Culinary Forces Collaborate on Festive New Italian Restaurant — Make Holiday Rezzies Now

Brian Kennedy
Culinary Forces Collaborate on Festive New Italian Restaurant — Make Holiday Rezzies Now

THE CULINARY FORCES behind several of Houston’s best restaurants have quietly been collaborating on a new restaurant, Tavola, which opens on Post Oak just in time for all the festivities and feasts of the holiday season.


Berg Hospitality (B&B Butchers, Trattoria Sofia, Turner's) and The Bastion Collection (Le Jardinier, Café Leonelli) will debut the upscale Italian eatery in BLVD Place on Wednesday, Dec. 13. Polished and glamorous, it aims to be the next see-and-be scene in a neighborhood known for them.

Designed by Gail McCleese of Sensitori along with The Bastion Collection team and Ben Berg, Tavola, with an enclosed patio and brasserie-style bar, seats 118. A palette of "millennial mauve" and a Pantone-approved shade of peach sets the tone for a modern dining experience accented by unexpected details like a burl-wood Michelangelo mosaic and an opera-style enclave with a gold ceiling, perfect for small groups.

The executive chef of the restaurant is Luca Di Benedetto, a Milan-born industry vet who trained under Gualtiero Marchesi and has helmed kitchens of several Michelin-starred restaurants and luxury hotels. Tavola's "culinary experience" was "designed in partnership and oversight from The Bastion Collection’s Michelin-Starred Corporate Chef Salvatore Martone, a Joël Robuchon protege," per a release.

Di Benedetto is particularly excited about his cacio e pepe, which features agnolotti (instead of spaghetti) filled with roasted artichokes that “explode with flavor.” His ragu has wild boar, and his seven-layer lasagna is made with beef brisket, pancetta and pork butt. As if that's not enough, the dessert menu touts a "showstopper" tiramisu, and EVOO gelato.

The restaurant will serve lunch and dinner daily.

Food

The gallerist's beloved dog Tuta, Anya Tish, and artist Adela Andea with Anya

LAST THURSDAY, DAWN Ohmer, gallery director of Anya Tish Gallery, called to tell me Anya died on June 12 in her hometown of Kraków, Poland. It was a tearful call, the kind of call I am resigned to receiving more often as I get older. For many of us in Houston’s art community — gallery owners, artists, collectors, and arts writers — the news was sudden and unexpected. Death is a look away from rationality, and it is hard to imagine someone you cared for and who cared about you no longer being present physically, in the flesh, in the here and now.

Keep Reading Show less
Art + Entertainment

Gragner's (photo by Marco Torres)

THE MUSEUM DISTRICT hasn't always been the easiest place to open and operate a restaurant, for some reason. But there's a Houston couple who seems to have gotten the hang of it — and today they unveil their newest concept on Binz St.

Keep Reading Show less
Food