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If I stroll down Memory Lane, the scenery includes lost loves, a couple jobs I wish I still had, a few backpacking trips through Europe and one super-embarrassing incident in Miss Schumann’s sixth-grade class.
If celeb chef Robert Del Grande takes a stroll down Memory Lane, the scenery includes, apparently, the entire menu at his new Ava Kitchen & Whiskey Bar.
Overheard chatting at a table alongside his latest project’s wall of 12-foot-high Kirby Drive-facing windows, Del Grande seems careful to contrast Ava—and its sibling pizzeria called Alto, upstairs—with the iconic, chef-driven restaurant he has to race back to any second, RDG + Bar Annie (1800 Post Oak Blvd., 713.840.1111). For one thing, he insists, this one, a popular addition to the happening milieu at the new West Ave mixed-used development, isn’t chef-driven. It’s all about the food at Ava and Alto, not necessarily about who’s cooking it.
And while Del Grande is no stranger to innovation, going back to the earliest days of his former Café Annie and the New Southwestern Cuisine he pioneered, he insists Ava is about “doubling back” to the classics like white bean soup and pasta Bolognese that excited him as a child in an Italian family in San Francisco, plus the ones like tomato-basil soup and steak au poivre that inspired him as a young cook dreaming of becoming a chef. “Let’s do something new, but let’s not forget all the great things we got from other people,” observes Del Grande, ever one to turn slightly more contemplative than the moment demands. “Food has to come from somewhere.”
Some of Ava’s best dishes hail from France and, especially, Spain, with more than a few detours through the Italy of Del Grande’s roots. Yet the common thread here is not French technique—I’ve heard that a few times before—as much as American sensibility. Ava is profoundly American c. 2011: wildly casual, boisterous and social without striving to be society.
Like RDG, and anything else the chef and his Schiller Del Grande group takes on, Ava and Alto are the visual creations of Candice Schiller, wife of Del Grande’s longtime business partner Lonnie Schiller and sister of the chef’s wife Mimi. In Candice’s eyes, the window-happy space inside is about the space outside: the new Kirby, which I believe is intended as Houston’s answer to the Champs-Élysées. West Ave stakes out that crucial corner where Kirby pours onto Westheimer, and Ava stakes out a crucial corner of that. Windows run the entire length of the restaurant, offering a view of the “boulevard.” (And if Houston ever produces an actual pedestrian, everybody in the place will enjoy a terrific view of him or her.)
The front section, a corner protruding into West Ave’s inner street, presents a towering almost-atrium with windows on two sides and a staircase leading up to Alto. There are five tables in this shimmering ante room, and on this weekday night, each one is filled with 30-somethings in jeans enjoying cocktails from the bar.
Further inside, a path leading to the restaurant’s back room barely delineates the long, bustling “whiskey bar” from the dining room. In modern restaurants like Ava (or its West Ave neighbor, a sexed-up re-envisioning of Austin-based Eddie V’s steak and seafood house) there is no longer much sectioning off of the lounge. Bar types visit tables, and diners leave tables to drift to the bar. A simple stroll to the restroom near the entrance becomes a 20-minute session of handshakes and hugs. No one is dressed up, and no one seems to have given much thought to being here. But suddenly, everybody you know is. Laughter fills the air under vaguely industrial ceilings.
Three basic settings emerge, staked out by glass, old brick and polished wood: boulevard tables pressed against the windows, a zig-zaggy line of banquettes near the bar (a seemingly impromptu collection of sofas in brown leather and fuschia velvet), and zinc tables floating between the two. Complete with eight large-scale hanging light fixtures of thin plywood that evoke ribbons of pasta spun around a fork, this is café-by-way-of-salon.
If the scene here is something of a social free-for-all, then Del Grande and his Ava cooks have crafted a free-for-all of a menu, too, hammered out onto a single page divided into lists of “Small Plates” and “Grills & Plates.” Favorite small plates include the mildly Tex-Mex Gulf-crabmeat cocktail, with tomatoes, avocado and a smooth avocado sauce—and the marinated Gulf shrimp and cucumber, gone off to Spain with so-called salsa gazpacho, chorizo and those wonderful Marcona almonds.
