7. Brennan's of Houston Brennan's of Houston was consumed by flames on the morning of September 13, 2008, at the height of Hurricane Ike's fury. Several people were trapped inside and tragically injured in the blaze. The restaurant's general manager, Alex Brennan-Martin, who had run the Houston restaurant for more than 20 years, established The New Orleans Hospitality Workers Disaster Relief Fund after Hurricane Katrina. The charity raised more than a million dollars to help struggling New Orleans restaurant professionals. It is sadly ironic that Brennan's of Houston ended up as a hurricane victim itself.
Brennan's of Houston opened in 1967 and is a sister restaurant to the New Orleans Brennan family restaurants, which include Commander's Palace. Occupying a historic brick building in Midtown with a huge shaded courtyard, the restaurant had a New Orleans look and feel that made it a favorite of Houston food lovers. Brennan's of Houston pioneered the "Texas Creole" cooking style that employs local ingredients while drawing on the rich cultural traditions of the French-speaking community of Texas.
Owner Alex Martin-Brennan is currently rebuilding Brennan's on the same site and hopes to reopen in 2010.
8. Café Annie Café Annie closed in 2009 after 28 years in business. One of the flagships of the new Southwestern cuisine, it was Houston's best restaurant for many years. Robert Del Grande, who has a PhD in microbiology, took over the kitchen when the restaurant first opened to help his wife's family out while they looked for a chef. His cooking became so popular, the family begged him to stay. Robert Del Grande became the first Houston chef to make a significant impact on the national culinary scene. He received a James Beard Award in 1992.
Inspired by Diana Kennedy's Mexican cookbooks and the nouvelle cuisine movement of the 1980s, Del Grande invented startling new dishes based on indigenous South Texas ingredients. He went on to become one of the founding fathers of Southwestern cuisine, along with Mark Miller, Stephan Pyles and Dean Fearing. Café Annie was a groundbreaking restaurant and the birthplace of such now-familiar Southwestern standards as coffee-rubbed beef tenderloin and crab-and-avocado tostadas.
The restaurant was located in a high-rise building that was demolished to make room for a bigger high rise. Rather than reopen at a new location under the same name, Del Grande decided to start over with a new concept called Restaurant RDG + Bar Annie. The new restaurant is located within a few hundred feet of the site of the old place and serves a blend of vintage Café Annie creations and new dishes.
