Celebrating a Decade of Local Food and Natural Beauty at The Grove
The Grove at Discovery Green is celebrating its 10-year anniversary. Owner and Executive Chef Robert del Grande and Chef de Cuisine Ryan Williams took the opportunity to reflect on the restaurant’s decade-long relationship with Discovery Green.
“We’ve always benefited from our partnership with the park and enjoyed a great view of the city. But we really want to start opening up our kitchen to everyone visiting Discovery Green,” said Chef Williams. “Discovery Green and The Grove tend to attract different clients. We wanted give our guests and Discovery Green’s guests more options to come out and dine.”
To do this, The Grove has launched a new format for brunch on Sundays, developed a special Sunday Supper series and opened the exclusive Treehouse for a progression of unique happy hours with spectacular views of the park.
The year of events was kicked off with the new Sunday brunches just in time for spring holidays, and it’s had great response so far. “Our first brunch was for Easter this year and it was an amazing experience. We do a lot of catering here, so we wanted to bring together all the things we do for buffets to allow our guests a chance to experience them.”
Chef Williams seemed even more excited about the series of Sunday Suppers that are planned over the next few months. The first, which took place this past weekend on July 29, sold out ahead of time and was even pushed from 40 to 50 seats to accommodate more reservations. The next two are scheduled for August 19 and September 9. While “there are only three scheduled for now, we’d love to do more in the future,” said Chef Williams.
The inspiration for the Sunday Suppers began with wine pairings. “We’re using the wine as a second ingredient,” said Chef Williams. To plan each Supper menu, “I select a protein like shrimp or steak for the focus of the meal, we choose the wine to pair with it, and then create the rest of the dish. We let the wine dictate where the plate goes. It can take two weeks to develop a dish for this type of pairing.”
Each Sunday Supper will have a completely different menu. The dinners are held in the restaurant at a long wooden table with the rest of the ordinary dining areas cleared away. The table seats 50 and has a beautiful, dramatic feeling to it. The table runs along open kitchen so that the diners get to see behind the scenes and have the chef introduce each course and wine pairing.
The menu for July 29 highlighted Sautéed Gulf Shrimp, pan-roasted potato gnocchi with summer vegetables, live oak grilled lamb racks, and a beet and strawberry goat cheesecake.
“We had a fantastic response to our first Sunday Supper at The Grove,” said Executive Chef/Owner del Grande. “The setting was ideal for a relaxed Sunday dinner served family-style and the sunset views of Discovery Green added tranquility to the evening. Chef Williams crafted a menu that really embodied the essence of the food philosophy at The Grove: locally sourced ingredients with inspiration drawn from the cultural diversity of Houston and curated wines that showcased the synergisms of our wine list. The effect was magical, and so was the entire evening.”
If you didn’t make it to the first Treehouse Happy Hour on July 17, you’ll have to see it to believe it. The Treehouse is a special second-story seating area, not usually open to the public, with a gorgeous view. It’s here you can tell that The Grove really knows how to pull out all the stops. They create special happy hour menus, provide lively music and attract a fun crowd. “We want them to come enjoy a great view and great drinks,” said Chef Williams. “We know it can be difficult for people to get to us because of parking … so, we want to make sure we’re here for people who are already coming downtown and give them something great to do.”
And when these special events are over? Chef Williams assures us that folks can look forward to more interesting and unique happy hours and Sunday Suppers that take advantage of the beautiful park around the restaurant.
The Grove is looking forward to another decade of delicious, local and thoughtful cuisine while exploring new ways of opening their doors to the beautiful atmosphere at Discovery Green. We couldn’t be more excited to see where it takes them.