The white bean soup is delicious, though I prefer my soups more rustic and un-puréed. At least the bacon and cippolini onions add some texture to the comfort-food flavor. And while the Romaine “Parmesan” salad offers a light, lemon-kissed spin on a Caesar, studded with pine nuts and golden raisins, the marinated artichoke salad is great, too, with paper-thin curls of Manchego cheese, roasted sweet peppers and a very citrusy pesto.
For your main course, do pasta, or have a burger. You cannot make a bad choice among these options. The rigatoni with Bolognese is a home-style hit, meaty and almost creamy, absent the overwhelming tomato presence that happens more in this country than ever in Italy. The burger, with what Del Grande cheekily describes as “good cheese,” is a wonder. The beef and especially the bun are “good,” as well. The crispy, salty fries, reminiscent of those served to acclaim at Bar Annie, are even better.
Seafood lovers will gather around the Texas redfish pecheur (meaning “fisherman” in French, non?), a flakey white fillet blanketed in what’s described as a version of marinara with finely chopped shrimp. Imagine an Italian fisherman hanging out in Rockport-Fulton with Vietnamese counterparts. As for meats, try the bacon-roasted pork tenderloin with dried Mission figs and apples, but not in lieu of the bistro steak and fries, with roasted cippolini. I’ve eaten steak frites all over France, and this one, honestly, tops them all. (For carnivores like me, there are advantages to living in Texas.)
While seemingly still a work in progress, desserts include a couple hits. The profiteroles are extra-fortified for chocolate cravers. Even the puff pastry is chocolate, sliced in half to sandwich a scoop of intense chocolate ice cream, all doused with a more intense chocolate sauce.
And the exceptional Tarte Tatin is completely true to the Ava concept. It’s all about Del Grande’s “doubling back,” taking a classic French apple tart and simply knocking out a stellar version. Its thinly sliced apples are so caramelized as to be almost a wonderful pudding, paired with caramel sauce and not-so-sweet crème fraiche.
In the spirit of “doubling back,” chef, I’ll have two.
Ava Kitchen & Whiskey Bar / Pizzeria Alto
Rating ***
2800 Kirby Dr., 713.386.6460
WHY GO AVA touts casual dining on a broad scale, with a terrific selection of cocktails and spirits, and a crowd of your friends.
PARKING Free valet at lunch, $5 at dinner, with metered spaces and a garage nearby.
LIQUID COURAGE “Creative Drinks” include the Wild Turkey rye julep, the Mediterranean mojito with gin instead of rum, and sangria.
PIZZA FROM HEAVEN Upstairs, ALTO is a pizza parlor for hip grownups. Fabulous pizzas from the brick oven include the surprise hit with Gorgonzola and Mission figs.
AVA HOURS lunch Mon.-Sat. 11am-3pm, dinner Mon.-Wed. 5-10pm and Thu.-Sat. 5-11pm
ALTO HOURS Tue. 5-10pm, Wed.-Thu. 5pm-12am, Fri.-Sat. 5pm-1am, Sun. 12-8pm, Closed Mondays
PRICES lunch $8-$18, small plates and entrees $8-$34, desserts $8.50
NEW BRUNCH MENU
RDG is pleased to announce the launch of our new Sunday Brunch menu. We invite you to stop by and enjoy Chef Robert Del Grande's delicious culinary creations on Sundays between 11am - 3pm.
View Sunday Brunch MenuRESERVATIONS
Click on the OpenTable logo below to make a Reservation Online
PRIVATE DINING @ RDG
Private Spaces
Semi-Private Space
Public Space
PRIVATE DINING CONTACT
GIFT CERTIFICATES
HOURS OF OPERATION
LUNCH
Monday - Friday: 11:30 AM - 2:00 PM
BRUNCH
Sunday: 11:00 AM - 3:00 PM
DINNER
Monday - Thursday: 6:00 PM - 10:00 PM
Friday & Saturday: 6:00 PM - 10:30 PM
Sunday: 5:00 PM - 9:00 PM
HAPPY HOUR
Monday - Friday: 4:00 PM - 7:00 PM
BAR MENU
Monday - Friday: All Day
LOCATION
RDG + Bar Annie
1800 Post Oak Boulevard
Houston, TX 77056-3962
(713) 840-1111 MAP
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