Following up my article about the best restaurants and bars from the start of Westheimer then a mile or so west – the area’s best restaurant row – a number of notable chefs have led kitchens along this stretch in the last few decades. Here they are, chronologically:
Bruce Molzan – Ruggles – 1986 to 2012 – Ruggles was a pioneer in modern, high-quality dining in this part of town when it opened in the mid-1980s on Westheimer a block east of Montrose by Manfred Jachmich and chef Bruce Molzan. A graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, Molzan came to Houston to work at the Hyatt-Regency downtown earlier in the decade. He gained inspiration during the 1980s with stints at Wolfgang Puck’s groundbreaking Spago in Los Angeles, with Jeremiah Tower at Stars in San Francisco, and in Paris, at the Michelin two-star from Michel Rostang and at Joël Robuchon’s. He would be known for his creative New Southwestern cooking here, as the Houston Chronicle would dub the style of its cooking along with that from other restaurants like Café Annie. That paper would rate it well over the years, with a star or two, denoting a level of exemplariness. It had some of the city’s most popular dishes among avid diners in its smoked duck ravioli, and risotto with stuffed quail. Almost everything came in “huge” portions. By the end of the century, it would also be known for “erratic service and relentless overbooking” where “reservations are almost meaningless unless you’re a regular or a celebrity.” There was also much more litigation and controversy than is typical at a restaurant during Molzan’s tenure at Ruggles, but the Chronicle would write in the mid-2000s that “his casual, lively spot has been a staple of the local scene for two decades now.” Molzan was a trendsetter in what would be the best restaurant row in the city and well beyond.
Lynette Hawkins – La Mora – 1991 to 2007 – On Lovett, just a block south of Westheimer at nearly Montrose, Hawkins opened La Mora. She had lived in Florence and this is the first of the area’s Tuscan-themed restaurants that really struck a chord among Houston diners. Esquire named it among the top new restaurants in country, and it continued to be regarded among the city’s top Italians during its tenure. She now has Giacomo’s further down Westheimer.
Aldo El Sharif – Aldo’s – 1996 to 2004 – Born in Cairo to a Sicilian mother and then raised in Milan, the restaurant earned critical praise locally for Sharif's rich, personal cooking that drew inspirations beyond the borders of Italy. The acclaim included the highest rating, three stars, from the Houston Chronicle a few years after opening. The restaurant garnered attention for its romantic setting, extensive menu and wine lists, plus prices that invariably run high.
Mark Cox – Mark’s – 1997 to 2016 – Soon after departing Tony’s as executive chef, Cox caused a sensation among the city’s most well-heeled diners when he opened Mark’s in what had once been a church in a somewhat derelict strip of Westheimer just east of Dunlavy. A glowing profile of the restaurant in Wine Spectator in its first year praised his New American cooking, which “serves big Texas flavor without overwhelming the seasonal ingredients.” It would also earn among the very top food scores from Zagat voters for most its two-decade tenure. Its building would house Chris Shepherd’s One Fifth restaurants in subsequent years.
Marco Wiles – Da Marco, Dolce Vita, Poscol – 2000 to present – Chef Marco Wiles had worked locally for Tony Vallone, Antonio Mingalone and Aldo El Sharif before opening his own place, the white tablecloth Da Marco that served truly Italian cuisine from much of its peninsula. It sported an unusual at the time, all-Italian wine list, and became one of the most lauded Italian restaurants in Houston’s dining history. That included food top scores from local Zagat voters, and a nod from Gourmet in 2006 as number 29 among the best restaurants in the country. Dolce Vita and Poscol were two other excellent Italian options from him along this stretch of Westhimer, both geared toward small plates, with the former serving as the city’s best pizzeria for years.
Hugo Ortega – Hugo’s – 2002 to present – The eponymous Hugo’s introduced Houston to an authentic fine dining Mexican restaurant in 2002. It is still going strong and a fixture in the heart of Montrose that works well as a stop for dinner, lunch, and brunch. Ortega and company have since opened four other excellent Mexican concepts downtown and in the Galleria area that explore other the cooking of other areas of Mexico.
