​On December 20, the restaurant Grace in Chicago closed, following an abortive effort by the executive chef and general manager, its founders and guiding lights, to purchase the establishment.  Grace was one of only fourteen restaurants in the United States with three stars from the Michelin guide, the most famous and arguably the most respected dining guide in the world.  Three stars is the guide’s highest accolade and is described as: “Exceptional cuisine, worth a special journey! Our highest award is given for the superlative cooking of chefs at the peak of their profession. The ingredients are exemplary, the cooking is elevated to an art form and their dishes are often destined to become classics.”
 
In practice, this means much more than that opaqueness, with the restaurant featuring exemplary service and setting, often featuring extremely pricey plating, glassware and utensils, often expensive linens and regularly supplied fresh flowers, a selection of terrific wines complementing the cuisine, and a substantial kitchen, service and administrative staff to provide guests with an extremely cosseted visit.  Gaining and keeping three stars, about the highest award a restaurant can earn, is not only a difficult endeavor in terms of creating the food – much more than from a technical aspect – it is an expensive one, too.  That fact requires well-heeled customers along with a certain level of business patrons.
 
But, more than any the difficulty in successfully forging an ambitious and consistently rewarding cuisine at the very highest level is not the real reason there are only now thirteen restaurants in this country with three Michelin stars, it is because the Michelin guide is only four US metropolitan areas: New York, Washington, DC, Chicago and San Francisco.  With the exception of Washington, these are most likely the top three or three of the top four restaurant cities the country, and the ones with the most likelihood to have restaurants with three stars.  But, the total of three stars in this country would certainly be much higher if the guide was throughout the country as it is in other countries.  High-roller and expense account haven Las Vegas for one, and possibly New Orleans for another might have a few.
 
Los Angeles is the other one in the mix among the top handful of restaurant cities – and, not incidentally, used to be a Michelin guide stop.  It did not succeed there because its ratings did not seem accurate to the frequent diners.  A famed Angeleno restaurateur, a European native, told me that Michelin Los Angeles just did not get the city, and, though accurate and very useful for Europe, Michelin was not nearly as useful for the United States.  I do find Michelin extremely helpful for traveling in Europe, though I have not really used it when traveling to its limited number of restaurants here.  I’ll likely rely upon trusted friends and folks in the wine and food industries, as they have served me fairly well in the past.  I would like to see Michelin expand in this country, and hopefully become more acceptable and, I guess, reliable.


The Platter of Nine Delicacies at La Yeon in Korea that was awarded three stars in 2017.

​Well, Aqui has been here since mid-August.  In the amazingly crowded Houston landscape of interesting restaurant openings, Aqui’s seemingly well-financed opening in a new standalone structure on bustling lower Westheimer did not get all of the buzz that it would have otherwise.  Executive chef Paul Qui has won a James Beard Award for his work in Austin and received some regional notoriety otherwise in the past couple of years.  This might also be because Houston diners tend not to get overly excited about out-of-town restaurateurs no matter their pedigree, and the items on the pan-Asian menu, which might be considered daring elsewhere in the state, are rather far less unusual here.
 
Driving by on lower Westheimer, you might miss the attractive low-slung new construction on the north side of the street.  The differently designed space with a useful patio in front is contemporary, clean-lined and comfortable.  That comfort was disturbed a bit when trying to get a cocktail at bar smart-looking bar by the entrance and was greeted with bartender with all the charm of a carnival barker.  After I begged off to peruse the drinks menu, I was able to snare the attention of another, more professionally mannered and friendly mixologist who prepared an excellent cocktail.  Soon after, it was time to be led to a table with views of outside and the open kitchen, as, nicely, most of the dining room is.
 
