Liberty Kitchen Sink

Have at look inside the charming Liberty Kitchen via our slideshow.

Troy Fields

The gumbo is difficult to resist.

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Liberty Kitchen

1050 Studewood St.
Houston, TX 77008

Category: Restaurant > American

Region: Heights

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Details

Hours: 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Mondays through Wednesdays, 11 a.m. to midnight Thursdays through Saturdays, 8 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sundays.
Gumbo: $8
Deviled eggs: $8
Ceviche: $8
Liberty burger: $12
Hawaiian MacCock burger: $13
Fried shrimp sandwich: $14
Alabama catfish: $16

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READ MORE
SLIDESHOW: ...and Oysters for All at Liberty Kitchen
BLOG POST: 5 Things Not to Do If a Food Critic Is Eating at Your Restaurant

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There is a bowl of gumbo at Liberty Kitchen with your name on it. And it's utterly unlike any other gumbo in town. It's served in a bowl nearly the size of a washtub, and it's topped not only with fried oysters but also plump pieces of fried okra. The dark, thin roux has a deepness and richness to it — swimming with both shrimp and andouille sausage — that is difficult for me to resist each time I visit. It's equally tough to resist the fat, breaded shrimp and meaty tomato-bacon jam inside Liberty Kitchen's "fried shrimp rémoulade sandwich" (just don't call it a po-boy).

Liberty Kitchen is an inviting place from the second you walk through its heavy front door. A semiprivate room with a rugged wooden table under a chic chandelier greets you to the left, while a long, sleek, marble-topped bar with its back to a wall of windows greets you on the right. Vivid pops of shiny orange are scattered among the rough-hewn boards that trim the shabby chic dining room, the Warhol-esque hues grinning against rustic New England background. The dining room is beguilingly casual, as is the sunny patio. The service is friendly and competent, the food mostly good.

And yet, Liberty Kitchen remains — at times — inscrutable.

I don't entirely understand the bent of the restaurant — whether it's Tex-Cajun-New England, or something more or less than this awkward stitching together of adjectives — although I admit to liking it most of the time. I enjoy Liberty Kitchen as more of an oyster bar than anything else, but an oyster bar where you can happen to also get a terrific burger and a milk shake that would put any old-school diner to shame.

Still, despite an ultra-casual atmosphere in which diners perch on old wood-and-metal school chairs and the waiters wear jeans, some of the prices are scorchingly high. I don't understand this, nor do I understand the uneven application of some of those prices. An extra $2.50 for a "fresh local hen egg" when restaurants like The Burger Guys charge less than that for a whole duck egg is but one bizarre example. And while that enormous bowl of wonderful gumbo is only $8 (this is one of Liberty Kitchen's best bargains), a tiny bowl of oyster stew is $7. The vast size difference between the two is baffling considering they're only $1 apart in price.

I also do not understand the rambling menu, which often undermines the talent in the kitchen by forcing its focus to be shattered into dozens of different directions. Fifteen different appetizers alone, ten items from the grill, a random section of mac 'n' cheese skillets, and the list goes on. There are so many dishes that it's no wonder the consistency of the food is schizophrenic from day to day.

On a recent lunch visit, there were two suckling pigs spread-eagle across a pit in the open kitchen. Their flesh was already starting to char and crackle a bit and I stared at them, wide-eyed, wondering if they'd be on special that day. Liberty Kitchen has strangely named "weekly platter specials" that actually change from day to day, with options like Dixie-fried chicken with cream gravy and hot sauce syrup on Wednesdays or tomato gravy with meatballs and a pork rib over spaghetti on Sundays.

Unfortunately, it turned out that the twin suckling pigs staring lasciviously at me from the kitchen were only the weekly platter special for dinner that night — not for lunch. Chagrined, I turned to that bowl of gumbo and a half-dozen Peter's Point oysters from Massachusetts. The almost translucent oysters were narrow and thin, with a sharp salinity to them that's entirely absent in Gulf oysters.

This is one of the things I love about Liberty Kitchen — being able to drop in any day of the week and be presented with an array of oysters from around the country, including Gulf oysters in season. Liberty Kitchen has the chops to be a serious oyster bar, especially with the cold draft beers behind the cool marble bar and the option to choose from a variety of other raw seafood dishes, from a ceviche marinated in ginger beer and chiles to a Hawaiian-style tuna poke. In fact, I often wish that Liberty Kitchen's entire menu was confined to its seafood-heavy appetizer list — nearly every item in that section is solid, and most of it well-priced.

Not every item, however, is terrific. The "deviled" eggs we tried were really just hard-boiled eggs cut in half, dusted with paprika and topped with fried oysters and bacon. Were the eggs actually deviled, this would rocket to the top of my must-eat list each time along with the gumbo.

Our other dishes that afternoon were equally muddled. My Alabama catfish from Liberty Kitchen's charcoal and peach wood grill was overcooked and underseasoned, while the creamy malt slaw that accompanied it was equally bland. Where was the punch of malt vinegar? Where, even, was the creaminess? It was dreadfully dry, as was my friend's overcooked patty on his "Hawaiian MacCock" burger. (Lance Fegen seems to have a thing for both Hawaiian flavors and oddly juvenile phallic references; his other project, BRC Gastropub, stands for "big red cock.")