Our group decided to make a long weekend for ourselves and planned a trip to Houston to visit a friend out there. I think everyone can agree that having a local friend act as a tour guide is the best way to travel.
We stayed in Montrose and really loved it. Our Airbnb was a two-story townhouse that was walking distance to a lot of mom and pop restaurants, as well as the downtown area for bars, cocktails, and even some clubs.
Food always plays a huge role in my travels, but it definitely dominated this trip. Let’s just say all of us back in LA are going to be eating salads and green juice this whole week.
Eating at One Fifth Houston is an experience none of us will ever forget.
One Fifth Houston
Location: Westheimer Road, Houston
Price Point: $$$
Points of Charm:
- One Fifth is a 5-year project taken on by Chris Shepherd, who is a James Beard Award-winning chef. He’s leasing this beautiful old church building on Westheimer Road, which will be a different restaurant for each of the 5 years of his lease. Each concept restaurant is open from September 1st – July 31st. After that, they close and re-open a completely new restaurant in 1 month’s time. One Fifth is already on its 3rd rotation, which is Mediterranean. According to our local friend, it’s the best one yet.
- You can order a la carte or go for the tasting menu. There’s a Sightseeing Tour that goes for $60, then there’s the First Class Tour that is the Sightseeing Tour, but for the last half of the meal, you are served off-menu dishes. We went for the First Class for $75.
- The last point of charm is literally everything we ate, which was upwards of 15+ dishes. Their pita bread is the best I’ve had in my life. We couldn’t stop dipping it into the 6+ types of hummus we had, including my favorite, baba ganoush (which was also phenomenal). Before dessert, the grand finale was a foot and a half slab of wood carrying what they call Al Ha’esh: lamb merguez, 44 farms flat iron, mushroom, eggplant, lamb, and wagyu short rib. Along with that we also got yogurt marinated chicken, which was a favorite of the table, as well as whole fish, braised lamb, and shakshouka (farm eggs, feta, and roasted pepper in a cast iron skillet).
- This bonus point of charm is for the lamb tartare (kibbeh), which was an off-menu dish. It came with garlic puree and mint leaves, which you place on top of your lamb tartare spread on crusty bread. It was pure magic.
JULIENNE CARROTS 