Wunderkind Chef’s New All-Day Cafe and Bar Brings French Vibes to Market Square Park — Petit Lucie Is More Than Sweet

We first met the Venezuelan-born wunderkind chef Omar Pereney when he was all of 20, opening the high-profile Uptown Houston seafood restaurant Peska in 2014. Twelve years later — now long since old enough to legally drink — his resume boasts experiences of a chef more than twice his age, from consulting on the opening of more than 30 restaurants to serving as a personal chef to former President George H.W. Bush. But Pereney’s new Houston restaurant Petit Lucie is in many ways his most personal project yet.

Petit Luice is poised in the verdant setting of Market Square Park downtown. Pereney, along with chef Sahira Maherbe, has conjured up an utterly stylish boite. Crafted with an accent Francais, the duo’s new all-day cafe (open 7 am to 9 pm daily) was designed by the international architecture firm Gensler to include a trio of Art Deco-inspired structures. Picture a breezy indoor-outdoor cocktail bar, an efficiently arranged open kitchen and an alfresco dining patio replete with French-styled bistro tables and chairs shaded beneath a canopy of live oaks and a pavilion, that in warmer temps provides diners with a light, cooling mist overhead.

You’re really in Market Square Park here — with everything that comes with that, good and bad.

If you’ve had a croissant recently in Houston and swooned, there’s a good chance it was baked by the talented Pereney, proprietor of Love Croissants, which supplies nearly 70 area restaurants, coffee shops and retailers. Perency’s butter-rich, laminated, yeast-risen delights are made with Beurremont beurre, a cultured butter with 83 percent fat.

Now you can get them even fresher. Pereney’s warm, flaky croissants and pastries — from the petite classic ($3.50) and pain au chocolat ($6) to an almond croissant perfumed with the gentle fragrance of cardamon ($7.50) — are served up every morning fresh from the oven at Petit Lucie.

Other options? A healthful blueberry banana smoothie ($9), smoked salmon AVO ($13), Petit Lucie’s answer to avocado toast, on grilled sourdough with protein-rich salmon slices, and lemon-tinged blueberry French toast ($9). Whether you eat in the cafe or take your food to go, there are morning cortados ($5), fancy vanilla cloud lattes ($6.50) topped with a mascarpone foam and earthy strawberry matcha lattes ($6.50) to jump start any day.

At 11 am (think lunch through dinner), appealing options on Petit Lucie’s tightly-edited menu include steak frites ($25) served alongside parmesan-dusted fries, a chicken salad croissant filled with shredded chicken breast and walnuts in a gorgonzola mayo ($14), and a perfectly prepared toasted brioche chicken club layered with bacon, gouda, arugula with a garlic-scented aioli ($15). Order up the farmers bowl (with or without salmon or grilled chicken atop), and you’ll receive a smart assemblage of French Puy lentils mingled with quinoa with roasted sweet potato, broccoli, arugula, sliced portobello, cornichons and a dollop of onion jam, drizzled with a fresh lemon vinaigrette ($10 to $19).

Linger late afternoon over a frozen St. Germain spritz, an elderflower Paloma, or a French blonde cocktail made with a blend of gin, Lillet Blanc, grapefruit and St. Germain liqueur (each $14). Meanwhile, advanced sommelier Jaime de Leon has put together a small but ever-changing selection of thoughtful wines from French producers featuring chillable reds, robust whites and oversized sparkling formats to celebrate. . . well, anything.

Petit Lucie is located at 301 Milam in Market Square Park. It is open seven days a week from 7 am to 9 pm.