I had been looking forward to the Les Sauvages dinner for awhile. I probably never even would have heard about this summer dinner series, let alone know they even exist, if I didn't happen to be friends with one of the chefs, Peter. I met Peter when he was a bartender at Anvil, but he recently stopped working at both Anvil and Revival Market for a much needed change of pace. He, and other chef friend, Justin (who most recently was a chef at Stella Sola) decided to take a little hiatus from the conventional restaurant scene to do a summer dinner series, or "pop-up dinners" as some call them.
Although Justin and Peter are talented chefs themselves, they decided that each dinner would showcase a different chef from Houston and even from neighboring cities like New Orleans or Austin. Every dinner proved to be innovative with a different influence from the visiting chef. The dinners were taking place in the Hofheinz House, an old mansion in Montrose that is used for catered events. The first few Les Sauvages dinners sold out right away, so by the time that I rallied up a few people who were willing to spend $80 on dinner, we couldn't get tickets until the August 24th dinner. Romy, Anand, and I anxiously awaited the big day.
The August 24th dinner featured chef Michael Kramer who recently opened a new place in Rice Village called Felix 55. Romy had recently been there and said she had some of the best scallops of her life. Michael, Justin and Peter had all worked together at the Voice restaurant and would reunite again for another great meal.
Romy and I got a little lost finding the Hofheinz House which is tucked into the corner of Montrose near Midtown and the Southwest freeway. When we walked into the pretty old house, we found Anand already hanging out at a large round table with some other people. One of the great things about this dinner series was having the opportunity to meet other people who were also as excited about food as we were.
We had a fun group sitting with us. Francesco was a waiter at Brasserie 19. Luke was about to open a pastry shop with his aunt. There was Arin and Robert, a nice engineer couple in their 30s. There was also a middle-aged couple with a love of wine and cooking. Everyone was armed with various bottles of wine to enjoy with dinner.
Before dinner started, we were offered a complimentary cocktail made by one of the Anvil bartenders. It was Campari, vermouth and bitters and was meant to stimulate the palate for the meal to come.
First was the amuse bouche which was a frothy mixture of some kind of cheese, sea salt and plums. It was a very interesting mix of sweet and savory.
The following is a list of what came next. Each dish was brought out with an explanation from one of the chefs as well:
-Summer Tomato garden: tomato granite, mozzarella, corn. There were three different tomatoes prepared a different way, one fresh, one smoked and one pickled. I am not even a tomato person and I enjoyed these. The mozzarella was made that morning. For those that don't know granite, it is like flavored ice.
-Grano Arso Cavatelli with eggplant, tomato, romesco
-Gulf grouper with cannellini bean stew, salumi brodo, garden pesto. We got a good piece of this fresh local fish and it was highlighted with the bright pesto
-Roast pork loin wrapped in bacon with polenta cooked in whey, chanterelles, sofrito. This was one of my favorites of the night. You simply can not go wrong when you wrap anything in bacon, let alone another piece of pork! Pork squared....genius!
The dinner was not only delicious but a lot of fun! I enjoyed meeting some new "foodie" types and it is always fun to see a friend at work doing something they love. So I say well done to Peter, Justin, and guest chef, Michael Cramer. If I were a little richer, I would come back again every week!!
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