The menu mostly consists of an array of Asian or Asian-inspired dishes, usually small plates or smaller, often from the Philippines and Japan, but much more.  The items we ordered in several rounds seemed to span a fair part of the globe: tuna arepas, curry puffs, Santa Barbara uni toast, tuna kinlaw, Ora king salmon, pandesal and pâté, glass noodles, and a mushroom salad featuring a several very flavorful funghi whose roots ranged far from here. Each of the preparations were quite good, exhibiting both very evident technical skills and intelligence in the combinations.  Though the kinlaw might not have been as flavorful as the version at the excellent seafooder Reef was not a knock, though the items under the ‘Perfect Bites’ sections were amazingly petite.  The average Cracker Barrel customer might spend a week’s worth of dining dollars to get full.  The average Cracker Barrel customer would never make it here, of course, but the prices can climb at Aqui if you are not careful.  And the wines are a tad pricier and certainly far less well-chosen than you would expect of Houston restaurant of this ambition in 2017.  I imagine it will improve, as it grows more to fit the local dining scene.  The team at Aqui, led by the lauded Austin-based Paul Qui under his belt, features several members with commendable Houston stops on their resumes – Kata Robata, Uchi and Common Bond – which bode well for the future.  And Qui, too, spend some years in Houston before this. 
 
As a Houstonian, myself, and one that has avidly followed and written about the dining scene here for quite a while, I am also a proud graduate of The University of Texas at Austin.  But, I am often miffed at all the comparative attention the restaurants in Austin receive.  I tend to subscribe to the belief that a friend of mine, a former Houstonian and resident of Austin again for over fifteen years now, who is also a very astute, well-traveled and avid diner told me a few months ago: “whatever type of restaurant exists in Austin, there are one or more restaurants in Houston that are clearly better.”  I remarked to the dining companion with whom I visited Aqui that it would certainly be the best new restaurant in Austin, though with such a remarkable year here for restaurant openings, it might just be among the top ten to which she chuckled though readily agreed.  That is not meant as much of a knock, Aqui is interesting and engaging newcomer that was serving well-executed and usually delicious preparations throughout the meal.  And, I strongly sense, that Aqui is going to just get better, as it becomes more in-tune with Houston and Houston diners.
 
Whatever my minor caveat, do yourself a favor, and check out Aqui, a very welcome addition to the local dining landscape.
 
Aqui
520 Westheimer (between Taft and Montrose), 77006, (713) 360-7834
aquihtx.com

​I met the developer Giorgio Borlenghi and his wife a few years ago at an event at their Hotel Granduca in Uptown Park.  Not surprisingly, they were far better dressed and stylish than my girlfriend and I, especially me; what you might expect from a well-heeled Milanese couple.  During the course of the conversation, I had to query him about a dish that he had had on the menu of the hotel’s restaurant, Cavour, since it opening, Risotto allo Champagne – though, sadly, no longer there.  My question, specifically, was did it have to be champagne?  There was very high quality sparkling wine produced in the champagne method in Franciacorta not far from his hometown of Milan, after all, and the champagne is cooked in the dish.  “No,” Borlenghi was emphatic.  It had to be champagne.
 
There is something special about champagne.  I heartily agree with the sentiment, though I will be using a much cheaper sparkling wine when I make the dish.  I enjoy, and enjoy much more frequently, nearly all types of well-made sparkling wine from many of the current hipster-favorite pet nats or Pétillant Naturels, cremants from Burgundy and elsewhere in France, Spanish cavas, the similarly méthode champenoise versions from Franciacorta and Trento in Italy – including a fantastic meal with even more impressive wines at Tony’s hosted by Ferrari, the big sparkling house in Trento – and those in California like my longtime house sparkler from Roederer that remains a terrific value, Washington and even New Mexico, Prosecco, especially the impressively delicate and flavorful ones from the tiny center of Cartizze, and slightly different and less effusive if still dry Lambruscos that are becoming more commonly found around here.  But, there is something special about champagne.  Something better.  As much as I take pleasure in these other versions, the wines from Champagne are nearly always more flavorful, more pleasurable, more complex, the bubbles are usually smaller and more refined, the mouthfeel is seemingly more exquisite.  Champagne is just better, and that extends through the broad swath of house styles and styles, overall, from light and crisp to fuller, yeastier and flavors of brioche, the different types of fruit flavors that might be encountered from citrus to pear to raspberry and blackberry, and the broad number of producers.  Champagne is nearly always very good no matter the producer or the style, more so than other appellations, no matter if it is on the lower range of prices, just under $30.  I’ve never been disappointed with the quality over the years.
 
