This Houston Fine Dining Restaurant Gave Me the Sophisticated Soul Food Experience I Needed
Living in Los Angeles, when I travel, I like to have something I can’t have aroundLA… Davis Street at Herman Park featuring Chef Holley gave me exactly that.
Sitting in Houston’s Hobby Airport before sunrise, my mouth is salivating as I scroll thru my camera roll, looking at pictures from last night’s visit to Davis St. Restaurant.
Unknowingly, my quick pass thru Houston was perfect timing to try one of Houston’s finest without breaking the bank, as Houston Restaurant Week is currently going on.
If you’re not familiar with what a restaurant week is (I know I wasn’t before moving to L.A.), it’s a city-wide event where higher end restaurants offer more affordable specialty menus, allowing customers to try food/places that they may have otherwise been deterred from by the upper-level price ranges.
Davis Street at Hermann Park’s special offer during Houston Restaurant Week is a 3-course fine dining experience for $55/person.
Some consumers complain that Restaurant Week menus are limited to the point where there’s “nothing good on ‘em.” That was not my experience at Davis St. Restaurant. Let me walk you thru!
Soups and Salads
First course dishes, field green salad and Boutte’s southern gumbo, at Davis Street Restaurant in the Hermann Park area of Houston, Texas. | photo: @aroundLAwithTK
Freshness was immediately evident with the first course, as I bit into my field green salad. Devil is in the details, I’ll tell ya; though you can’t even see the beets at first glance, that root vegetable, harvested summer thru late fall, adds a liveliness to the greens. Then the subtle sweetness of pears with the potent sweetness of pecans adds the perfect touch on top.
Against the will of Jessica, the Houston resident that dined with me this evening, I requested an additional spoon to taste her gumbo. Come on, I told you I want stuff I can’t get in L.A., and no matter how much they try, gumbo on the West Coast just ain’t Southern. I couldn’t resist dipping into her first course. A biased Creole girl from Louisiana, I can’t quite give ‘em the top spot, but their version of this famed seafood soup dish definitely earns the stamp of approval.
Cocktails
Toasting with a signature and a classic cocktail inside the formal dining area of Davis Street at Hermann Park featuring Chef Holley. | photo: @aroundLAwithTK
Though I came for the food, when Jessica said she was having an adult beverage, I couldn’t leave her to have one alone. She ordered, from their signature cocktail list, a mosaic mule. After contemplating whether to put their French-embossed-Davis-Street-Restaurant wine glasses to use, I ended up going with my old faithful: a French 75 with cognac instead of gin. Missing bubbles in the body led me to believe the bartender used a flat bottle of sparkling wine to make my drink, and it wasn’t topped with the typical citrus fruit garnish, but neither was a big enough offense for me to send it back. Both of our drinks had a good taste.
Entrees
Second course dishes, blackened gulf fish and grilled pork chops, at Davis Street Restaurant in Houston, Texas. | photo: @aroundLAwithTK
Ou, ou, ou! The main course, Lord, the main course.
Before my dinner fork could enter my mouth good, my tastebuds began to tingle. As I continued to chew, they got to dancing. By the time I swallowed each bite, they were full blown old-Black-lady-catching-the-Holy-Ghost-in-church. There wasn’t a single thing missing in that blackened gulf fish, not one, not one single spec! It couldn’t get better.
As I’m diving into mine, I look over at my dining partner for the evening making similar praises as she cuts into her grilled pork chop again and again. “Mmm! Mm! Na this right hea' is good,” she expressed. Knowing how good my dish is and seeing her express the same sentiment about hers, I had to try it. Y’all, I DON’T EVEN EAT PORKCHOPS!! Tell me why it slapped, y’all, SLAPPED! “Well, I’ll be,” I thought to myself. All my life, I’ve been pretty much a pescatarian, usually repulsed by the taste of meaty meats, and here I am, eyes bulging (in a good way) behind a porkchop.
Desserts
Third course, dessert! Down south coconut cake and velvety key lime cheesecake at Davis Street Restaurant in Houston, Texas. | photo: @aroundLAwithTK
After savory did what it did to me, there’s no way I could be further impressed, right?
Wrong.
I couldn’t believe when I delighted into the dessert at Davis St. how my sense of taste was further pleased. There are a number of fine dining restaurants I frequent in Los Angeles that have absolutely delectable savory dishes, but I can do without their desserts. If the food is good enough, I don’t need their sweets, I’ll still go back again. I don’t have to finish a restaurant dinner with dessert, but the way Davis St. Restaurant is doing things over at Hermann Park with Chef Holley, I’ll go back for dinner and won’t be able to resist getting dessert!
Now, Jessica has a chance to feel what I felt during the previous course. I extended my dessert plate to her and she told me how she has never liked coconut anything. She doesn’t like the taste of it. She doesn’t like the texture of it. She doesn’t like the look of it. Yeah, exactly what I said about porkchops. I insisted until she caved. She digs in with her fork. She skeptically brings the fork towards her mouth. …“OH! That’s a good cake.” Mm hm, I know so well.