Georges Guy – Chez Georges, Georges Bistro – 2005 to 2012, 2014 to 2016 – Operating at nearly the 12000 block of Westheimer – where it earned the top rating from the Chronicle for several years – Chez Georges reopened in 2005 almost 13 miles east at its 200 block. Georges Guy, who “trained at some of France’s better kitchen,” continued to charm with his Provencal-accented French cooking, if “comfortably old-fashioned” and dished with “extravagant richness,” according to that paper in its first Montrose area stint.
Anita Jaisinghani – Indika – 2006 to 2017 – Jaisinghani started Indika a few years earlier on the western stretches of Memorial Drive before moving to the heart of Montrose in 2006. It was the city’s first modern Indian restaurant. During its heyday, Alison Cook in the Chronicle would name it among the top ten restaurants in Houston and proclaim that “Indika perches gracefully at the summit of Houston's mighty range of Subcontinental restaurants.” Jaisinghani would sell the restaurant in 2017 to concentrate on her Pondicheri on Kirby.
Richard Knight – Feast – 2008 to 2013 – Opened in the spring of 2008, Knight headed the kitchen at this contemporary British restaurant known for its superb snout-to-tail cooking. Frank Bruni, the former restaurant critic of The New York Times, wrote that Feast had “no real peer in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and other major cities.” Even with a surfeit of critical attention, this superlative spot shuttered in 2012. Knight would move on to more acclaim at Hunky Dory in the Heights, but its restaurant group suffered from funding problems, and its tenure was too short. Atlas Diner downtown followed that, but also had an abbreviated run.
Bryan Caswell – Little Bigs, El Real – 2009 to 2019 – Caswell is best known for his informed and skillful Gulf seafood creations at Reef and now at Latuli. In Montrose, his restaurants were much more casual and inexpensive. First was the tiny Little Bigs, a half-block north of Westheimer, serving tiny burgers and sandwiches, with Bill Floyd. Then the duo teamed with cookbook author and Houston Press restaurant critic Robb Walsh to open El Real in the spacious Tower Theater offering a menu of “vintage” Tex-Mex dishes. That had its ups and some downs, but was mostly a very welcome stop for a familiar food.
Chris Shepherd – Underbelly, The Hay Merchant, One Fifth, Georgia James, UB Preserv – 2012 to 2022 – Juxtaposing many of the city’s ethnic cooking traditions onto a menu and often on a single plate and usually succeeding in dramatic fashion brought Shepherd deserved national acclaim. Underbelly, his first restaurant, was boisterous and confident, interesting, and extremely competent. It also helped show that a meal built around small plates can work well. Underbelly led to other successful and laudable concepts from him, and to chefs working under him to succeed elsewhere.
Olivier Ciesielski – L’Olivier, Avondale – 2012 to 2021 – Ciesielski’s first gig after arriving from France in his twenties in the early 1990s was also in Montrose, at La Colombe d’Or. He eventually landed with Tony Vallone, and was “the best chef Tony’s ever had” according to John Mariani in Esquire. In 2012, with a goal to offer “an affordable fine-dining experience in the space that was a former adult DVD store,” on lowest Westheimer, he opened L’Olivier serving classic French bistro fare. Drawing good press, it ran for a half dozen years before becoming Avondale, a unique wine shop-cum-restaurant, with dishes still expertly crafted but from a menu a little less French.
Roy Shvartzapel – Common Bond – 2014 to 2015 – Working with Ferran Adria, Thomas Keller, and Pierre Hermé, once named the best pastry chef in the world, and as the pastry chef at the two-Michelin-star Cyrus in Napa Valley before starting Common Bond, Shvartzapel’s background was very evident in its breads, croissants, and all its baked goods. Leaving after just a year, he has since built a following for his panettone, the Italian dessert bread that is “the Mount Everest of baking.”
