It’s chaos on the tabletop! And in the dining room. And on the menu . . . Remember when we used to have traditional courses (small appetizers, ample entrées, humongous desserts)? Not anymore. They started disappearing years ago as share plates, piled up almost on top of one another, took their place. Inexplicably, though, serving utensils also vanished; you practically have to beg for them. And forget about getting your own dessert plate. Servers plunk down everything—cake, pie, even crème brûlée—in the middle of the table and hand you a spoon as if it were a five-year-old’s birthday party. No wonder customer attire is more casual than ever. If you’d like to wear your ball cap backward while you sip your 1989 Latour and eat your Mishima Reserve Wagyu, hey, you do you.
And does it seem as if happy hour is starting earlier, like three o’clock in the afternoon? And bottomless-mimosa brunches begin on Friday? It’s not your imagination: beer, wine, and booze are being pushed as never before in an effort to keep menu prices down (a little).
What’s behind all this? Restaurants need your seats in their seats because the cost of everything—meat, produce, rent, wages—is up thanks to pandemic-induced inflation and supply disruptions.
That said, this relaxed approach to dining works well with the trend toward creative, mix-and-match cooking, which has been gaining ground for years. Our 2023 ranked list of the best new places to eat in Texas includes two Mexican restaurants, an Israeli venue, a seafood spot, a Japanese-Peruvian restaurant, two primarily Southern dining establishments (one with strong African influences), a steakhouse, a place that is mostly French (though it does have a burger and cheesecake), and one that is kinda sorta French. Cross-cultural cooking used to be dismissed as “confusion cuisine.” Now it’s business as usual.
Here are the rules—all two of them—for the twenty-second edition of Where to Eat Now. To be eligible, a restaurant (1) must have opened between December 1, 2021, and December 1, 2022, and (2) must be the first location in Texas (preference is given to homegrown venues). If a restaurant flew in under the radar, I’ll acknowledge it next year.
Now, get out there and eat! We want these spots to be alive and kicking for years to come.
“Can he do it again?” I wondered when chef Aaron Bludorn announced his new seafood restaurant last spring. His first place, the French-inspired Modern American venue Bludorn, had been an immediate hit in the fraught fall of 2020, at the height of the pandemic. Not that I was surprised at his success. For five years he was the executive chef at Michelin-starred Café Boulud, in New York City. Family ties also helped. His wife is Houstonian Victoria Pappas, whom he met when she was working in operations for the Boulud restaurant group. (She’s part of a highly successful, deep-pocketed local restaurant dynasty whose brands—Pappadeaux, Pappasito’s, Pappas Bros. Steakhouse—you might have heard of.) But even though the signs were promising, it was hard to imagine that this kitchen could be the equal of Bludorn’s.
One hour into my visit last November, I had my answer: Navy Blue is the best restaurant to open in Texas in the past year. The rather industrial room in Rice Village feels open but not empty; an expanse of cream-colored walls is set off by dark blue banquettes and wire sculptures that hang from the exposed rafters like modernist birdcages. The contemporary space inspires a sense of occasion without being formal.
The menu is the creation of Bludorn and a former colleague he recruited from Boulud, Jerrod Zifchak. After perusing the offerings (and selecting a wine from a 150-bottle list), my friends and I started with a bowl of scandalously rich mussel bisque shot through with fennel and saffron and capped with a cloudlike puff-pastry toque. A superlative seafood risotto came brimming with lobster and cuttlefish and accented with tarragon. Dover sole was beautifully moist, prepared meunière-style in a deeply browned butter sauce. (The restaurant’s manager, Cherif Mbodji, deboned the flatfish table-side with moves so swift they seemed like magic.) Our dedicated carnivore was extremely happy with his dry-aged strip sirloin nestled in a pool of bordelaise sauce and adorned with a pat of bone marrow–enriched butter.
At the end of our meal, we tried two of the six desserts, our favorite being a classy version of all-American carrot cake that was sleek, not at all chunky, and capped with both candied ginger and teardrops of cream cheese frosting. By the time we finished, I had a new question for chef Aaron: What’s on tap for 2024?
Navy Blue
Opened November 18, 2022
2445 Times Blvd
713-347-7727
L Tue–Sat. D 7 days.
