Belly of the Beast
Words by David Leftwich Photo of Carne Asada at Belly of the Beast by Foodie Cinematics
“I grew up literally smelling kimchi on one side of my house and fish sauce on the other,” says Thomas Bille, chef at Belly of The Beast, which he owns with his wife Elizabeth. Growing up in Los Angeles, his next-door neighbors were Korean and Vietnamese, while the other neighbors on his block included Ecuadorians, Filipinos, Japanese and Mexicans, like himself.
“I would see their kids,” says Thomas, “My friends that I grew up with, eating something and I'd ask, ‘Can I have some of that?’ They'd say, ‘I don't think you're going to like it.’ I'd reply, ‘Man, I like everything.’”
That inclusive and curious attitude toward food now informs Thomas’s globally inspired, Mexican-rooted cooking at his and Elizabeth’s cozy, well-appointed restaurant in Spring — cooking that earned him a 2024 James Beard semifinalist nod for Best Chef: Texas. But neither he nor Elizabeth began their professional careers in hospitality.
Thomas was introduced to restaurant life by his father, who was a chef at a French bistro. “He used to take me to the restaurant when I was a kid,” he says. “I'd sit there at the counter and just watch the cooks work. One of them would pass me some lobster thermidor or a slice of filet mignon, I'd be like, oh, this is so good."
Inspired by those experiences, Thomas often asked his dad to teach him to cook, diving into the endeavor wholeheartedly. His dad would show him how to make something such as French toast. The following weekend, Thomas would wake up early and make his whole family a meal centered around that dish.
He didn’t just learn from his dad, but also his mom, who he says is a great cook. “She raised three boys, worked a full-time job, came home and cooked for us. If Mom was making something, I tried to help and make sure I learned how to do that,” says Thomas. She cooked many things, but her specialties were traditional Mexican dishes such as menudo, pozole and Michoacán-style barbacoa with red sauce and garbanzos.
Despite his years learning from his parents, Thomas initially didn’t want to follow in his father’s footsteps. But at 27, as an assistant manager at an inkjet toner warehouse, he began thinking it was time for a change. “I was lifting 80-pound boxes all day. After doing that for a few years, I was like, ‘Man, I got to do something else in my life,’” says Thomas.
During this time, he occasionally dined at Michelin-starred restaurants, and thought, “I could make this.” He started trying to recreate the dishes, leading him to begin formal culinary education at the Cordon Bleu of Hollywood. But Thomas wasn’t satisfied with just classroom learning. Within three weeks of starting culinary school, he was working at the Korean-owned Food Court L.A. making Pan-Asian-fusion dishes such as cheeseburger spring rolls and bulgogi tacos, before Korean tacos became popular.
After several years working in Los Angeles-area kitchens, including a five-year stint with The Ritz-Carlton, where Thomas learned a lot about service, he finally had an opportunity to develop his own dishes as executive sous chef at Otium, a restaurant helmed by James Beard Award-winning, French Laundry-alum Tim Hollingsworth. This experience gave Thomas a taste of what he really wanted to do: open his own restaurant.
Other than working six months at hot dog chain Wienerschnitzel while in high school, Elizabeth, who grew up in Southern California, didn’t have any restaurant experience before she and Thomas launched the first iteration of Belly of the Beast five weeks before the pandemic. However, her mom, who emigrated from Mexico, had extensive hospitality experience as a flight attendant, which inspired Elizabeth to pursue a career in another service sector — public service.
Following that path, Elizabeth graduated from the University of Houston, where she studied history and political science. She then moved to Washington D.C. to work as a Mickey Leland Fellow for Dallas-area United States Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson. She went on to hold high-level positions at Latino-focused, community-oriented organizations in Los Angeles and Houston.
“I always knew my calling was service, to give back to my community,” says Elizabeth. “So, I went into public service, which is where I've spent most of my professional career. Now, I see that magic happens when connecting with our guests … educating them about our food and culture in a very eloquent and elevated way.”
Looking for a better work-life balance, a more affordable place to raise their children and for Thomas to open his own restaurant, the couple moved from Los Angeles to the Houston area in 2018.
“I wanted to create my own business. And I didn't see it being feasible in Los Angeles. It was just too expensive," says Thomas.
“Let's be honest, it’s unattainable for most first-generation Mexican Americans,” adds Elizabeth. “Our parents didn't come from business backgrounds. They're not wealthy. They have been working for 40, 50 years … just hard workers that wanted to provide a better life for us. The same as we're trying to do for our little ones.”
When they arrived in Houston, Elizabeth began working at an education nonprofit, Thomas started a gig at Hugo Ortega’s Xochi, and they began looking at potential restaurant spaces.
A year later, following a growing trend for chef-driven restaurants, they found a space in the suburbs, close to where they were living. Just weeks before COVID-19 shut down indoor dining, they opened the first version of Belly of the Beast, a casual, counter-service eatery.
Despite shifting business models to navigate the pandemic, Elizabeth working at her full-time job and at the restaurant when she could, and Thomas’s father butchering and his mother making tortillas, the couple made the difficult decision to close in the summer of 2021.
While contemplating their next move, Thomas signed on as chef of the now-closed Chivos, a high-profile project inside the Loop, which he hoped would raise his profile in his new hometown. It worked, as his food received high praise from diners and the media. But Thomas still wanted to operate his own restaurant, so the couple began looking for a new space.
Commercial real estate in Houston city limits, especially inside the Loop, proved too expensive, so they began looking again in Spring where they already had a loyal customer base. The couple eventually found a suitable location in a soon-to-close breakfast joint nestled in a prairie-style strip center on FM 2920 in Spring.
After six months of building out the space, primarily on their own, and navigating the bureaucratic maze of permitting, Thomas and Elizabeth opened the new full-service Belly of the Beast on November 1, 2023. That same month Elizabeth left her full-time job to dedicate her time to the restaurant and her family. The couple are now all in.
And it’s paying off. Not only did Thomas receive James Beard recognition within months of reopening, but the restaurant is also receiving high praise from diners. Which isn’t surprising. Belly of the Beast melds Thomas’s and Elizabeth’s passion for food and service and is currently producing, based on my recent visit, some of the best and most exciting food in Houston — seasonal dishes such as perfectly cooked duck breast and a fluffy masa cake paired with an operatic strawberry mole that sings with flavors, tortillas made by Thomas’s mom with inhouse nixtamalized masa, and striped bass served with tomatillo curry.
“I was highly influenced by other cultures' food,” says Thomas. “It’s hard to say I'm only cooking this type of food … If I want a curry, I want a curry. If I want mole, I want mole. But I make it make sense to me by using Mexican ingredients. Our curry on the menu right now is a Thai-based tomatillo curry. I use Mexican chilies such as chili de árbol, serrano, jalapeño and manzano. But I also use galangal, ginger, lemongrass and shrimp paste … I try to make things that are unique. But I also want to educate people that Mexican food isn’t just beans and rice. It's so complex from the influx of cultures that have meshed into the fabric which is Mexico.”
Thomas and Elizabeth are succeeding in this endeavor. They are fusing the multiethnic influences of Thomas’s youth, their families’ Mexican heritages, his father’s professional French cooking, his years cooking in Los Angeles and Houston, and their shared passion for service into dishes that represent the future of food in Houston and beyond.
Visit at 5200 FM 2920, Spring, TX | botbfood.com
David Leftwich is editor of Edible Houston and loves to cook with locally grown vegetables and hang out with his daughter, wife, dog, cat and a few too many books.
