 Years — A Major Shakeup In Houston’s Restaurant Scene With the Loss Of a Museum Staple

After a decade of running the stylish boite Bistro Menil on the storied campus of the Menil Collection, its chef/owner Greg Martin is hanging up his apron and moving on to new projects. That’s the plan with the restaurant now set to shutter on June 22, ending an era of Houston dining in many ways.

Some of the bold-faced names who have reserved a table at Bistro Menil on the regular include Milton Townsend, William Kennedy, the late Jackson Hicks, George and Barbara Bush, not to mention Hollywood celebrities that include Ariana Grande and Will Ferrell. They all dropped in to partake in fan favorites that include eggplant fries, the duck confit and the pucker perfect lemon curd tart. And did we mention that nearly the entire menu is gluten free?

Martin is proud that Bistro Menil found statewide acclaim as one of the few fine dining restaurants that create dishes safe for those who can’t consume gluten. He first won the coveted spot as the bistro’s chef after the museum’s board launched an exhaustive search for an operator two years before the restaurant’s opening.

Martin spent years prior working at Cafe Annie as chef de cuisine before moving on with the Schiller Del Grande group to launch many of its other restaurant ventures. The inveterate traveler, known to traverse the globe in search of his next great meal, culled upon his taste memories of dishes savored through France, Italy and Spain to create a thoughtful menu of American food married with distinct European-inspired flavors and classic cooking techniques at Bistro Menil.

It seems that the lauded architect Renzo Piano, who designed the internationally renowned museum founded by Dominique and Jean de Menil, always envisioned a restaurant where the cool, contemporary space, clad with Spanish cedar and featuring floor-to-ceiling windows, stands. Twenty-five years after The Menil’s completion, Piano’s vision was realized with the help of the architecture firm Stern and Bucek.

Now Bistro Menil is closing for good.

The restaurant is continuing operations until June 22, including brunch on Saturdays and Sundays, and afternoon tea daily from 2 pm to 5 pm.

Bistro Menil is located at 1513 West Alabama. It is open Wednesdays through Sundays from 11 am to 9 pm, closed Mondays and Tuesdays. Until June 22 when the restaurant will shutter for good.

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