And, champagne makes the holidays more special, emphasizing and enhancing the celebrations.  All sparkling wine does that, but when the champagne is opened it seems more special – likely because everyone knows it’s more expensive than the other kinds of sparkling wine.  But, everyone will enjoy it even more.  I’ve bought both champagne and sparkling wine from elsewhere for the Christmas festivities, and I plan to enjoy them both.

​Back during my formative beer drinking days, beer combinations were far more popular, the Black-and-Tan and the Half-and-Half mostly, but some others, too.  Last night at one of the release parties announcing the return of the Celis beers to Houston, proprietor, brewer and namesake Christine Celis introduced me to one that I had surprisingly not heard of, one from the days of the original Celis, some twenty years ago.  It was the White Lightning, a combination of two-thirds of a glass filled first with Celis Grand Cru and the other third with Celis White.  Tasting of a stouter and even drier version of the Celis White, it drank quickly, possibly dangerously so, as the trippel-style Grand Cru is 8.6% alcohol.  It was delicious.  The beers, that Christine was quick and proud to note, are made according to the same recipes that her famous father Pierre used in the original incarnation of the Celis Brewery, one of the best breweries to ever exist in this country.
 
You can now order the Celis beers at selected bars in the Houston area, though you will likely have to tell the bartender how to make a White Lightning.  Celis is being distributed by Silver Eagle, so it should be widely found at bars and restaurants in the not-too-distant future.  The brewery will begin bottling in early March with cans for Celis White to follow.  Christine also mentioned that Gueze and other lambic styles will follow.  It will be even more fun around here to be a Belgian beer lover.  

At the brand new and fun, and quite delicious, Nancy’s Hustle in EaDo the other night, we had something described on the menu as, “Nancy cakes with whipped butter & smoked trout roe” that the waitress had recommended.  The chef brought them to the table, so we able to query him about what this oddly named dish was featuring three puffy pancake-like items.  The name is a play on Johnnycakes and the cakes themselves are lighter, airier and certainly more flavorful than the typical Johnnycake.  The chef mentioned that he uses a sourdough starter for the breads and pastas, all of which are created in house, along with the Nancy cakes.  The piles of fish roe and whipped butter served for the dish both proved quite complementary, for a very enjoyable dish.  We ordered a second dish of it, in fact.
 
The dark bread that served with a smear of chicken liver mousse was also quite good.  The restaurant was a strong two-for-two with bakery goods, which is a very good sign to me.  Maybe, in part, because I have a surfeit of European peasant DNA in my system, but I love bread, almost need my daily bread (and pasta).  As a not insignificant part of the enjoyment of a meal for me, below par bread, to me, means that the restaurant is not covering all of the bases properly.  Or, is just limited, cheap, or somewhat incompetent.
 
The quality of the Nancy cakes and bread were in stark contrast to the bread served at a’Bouzy.  There, their so-called Artisanal Bread which you have to order at $5, is baked in house, was the worst I have had at a restaurant in a while.  It was fresh, but that was about it in terms of taste, none of the life or welcome vibrancy, you associate with quality bread; “artisanal” is not at all the proper adjective for it.  As I ate my first piece, I thought that this tastes like what a place like Applebee’s might serve, and a key sign that the kitchen is far from first rank.
 
Nancy’s Hustle is seemingly not only quite a ways ahead of a’Bouzy in terms of breads, but in everything coming out of the kitchen.  But, then again, you can have fun at some places without even eating.
 
Nancy’s Hustle
2704 Polk (about six blocks east of I-45), 77003, (346) 571-7931
nancyshustle.com
 

The Turkish dumplings with spicy tomato vinaigrette, labneh, and lamb jus