Alberto Baffoni – Bistecca – 2015 to 2020 – A native of the Marche in central Italy, Baffoni earned some national praise at Simposio in the late 1990s. John Mariani wrote in Esquire: “Before you judge Italian cuisine in America against its Old World counterpart, let Baffoni serve you his grilled calamari with tomato fillet dressed simply with lemon; his hand-rolled strozzapreti (“priest strangler”) noodles with sausage, spinach, and roast peppers; glorious trout cooked gently in white wine; breaded lamb chops with sweet-and-sour shallots.” The turn at Bistecca was not as consistently praiseworthy, unfortunately, but his food there was still good.
Paul Qui – Aqui – 2017 to 2018 – Qui won a James Beard Award for his work in Austin and received some regional notoriety, and had some baggage, in the years before opening his purpose-built spot on lower Westheimer that now houses Travelers Table. Aqui struggled to gain traction with its pan-Asian cooking, but the quality was there after a slow start, even though the restaurant did not last. Qui would go on to open several restaurants in the Post downtown, including as a partner with the excellent Golfstrømmen Seafood Market.
Nick Wong – UB Preserv – 2018 to 2022 – An alumnus of David Chang’s kitchens and Grammercy Tavern in Manhattan, Wong was the chef de cuisine at this successor to Underbelly. Inviting and comfortable, this was culinarily serious restaurant that turned out a wide range excellent dishes, and a worthy second act for the groundbreaking Underbelly. After Shepherd sold the restaurant group, Wong would go on to have his own restaurant, Agnes & Sherman. In 2025, Texas Monthly named as the best new restaurant in the state.
Felipe Riccio – March, Rosie Cannonball – 2019 to present – Riccio, the culinary director for Goodnight Hospitality and its several worthy restaurants clustered on Westheimer, including the Michelin-starred March, had an impressive resume in fine-dining before any of its doors opened. Locally, he worked with Frederic Perrier, Bryan Caswell, and at Pass & Provisions. In New York, at the acclaimed Dan Barber’s Blue Hill at Stone Barns and then time in Italy and Spain, including stages at Azurmendi and Osteria Francescana, both with three Michelin stars. This experience shows on the plates and in the restaurants.
Mark Cox during the heyday of Mark's
Bruce Molzan – Ruggles – 1986 to 2012 – Ruggles was a pioneer in modern, high-quality dining in this part of town when it opened in the mid-1980s on Westheimer a block east of Montrose by Manfred Jachmich and chef Bruce Molzan. A graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, Molzan came to Houston to work at the Hyatt-Regency downtown earlier in the decade. He gained inspiration during the 1980s with stints at Wolfgang Puck’s groundbreaking Spago in Los Angeles, with Jeremiah Tower at Stars in San Francisco, and in Paris, at the Michelin two-star from Michel Rostang and at Joël Robuchon’s. He would be known for his creative New Southwestern cooking here, as the Houston Chronicle would dub the style of its cooking along with that from other restaurants like Café Annie. That paper would rate it well over the years, with a star or two, denoting a level of exemplariness. It had some of the city’s most popular dishes among avid diners in its smoked duck ravioli, and risotto with stuffed quail. Almost everything came in “huge” portions. By the end of the century, it would also be known for “erratic service and relentless overbooking” where “reservations are almost meaningless unless you’re a regular or a celebrity.” There was also much more litigation and controversy than is typical at a restaurant during Molzan’s tenure at Ruggles, but the Chronicle would write in the mid-2000s that “his casual, lively spot has been a staple of the local scene for two decades now.” Molzan was a trendsetter in what would be the best restaurant row in the city and well beyond.
Lynette Hawkins – La Mora – 1991 to 2007 – On Lovett, just a block south of Westheimer at nearly Montrose, Hawkins opened La Mora. She had lived in Florence and this is the first of the area’s Tuscan-themed restaurants that really struck a chord among Houston diners. Esquire named it among the top new restaurants in country, and it continued to be regarded among the city’s top Italians during its tenure. She now has Giacomo’s further down Westheimer.
