TRIBUTE - Houstonian's Newest, Don't Miss Restaurant
Houstonian Hotel’s new restaurant raises a toast to local cuisine
TRIBUTE, the newly opened restaurant at The Houstonian Hotel, Club & Spa, is refining the concept of what it means to eat like a Houstonian. If plates piled high with barbecued ribs are what you think of as local Houston fare, Executive Chef Neal Cox—himself a barbecue fan—invites you to dine at TRIBUTE to explore Houston’s wider food culture.
On the menu are wood-grilled Gulf Coast oysters, braised cabrito, smoked Wagyu beef rib, wild boar empanadas, jumbo lump crab au gratin and grilled redfish on the half shell —all of which have the unmistakable indigenous flavors and ingredients of TexLex cuisine: those of Texas and its geographic and culinary neighbors Louisiana and Mexico.
In addition to offering homage to Houston’s food and cultural complexity, the restaurant pays tribute to its wealth of excellent restaurant talent, led by Cox, who has worked at The Houstonian since 2010 and has been part of the local food scene since the 1990s. The South Texas native is assisted by Chef de Cuisine Jeff Boudreaux of Morgan City, Louisiana, and Sous Chefs Juan Tuch from Guatemala and Irene Medrano of Mexico, all of whom have a flair for infusing Houston cuisine with their regional cooking. Sommelier Vanessa Treviño Boyd, who has lived here since 2010, is in charge of The Bar, the new wine lockers, wine room and related aspects that only someone with her wine expertise could manage.
The New Look and Feel
TRIBUTE was scheduled to open on October 26 after a $3 million renovation (led by design firm Gensler) of the former Olivette restaurant after it closed in May. “TRIBUTE’s design is classic and comfortable, where guests can dine, drink and gather. It was important that Gensler blend TRIBUTE seamlessly with the existing style of the hotel,” said General Manager Steve Fronterhouse. The 4,051-squarefoot space seats about 100 diners.
The front area of the restaurant is designed as open flex space. “A barn door can slide open to reveal space for a nice lounge area on a busy night when one of the events we have at the hotel lets out and The Bar adjacent to TRIBUTE fills up,” Fronterhouse explained. A dining room in back retained the original hearth and received numerous upgrades, including custom-made furniture.
In Vino Veritas
Near the dining room in back is the Wine Room, a small private space that is ideal for an intimate evening. It features a “waterfall” of wine bottles that is a stair-shaped rack structure made from solid walnut that steps down from the ceiling to the Wine Room’s tiger wood dining table. The space also has a lighting pendant that was procured from Historic Houston’s Warehouse.
Near the front are 40 backlit wine lockers, a new feature that offers TRIBUTE’s oenophile regulars the ability to keep a certain quantity of special wines on hand.
“As a locker owner, you’re going to get service by Vanessa and access to highly allocated wines—ones for hotels and restaurants only, such as small-production wines—that you’ll be able to purchase through us at a discounted price,” Fronterhouse said.
Boyd gave her valuable input early in the process of designing features such as the restaurant bar, the storage room, the private wine room and the wine bottle waterfall. “I also worked with our construction company on the arrangement of the back of The Bar—the appliances and service wells. It’s important to have an operator’s input on things like that to ensure everything works as efficiently as possible during actual service.”
Boyd has curated a list of 400 wines from which to choose. “It’s been a very creative endeavor, especially considering the way I’ve decided to organize it. It won’t be by grape, by region or even by flavor profile—you’ll just have to come in to TRIBUTE to see how I’m arranging the wine,” she said.
We Speak TexLex
“Texas, Louisiana and south of the border are the three regions that speak the most to me and all of us here. The foods are very much in harmony, and it’s the food people in this area like to eat,” Cox said.
“There’s one thing about the food you eat from these regions, even if it’s the simplest piece of roast chicken or a dish of rice: It is full of flavor. What is really key is that we’re utilizing the bold, strong TexLex flavors, and we’re using ingredients that are indigenous to those regions to really build the flavor of our dishes.”
Cox said the name TRIBUTE is also homage to those restaurateurs who have been in Houston for a number of years and have made a name for themselves by being innovative but also sticking true to their roots. On a personal level, Cox offers tribute to the women in his family whose love of cooking showed him how whole, unprocessed food can bring people together.
“We want TRIBUTE to be the place where our hotel’s guests eat more than once, and the place where people in the area bring their guests from a different part of the country or elsewhere in the world,” he said.
“We’re really proud of the food we’re putting out and how it best represents the past, present and future of this great city.”
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