Houston’s Summer Dining Oasis — Uptown Emerges as Restaurant Destination of the Season: Dine Around Deals Promise More

In the Houston foodie scene, there’s always more to explore. This summer, set your sights on a neighborhood you know — but not as well as you think.

Uptown is rife with must-try restaurants. But there are so many, you may not have dined at them all. When it comes to checking out these buzz-worthy spots, there’s no time like the present.

It’s Uptown Summer Dine Around time, the district’s own summertime restaurant weeks extravaganza. From now until June 30, you can drive up, sit down and dig into special pre-fixe menus at 13 different Uptown restaurants. It’s an enticing preview of all Uptown has to offer. One bite, and you’ll be hooked.

La Table, Etoile Cuisine et Bar, Morton’s the Steakhouse, Moxie’s Bar and Grill, The Oceanaire Seafood Room, McCormick & Schmick’s, Cafe Annie, Piatto Ristorante, Post Oak Grill, Songkran Thai Kitchen, Luby’s and Berryhill Baja Grill are set to welcome you with open arms and full menus.

The restaurants are offering multiple-course meals for lunch, dinner or both. Lunches begin at $20, and the dinners ranges from $35 to $45. Summer Dine Around benefits the Barbara Bush Literacy Foundation.

In fact, Uptown Houston District is donating $10,000 to the Barbara Bush Houston Literacy Foundation on behalf of the participating restaurants and Uptown Houston.

The participating restaurants are just a baker’s dozen of the many, many bistros, cafes and more Uptown has to offer.

“Uptown is a restaurant mecca. Incredible variety, all types, all sizes.” says Ed Wulfe, chairman and CEO of Wulfe & Co.

Summer Dine Around is the perfect time to sample Space City’s variety at its finest — and get great bargains. There’s no better way to get to know the district’s tasty scene than talking to the chefs who started it all, the people behind the mighty meals.

PaperCity sat down with four chefs from four different Uptown restaurants. Read on to discover what’s cooking in Uptown. We have the inside scoop on their distinct cuisines, their love of Uptown and their appreciation of Houston diners.

“The interesting thing about Houstonians is that they’re really so open to everything and willing to try stuff and be excited about it. I don’t think they’re jaded. They still see the miracle in good cooking and good food,” Cafe Annie’s chef Robert Del Grande tells PaperCity.

“I’ve always thought, living for a long time in Houston, that we tend to be very appreciative. We’ve got that sense of Texas politeness.”

Cafe Annie

Del Grande was sure to infuse Cafe Annie with that Texan vibe. His iconic restaurant is American-meets-Southwestern with a buzzing bar and enticing cocktails at 1800 Post Oak. Come for the enchiladas, stay for the redfish and gulf coast oysters.

A lot of Uptown locals love Cafe Annie, and the Bushes were longtime fans.

“Barbara Bush was always nice, a little bit reserved. George Bush was always so funny. It’s the President of the United States! He was more than happy to take a picture with everyone. Waiters, busers. Did you think you’d ever have your picture taken with the President of the United States?” Del Grande laughs.

Another famed guest? Julia Child herself, several times over.

Del Grande’s culinary Bayou City adventure began back in 1981. In those days, food was definitely continental and nowhere near as exciting as it is now in Houston.

“Just the time and the period,” Del Grande says. “Thai food was exotic. It was like going to another country.”

But it evolved. And then some. “I always thought Houston was a rich place to be in terms of cultural diversity and all the different influences. Now it’s one of the greatest restaurant cities in the country,” Del Grande notes.

One H-Town dish in particular spoke to the chef — so he made it sing. “We became sort of the champion of the enchilada. It’s elevating Tex-Mex to the next level,” Del Grande says.

When it came time to develop this limited-time Summer Dine Around menu, Del Grande knew he had to balance innovations with oldies, long-time favorites with the fun and new.

“It’s all the stuff I want to eat myself,” he says. Especially the crab tostadas with avocado and cabbage slaw and cantina-style Ribeye with cilantro chile and avocado onion salsa.

Post Oak Grill

For some chefs, Uptown is even more personal. Post Oak Grill chef and owner Polo Becerra lives in the district.

“I love it here because it’s a good area. I love this area,” Becerra says.

When he heard about Summer Dine Around, he knew he had to take part. George and Barbara Bush frequented Post Oak Grill. Becerra wants to pay tribute to the couple and the causes they hold dear.

