This week Navy Blue, one of many season’s most anticipated eating places, unfurls its colours as an thrilling new participant on the Houston eating scene.
Opening Nov. 18, Navy Blue is bound to be a sizzling vacation spot for a lot of causes. It’s a luxe seafood palace in a metropolis that appreciates its ocean jewels from each Gulf and worldwide waters; it’s a grand re-envisioning of a primary Rice Village area; and it’s being helmed by a New York Metropolis newcomer with Michelin-star eating places on his resume.
And there’s the not insignificant issue that the buzzy new undertaking comes from the Bludorn restaurant workforce: chef Aaron Bludorn, his spouse Victoria Bludorn, and their companion Cherif Mbodji who introduced Bludorn native and nationwide acclaim since it opened in 2020.
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All the weather are in play to place Houston in an exhilarating temper indigo.
The 7,100-square-foot restaurant, in an area that briefly housed the Politan Row meals corridor, is stuffed with pure gentle from a frontage of oversize home windows. The interiors (designed by Austin-based Foda Studio working with Houston’s Courtney Hill Interiors and Gensler structure agency) are washed with bone and ever-so-subtle delicate pink colours damaged by navy blue tile work and banquettes, heat wooden chairs, and white oak partitions.
Diners are first greeted by curved peekaboo wall of chalky-colored blocks that teases the attention. To the left is the open kitchen, to the proper a welcoming bar backed by a Japanese ceramic tile set up and a non-public eating room dominated by a blue sea wall mural by Austin artist Emily Eisenhart.
Bludorn, who left his govt chef submit at Daniel Boulud’s Café Boulud in New York to relocate in Houston to open Bludorn, has trusted Navy Blue’s kitchen operations to fellow Café Boulud alum Jerrod Zifchak, who succeeded Bludorn as govt chef at Café Boulud. Zifchak, Navy Blue’s govt chef, labored at Eric Ripert’s Le Bernardin earlier than Café Boulud.
Navy Blue’s inaugural menu, a collaboration between Bludorn and Zifchak, begins with oysters (uncooked, fried, baked); shrimp (cocktail type, fried, or barbecue); clams (on line casino, fried, or steamed); three kinds of caviar; tuna crudo; and crab truffles. Segue to salads (Caesar and grilled octopus) and soups (gumbo an a mussel bisque topped with puff pasty, which is introduced tableside like Bludorn’s indulgent lobster pot pie).
Pasta dishes embrace linguine vongole with Manila clams and sea urchin, lobster ravioli with tarragon and sunchoke, brown butter cavatelli with winter squash, and lobster and cuttlefish risotto. Seafood entrees: salmon with cauliflower and sauce Grenobloise, blacked crimson snapper, swordfish with inexperienced peppercorn sauce, entire Dover sole and entire lobster, each in quite a lot of preparations. The menu is rounded out by a grouper sandwich, crab brandade, roasted rooster, and strip steak with chimichurri.
“We needed to hit all kinds of seafood, not simply from the Gulf coast,” Zifchak stated.
The primary main restaurant undertaking he’s shepherding, Zifchak, who moved to Houston six months in the past, stated he has been excited “to see every little thing coming collectively and creating a complete kitchen tradition is one thing I’ve all the time needed to do.”
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Navy Blue’s refinements in menu, service, and décor have been constructed with a knowingness that this second endeavor from the perfectionist Bludorn workforce could be met with excessive expectations. In the long run, although, it’s what they do, Bludorn stated.
“I needed to create one thing that folks would count on from us,” he stated.
Navy Blue can be a really private restaurant for Bludorn. Whereas additionally a visual nod to the ocean, the restaurant is also a poignant homage to Bludorn’s father, a Navy fighter pilot whose name signal was “Blue,” who handed away 10 years in the past.
On the beverage aspect, sommelier Molly Austad has curated a wine listing of about 160 bottles that features French wines in addition to wines from Greece, Germany, Italia, Austria, Spain, and New World whites from America, Australia and New Zealand. The cocktail program is led by Darryl Chan whereas the dessert menu is overseen by govt pastry chef Marie Riddle; Elizabeth Acosta is the restaurant’s normal supervisor.
The companions say they’re proud to have assembled what they name a “dream workforce” for his or her sophomore restaurant.
“We needed to create a menu with loads of choices and the identical form of approachability that friends love at Bludorn,” Bludorn stated. “We’re nothing if not versatile with regards to placing our friends’ tastes first – that’s why we’re right here, and we love what we do.”
Navy Blue, 2445 Occasions Blvd., will probably be open for dinner Monday by way of Thursday 5 to 10 p.m., Friday and Saturday 5 to 10:30 p.m. Sunday dinner service, 5 to 9 p.m., will start on Dec. 4. Lunch and brunch service to come back; 713-347-7727, navybluerestaurant.com.
Greg Morago writes about meals for the Houston Chronicle. Observe him on Facebook or Twitter. Ship him information suggestions at greg.morago@chron.com. Hear him on our BBQ State of Mind podcast to find out about Houston and Texas barbecue tradition.
