Chef Frédéric Perrier has owned, co-owned and cooked in Houston area restaurants for more than 20 years. He developed a fan base and garnered critical acclaim with his inside-the-Loop restaurants Grille 5515 and Perrier Café. In time, the rigors of driving to his home in Missouri City night after exhausting night of cooking, as well as having a family, made the idea of opening a small neighborhood restaurant start to look real good.

In 2007, that's exactly what Perrier did. His French restaurant Aura started in a quaint, New England-style shopping center off of Murphy Road. It was the beginning of what would grow into multiple restaurants in the Sugar Land area. Soon after Aura came Perrier's spot, Hoggs n Chicks, where he started fulfilling diners' needs for a fast-casual option as well as indulging his own fondness for the Southern food of his adopted city.

Aura is now located in bustling, trendy Sugar Land Town Square. In its place is Coco Pazzo, Perrier's Italian restaurant. You'd think that would be enough work for one chef, but he's still not done. He has two new projects in the works, which we'll cover in Part 2 of this chef chat tomorrow.

Here in Part 1, we'll look at how he got started in the area with Aura and Hoggs N Chicks, which would soon follow. Perrier is also a father and a husband and we'll delve into his thoughts about introducing kids to fine dining. Finally, we find out if reviews really matter to a chef with a restaurant out in the suburbs.

EOW: When did you decide that what you really wanted to do was open a restaurant in Sugar Land?

FP: My wife and children always lived here in Missouri City, right down Highway 6 from Sugar Land. I said, "Well, I want to be closer to home. I don't want to do the drives at 2 o'clock in the morning. It was an easier way to be able to spend some time with my family even though I was in the restaurant industry.

EOW: Aura's original location is now Coco Pazzo. How did you decide that was where you wanted to first open Aura?

FP: I kept driving by that little restaurant on the way to Houston. Every day, I looked at that little spot. That shopping center is New England-style. It's very strange compared to a Texas shopping center. It looks more East Coast.

I kept looking at that little building and thinking, "It would be cool to have just a good little restaurant." I hate to call it a bistro because that word has been overused and used for things that are not bistros. But really, that was what was in my mind -- just a good little bistro. Nothing that you'd walk in and be blown away by. No bells and whistles. Just a comfortable space that makes you feel like you'd walked into someone's living room and you get great food.

There was a client/friend of mine that owned that little place. It was an Italian place at the time called Bistro Artistico. One day, he called me at 2 o'clock in the morning and said, "I'm getting out of the restaurant! I've got to go back to Europe. I've got a problem. I want to sell the place." I was like, "Sorry, I can't do something about that at 2 o'clock in the morning."

A week later, I drove by the space and saw a sign: For Lease. I was like, "Oh my goodness, the place is closed for sure." So, I went over and looked at it. I called the gentleman that was on the sign.

A week later, I looked at the space and told my wife, "This is it. I walked in there, there's a good vibe and the shopping center has been there since '77, so it's got some history." I've always liked something that's been there already. When you go into a brand-new space, you need to give it a soul. When you walk into something that's been there, it's got a soul. I knew that was the place to do it. Everyone told me I was crazy.

EOW: Why did they tell you that you were crazy?

FP: Because the shopping center was off the beaten path. It's not like here in Sugar Land where we're in the middle of Town Square and people walk by. You had to go there as a destination.

In my mind, that was always the idea. I said, "If I can capture an audience of people coming in this little place and saying, "Wow, the food is incredible!" -- well, we did just that. The word of mouth was just terrific. The business just started booming.

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