“We have to support people from the area. Our life’s here. We’ve been here for 29 years,” Becerra says.

But his story begins quite a ways away. “Since I was a kid, I grew up on a farm in Mexico and I helped my dad pick tomatoes and cucumbers and sell it,” Becerra says.

He moved on to produce as he grew up, going on to train as a chef in Puerto Vallarta. He worked in restaurants all his life, whether as a bartender, bus boy, dishwasher, sous chef, everything from then to now.

Post Oak Grill is known for its tender chicken breasts, roasted sirloin steaks and above all, its hospitality. “Everybody has a passion for something. My passion is cooking and customer service. It makes me happy when people smile when they start eating, eating the food they enjoy,” Becerra notes.

Becerra built customer connections with care and comfort. Customers are always called by their names, and Post Oak Grill employees promise to remember their names, the tables they like and their orders. It’s a simple and deeply personal way to create loyal customers.

Etoile

You’ll find delectable dishes of a completely different nature at Etoile Cuisine et Bar. The French restaurant at 1101 Uptown Park is the height of old-school sophistication tucked into a cozy farmhouse interior.

It doesn’t get more authentic than Etoile — you’ll find a menu studded with classics and completely written en Francais — but it’s that classic French culinary context that allows chef Philippe Verpiand room to experiment with contemporary twists.

“It’s a French restaurant run by a French chef,” he says. He calls his dishes flexible, with room for modern updates on everything from the escargot to the catch of the day.

You can find Verpiand and his wife on the line, cooking, almost every day. “We work all the time. It’s our life, you know,” he says.

His can’t quite nail down his favorite memory of Etoile over the last few decades. “It’s every day, even after 31 years in the kitchen,” Verpiand notes.

He’s whipped up some special treats in that very kitchen for his pre-fixe Summer Dine Around lunch and dinner menus. His favorites are the braised beef short rib and the duck leg confit, both done in the way that would make any master chef proud.

“With the braised beef short rib, we use high quality meat. We make it the right way with a very concentrated red wine reduction, a bed of mashed potatoes. A lot of butter in it. It’s a very comforting, satisfying piece,” Verpiand says.

And they up the ante and luxury with the confit, cooking the bird in its own fat before crisping the skin.

Etoile already draws all kinds of diners. Families and friends celebrating birthdays, businessmen at lunch. Verpiand can also count Barbara Bush as a favored guest.

“I recall one time my wife took a picture with her. She and my wife had a little conversation,” Verpaind says. “She was very nice. For us, it was very rewarding to have the former First Lady in my own restaurant. We were truly very honored.”

Summer Dine Around highlights many fine restaurants in a time when there’s typically a lull, Verpiand says. “It brings a little buzz to Uptown.”

Willie G’s

Willie G’s has experienced a fair amount of buzz as the second restaurant to open in billionaire Tilman Fertitta’s The Post Oak complex. Executive chef Jason Cole heads up the seafood mecca, everything from its monster ice display to its fresh-shucked Gulf Coast and East Coast oysters.

He suspected there would be backlash from the old guard when Willie G’s entered its new phase in its all-new digs. But overall, the dishes have been well received.

“The (Summer Dine Around) pre-fixe menu helped market the new items and new Willie G’s Seafood we’re presenting,” Cole says.

Highlights include chicken and sausage gumbo, French quarter oyster with garlic butter and parmesan gratin and fresher than fresh seared wild isle salmon with quinoa, sweet potato and wilted kale.

“We do a new take on Cajun seafood with a modern twist. There’s a Korean and Japanese influence on the menu,” Cole says.

The chef is committed to having only the freshest seafood. Starting at 6 o’clock in the morning, he’s talking to seafood vendors and fishermen on boats all over the country, from Hawaii to Florida to California.

“On the menu, we have a fish card with 15 different types of fish — whole, fileted — and another 15 types of oysters that rotates daily. The chefs on duty have to create a fish and oyster card every morning, separate from the regular menu,” Cole says.

This new Willie G’s is highly interactive and visually driven space, starting with the jaw-dropping ice display.

“Nobody’s really doing this anywhere in the country,” Cole says. “Tilman’s ice display is blowing others out of the water. People are flying in from New York, a guy came in from California, James Beard Award-winning chefs coming out just to see it.

“It kind of sets the tone for the entire evening.”

But don’t take our word for it. You’ll have to taste for yourself. This is the summer to dine around in Uptown for sure.