Aldo El Sharif – Aldo’s – 1996 to 2004 – Born in Cairo to a Sicilian mother and then raised in Milan, the restaurant earned critical praise locally for Sharif's rich, personal cooking that drew inspirations beyond the borders of Italy. The acclaim included the highest rating, three stars, from the Houston Chronicle a few years after opening. The restaurant garnered attention for its romantic setting, extensive menu and wine lists, plus prices that invariably run high.
Mark Cox – Mark’s – 1997 to 2016 – Soon after departing Tony’s as executive chef, Cox caused a sensation among the city’s most well-heeled diners when he opened Mark’s in what had once been a church in a somewhat derelict strip of Westheimer just east of Dunlavy. A glowing profile of the restaurant in Wine Spectator in its first year praised his New American cooking, which “serves big Texas flavor without overwhelming the seasonal ingredients.” It would also earn among the very top food scores from Zagat voters for most its two-decade tenure. Its building would house Chris Shepherd’s One Fifth restaurants in subsequent years.
Marco Wiles – Da Marco, Dolce Vita, Poscol – 2000 to present – Chef Marco Wiles had worked locally for Tony Vallone, Antonio Mingalone and Aldo El Sharif before opening his own place, the white tablecloth Da Marco that served truly Italian cuisine from much of its peninsula. It sported an unusual at the time, all-Italian wine list, and became one of the most lauded Italian restaurants in Houston’s dining history. That included food top scores from local Zagat voters, and a nod from Gourmet in 2006 as number 29 among the best restaurants in the country. Dolce Vita and Poscol were two other excellent Italian options from him along this stretch of Westhimer, both geared toward small plates, with the former serving as the city’s best pizzeria for years.
Hugo Ortega – Hugo’s – 2002 to present – The eponymous Hugo’s introduced Houston to an authentic fine dining Mexican restaurant in 2002. It is still going strong and a fixture in the heart of Montrose that works well as a stop for dinner, lunch, and brunch. Ortega and company have since opened four other excellent Mexican concepts downtown and in the Galleria area that explore other the cooking of other areas of Mexico.
Georges Guy – Chez Georges, Georges Bistro – 2005 to 2012, 2014 to 2016 – Operating at nearly the 12000 block of Westheimer – where it earned the top rating from the Chronicle for several years – Chez Georges reopened in 2005 almost 13 miles east at its 200 block. Georges Guy, who “trained at some of France’s better kitchen,” continued to charm with his Provencal-accented French cooking, if “comfortably old-fashioned” and dished with “extravagant richness,” according to that paper in its first Montrose area stint.
Anita Jaisinghani – Indika – 2006 to 2017 – Jaisinghani started Indika a few years earlier on the western stretches of Memorial Drive before moving to the heart of Montrose in 2006. It was the city’s first modern Indian restaurant. During its heyday, Alison Cook in the Chronicle would name it among the top ten restaurants in Houston and proclaim that “Indika perches gracefully at the summit of Houston's mighty range of Subcontinental restaurants.” Jaisinghani would sell the restaurant in 2017 to concentrate on her Pondicheri on Kirby.
Richard Knight – Feast – 2008 to 2013 – Opened in the spring of 2008, Knight headed the kitchen at this contemporary British restaurant known for its superb snout-to-tail cooking. Frank Bruni, the former restaurant critic of The New York Times, wrote that Feast had “no real peer in New York, Chicago, Los Angeles and other major cities.” Even with a surfeit of critical attention, this superlative spot shuttered in 2012. Knight would move on to more acclaim at Hunky Dory in the Heights, but its restaurant group suffered from funding problems, and its tenure was too short. Atlas Diner downtown followed that, but also had an abbreviated run.
Bryan Caswell – Little Bigs, El Real – 2009 to 2019 – Caswell is best known for his informed and skillful Gulf seafood creations at Reef and now at Latuli. In Montrose, his restaurants were much more casual and inexpensive. First was the tiny Little Bigs, a half-block north of Westheimer, serving tiny burgers and sandwiches, with Bill Floyd. Then the duo teamed with cookbook author and Houston Press restaurant critic Robb Walsh to open El Real in the spacious Tower Theater offering a menu of “vintage” Tex-Mex dishes. That had its ups and some downs, but was mostly a very welcome stop for a familiar food.
