Black’s Market Table is a great place to practice living locally, and living well.
If Black’s Market Table is unfamiliar, the flavors served at Chef Bart Black’s Northwest Houston restaurant won’t be. Black has designed a menu that feels simultaneously nostalgic and fresh, with dishes intended to “be reminiscent of something. Like, my aunt used to cook something like this… it stimulates memories.” Of course, “we kick it up,” says Black.
The core menu features Southern-inspired staples like deviled eggs, shrimp and grits, and chicken biscuits, as well as salads, sandwiches and a daily soup, but Black advises guests to check out the daily specials on the chalkboard, which change twice a day.
On my visit, he had one chicken and two pork dishes on offer for lunch. The chicken, Black says, hearkens to his childhood, reminding him of his dad’s barbecue. The pork selections utilize cuts from two hogs he’d just purchased from Whitehurst Heritage Farms. Black devises ways to use the whole animal, “snout to tail,” and encourages eaters to consider that eating well means more than what we typically associate with “light” and “healthy;” it means eating “wholesome.
“Living well is a result of eating good food,” says Black, and he doesn’t shy away from using his menu to educate guests on how to, literally, go whole-hog. Chef Black relies on quality ingredients from local suppliers he knows personally, in part because he believes that ingredients obtained from farms that treat plants and animals well simply taste better. He knows how those two hogs lived and can vouch for their quality, because he is friends with the farmer who raised them.
Black also gets excited about supporting his community by sourcing locally. He recalls the tiny grocery store in the Poconos that his family frequented during his childhood: “Everybody knew them. We’d go hunting and they’d process our deer for us. … It goes back to that: coming into contact with your community.”
That grocery was put out of business by a big-box store, and Black wants to do what he can to keep that from happening to the suppliers he knows here in Southeast Texas. He gestures his hand three feet off the floor, saying, “I’m supporting a guy [Michael Marchand at Whitehurst Heritage Farms] I’ve known since our kids were two years old.”
For Chef Bart Black, living local is more than a trend. It’s a way of life that enriches our everyday experience with the stories of the the people around us. “People… they love the history behind [our food,] the story.”
Bart's focus on local is one reason he was awarded both Local Hero Chef and Local Hero Restaurant in 2018. The fact that the food is delicious didn't hurt either!