Though she appreciates a true crust, she thoroughly enjoyed her velvety key lime cheesecake as well.
Service
Fine dining isn’t fine dining without fine dining service.
People come to me for a trusted viewpoint because they know I’m honest, even if it’s not exactly what they were hoping to hear. Unfortunately, I have to say, the Davis Street associate at the host stand when we arrived could’ve been more pleasant. You know how when you go to a place for the first time, your head can naturally take a swivel around the space as you’re walking in? Well, that’s what happened to me upon approaching the host stand after entering Davis Street’s doors.
When my eyes traveled from the wine wall on my right, they were met with a lady that glanced me over then averted her eyes. No greeting. Minding my manners as the Southern belle I am, I said hello with a smile anyway. I didn’t get one back. Jessica, who had walked in the door after me, stepped closer to the host stand and requested a table for 2. “You have a reservation?,” the hostess responded. Jessica said we didn’t and the hostess regurgitated that back to her, “you don’t?” Jessica repeated herself, “no.”
The hostess spun her head across the relatively empty dining area and after a pause said, “well, it should be okay… give me a moment to see if I can get a table cleaned.” That comment prompted Jessica to turn towards me and ask if I would mind sitting up at the bar, to which I responded that I was fine with either. The hostess, standing there during this then said she could take us over to a table, so we followed. She tucked us into a secluded-feeling area of the establishment, from where I could only stretch my neck to look over at the more lively high-top table area near the bar. The table would’ve been great for a romantic date with bae or meeting up with your sneaky link.
The more logical way, and better service, would’ve been for the hostess to offer us the bar area as soon as we said we didn’t have a reservation, especially when speaking as if she wasn’t sure if she could seat us at a table with a reservation.
I really didn’t mean for this section of my restaurant review on Davis St. to be this long, but I am HUGE on service. I’ll forgive a cockroach in my soup if service is superior. (Of course this is only an illustration to show how important service is to me; Davis St. was impeccably clean).
Maybe she was new, because I could see and hear her on the other side of the half wall extending from the booth Jessica was sitting on and I watched her offer the next pair of clearly non-romantic, same-sex guests the bar area when they said they didn’t have reservations. It could be because they were men, or it could be because Jessica gave her the idea: hey, maybe offer the bar area to patrons that didn’t reserve a table.
Moving along, everything else about the service after being seated was great. Our server, Elias, was very professional, and our butler was very attentive with a sweet demeanor.
Diversity in ownership and operation
Davis Street at Hermann Park featuring Chef Holley is a Black-owned fine dining establishment in Houston, Texas, boasting a diverse leadership team. | photo: @DavisStHouston Instagram
From the quality of the food to the ambiance and everything in between, I already give Chef Holley’s restaurant two thumbs up. Diversity across the leadership team and crew members is an added bonus. I’ll grow an extra one to give him a third thumbs up for that alone.
Black ownership and employment is vital to help work our way towards less wealth disparities of minority ethnic groups.
So you mean to tell me I get to have a fancy fine dining experience and I’m doing something good for the culture?! Let’s gooooo!
Davis Street at Hermann Park featuring Chef Holley is a must-stop while in Houston.
Davis Street Restaurant lives up to its tagline, “where Southern soul meets modern elegance.”
I’ve told you, but I don’t mind telling you again. The ingredients are fresh, the flavors are full, the setting is fancy. The only other word beginning with F that comes to mind now is, the F are you waiting on?
My dining partner, Jessica, originally didn’t even want to go. I had to keep nudging her over the course of the day and finally, in the waning hours of dinner time, she agreed to go (and still was trying to back out as she got ready to leave her house). By the time we finished dinner at Davis Street Restaurant, she was singing a different tune. “My goodness, I’m glad I came!”
If I were a gambling woman, I’d bet you won’t regret it either. Davis Street at Hermann Park is definitely worth a visit if you live in Houston or are visiting Houston, even outside of Houston Restaurant Week. I’ll scrape my coins together and be back to experience selections from Chef Holley’s full menu.
A quick nod to Houston resident Erika, who runs the blog BlackGirlsWhoBrunch.com, where she talks about her foodie adventures across Houston. Her website is how I found out about Davis Street Restaurant.
(How did I know about Erika’s blog? Someone shared it with me!)
When you share, everybody involved benefits.
See how that works? My heart would fill with appreciation if you’d be willing to do the same for me. Share this post if you live in Houston. Share this post if you’ve ever been to Houston. Share this post if you’d ever like to visit Houston. Share this post if you have a beating heart that hears my pleas.
Tag me in a Tweet or InstaStory @aroundLAwithTK, if you decide to check out Chef Holley’s Davis Street Restaurant, so I can retweet and share YOU.
Thank you for being here, riders.