Chris Shepherd – Underbelly, The Hay Merchant, One Fifth, Georgia James, UB Preserv – 2012 to 2022 – Juxtaposing many of the city’s ethnic cooking traditions onto a menu and often on a single plate and usually succeeding in dramatic fashion brought Shepherd deserved national acclaim. Underbelly, his first restaurant, was boisterous and confident, interesting, and extremely competent. It also helped show that a meal built around small plates can work well. Underbelly led to other successful and laudable concepts from him, and to chefs working under him to succeed elsewhere.
Olivier Ciesielski – L’Olivier, Avondale – 2012 to 2021 – Ciesielski’s first gig after arriving from France in his twenties in the early 1990s was also in Montrose, at La Colombe d’Or. He eventually landed with Tony Vallone, and was “the best chef Tony’s ever had” according to John Mariani in Esquire. In 2012, with a goal to offer “an affordable fine-dining experience in the space that was a former adult DVD store,” on lowest Westheimer, he opened L’Olivier serving classic French bistro fare. Drawing good press, it ran for a half dozen years before becoming Avondale, a unique wine shop-cum-restaurant, with dishes still expertly crafted but from a menu a little less French.
Roy Shvartzapel – Common Bond – 2014 to 2015 – Working with Ferran Adria, Thomas Keller, and Pierre Hermé, once named the best pastry chef in the world, and as the pastry chef at the two-Michelin-star Cyrus in Napa Valley before starting Common Bond, Shvartzapel’s background was very evident in its breads, croissants, and all its baked goods. Leaving after just a year, he has since built a following for his panettone, the Italian dessert bread that is “the Mount Everest of baking.”
Alberto Baffoni – Bistecca – 2015 to 2020 – A native of the Marche in central Italy, Baffoni earned some national praise at Simposio in the late 1990s. John Mariani wrote in Esquire: “Before you judge Italian cuisine in America against its Old World counterpart, let Baffoni serve you his grilled calamari with tomato fillet dressed simply with lemon; his hand-rolled strozzapreti (“priest strangler”) noodles with sausage, spinach, and roast peppers; glorious trout cooked gently in white wine; breaded lamb chops with sweet-and-sour shallots.” The turn at Bistecca was not as consistently praiseworthy, unfortunately, but his food there was still good.
Paul Qui – Aqui – 2017 to 2018 – Qui won a James Beard Award for his work in Austin and received some regional notoriety, and had some baggage, in the years before opening his purpose-built spot on lower Westheimer that now houses Travelers Table. Aqui struggled to gain traction with its pan-Asian cooking, but the quality was there after a slow start, even though the restaurant did not last. Qui would go on to open several restaurants in the Post downtown, including as a partner with the excellent Golfstrømmen Seafood Market.
Nick Wong – UB Preserv – 2018 to 2022 – An alumnus of David Chang’s kitchens and Grammercy Tavern in Manhattan, Wong was the chef de cuisine at this successor to Underbelly. Inviting and comfortable, this was culinarily serious restaurant that turned out a wide range excellent dishes, and a worthy second act for the groundbreaking Underbelly. After Shepherd sold the restaurant group, Wong would go on to have his own restaurant, Agnes & Sherman. In 2025, Texas Monthly named as the best new restaurant in the state.
Felipe Riccio – March, Rosie Cannonball – 2019 to present – Riccio, the culinary director for Goodnight Hospitality and its several worthy restaurants clustered on Westheimer, including the Michelin-starred March, had an impressive resume in fine-dining before any of its doors opened. Locally, he worked with Frederic Perrier, Bryan Caswell, and at Pass & Provisions. In New York, at the acclaimed Dan Barber’s Blue Hill at Stone Barns and then time in Italy and Spain, including stages at Azurmendi and Osteria Francescana, both with three Michelin stars. This experience shows on the plates and in the restaurants.
Mark Cox during the heyday of Mark's
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