UPDATE: Houston Restaurant Weeks has been extended through September 30, 2024, giving you plenty of time to do your own culinary explorations. To support restaurants affected by this year’s severe storms, the charitable contribution for the month of September has been reduced to $1 per meal.
- HRW meals offered: Lunch and dinner
- Offers self parking? No – valet parking costs $8 plus tip
- Presented the HRW menu without being asked? NO
- Would you come back for a regular meal? Maybe, but only at the bar or at the chef’s counter
Beginning of the year Handymanthe elegant French restaurant in downtown Houston, founded by a longtime Houston chef Jacques Fox, reopened in new premises at 5745 Westheimer, the former site of a James Coney Island. In his golden years, Fox is more of an owner than a hands-on chef, leaving the role of head chef Eric Cruz.
I was there for dinner during Houston Restaurant Weeks 2024, and the visit showed that the well-prepared food is as artful and flavorful as ever. However, the service experience was unpleasant, making this the least successful visit of the six Houston Restaurant Weeks I did—a shame, since Artisans also served some of the best food of all.
As I mentioned in an editorial earlier this weekI really don’t like it when guests at participating restaurants are forced to request the Houston Restaurant Weeks menu. It’s annoying and makes you feel like you’re asking for special treatment when you just want to have fun while at the same time Raising money for the food banks. What’s worse is that ordering from the specials menu makes you feel like a cheapskate, and that’s exactly how I felt at Artisans.
When I asked about the Houston Restaurant Weeks menu, the look on our waiter’s face showed he was not happy with it, and that seemed to be confirmed when he immediately recommended we order additional dishes from the regular menu. “Well, what my customers do (I assume I’m not your customer?) is they order a few additional dishes too,” he said. I understand that waiters upsell to increase their tips – and they need to get good tips to make up for the ridiculously low hourly wage – but selling is an art. Good selling focuses on the customer’s needs. Bad selling focuses on your own wants. I wasn’t surprised when our server also recommended a $22 cocktail, one of the most expensive on the short but clever list. (The cheapest cocktail is $17.)
I proceeded with my order from Houston Restaurant Weeks. Our server suggested adding seared foie gras for $18 – not a bad price, but by this point he had lost my trust and I didn’t take his suggestions. I did order a cocktail, however, and considered getting a coffee shot later for dessert.
Aside from that inconvenience, the food and drinks were mostly exemplary. My $17 cocktail tasted like a million bucks. The collaborationit appealed to me because it referred to the combination of Termano Blanca tequila from Mexico and saffron-infused French vermouth. (These former enemies are great friends when it comes to food and drink.) It also included lime, sugar, and a splash of red wine, which my companion called “one of the best secret weapon ingredients for cocktails.”
The meal started with a surprise – a delicious, perfectly fried croquette, accompanied by a cocktail fork for easy picking up. My companion and I are both big mushroom fans, so we ordered the Le Mushroom Portobello au Chevre Montrachet Brûlée — Portabello mushroom with baby spinach, oven-dried tomatoes, flambéed goat cheese on a crouton with mousseline sauce — was a natural starter. The same applied to Erik’s pork rillettesaccentuated with three-onion jam, rosemary focaccia and gherkins.
We were still enjoying our appetizers when our waiter arrived with the main courses – of course. We pushed them aside to make room for the plates and then rearranged the table so we could get back to the appetizers. However, the main courses were also worth enjoying – each one more than the last.
The le jaret d’agneau braised in red wine — a 16-ounce red wine-braised leg of lamb on creamy polenta with roasted Brussels sprouts alongside — was visually stunning. The flavor was a little tame — perhaps it just needed a pinch of salt to liven up the wine flavor — but it was still a satisfying choice. The smaller duck confit dish — Le Canard Confit Sauce Chili — turned out to be the big winner. The duck was everything you could want. It was slightly crispy on the outside, tender on the inside, and the orange sauce was the perfect complement. The dish also included sarladaise potatoes, a simple but exquisite preparation in duck fat and garlic, and oven-roasted ratatouille.
The desserts of Le Gâteau au Fromage Blanc a la Framboise (Raspberry cheesecake with Cointreau Creme Anglaise) and La Galette Pistachio Sauce with Caramel (pistachio frangipane, a kind of vanilla custard, with brown butter ice cream and caramel sauce) seemed smaller than expected, but were just the right size for an excellent finish. My companion said the cheesecake had “the consistency of a piece of butter,” but that was neither mean nor critical. We love butter. My favorite was the pistachio frangipane, which reminded me a lot of marzipan.
I actually wanted to order one of the coffees with a shot to accompany the desserts, but our waiter unexpectedly found common ground with my guest. While they were chatting animatedly, I didn’t get a chance to place my order. Oh well.
Now, a few tips on seating: The main dining room I chose for our reservation is a well-appointed rectangular space with two large monitors so you can watch the kitchen staff prepare dishes. It was an interesting idea, but not enough to overcome the feeling that the room was isolated from the rest of the restaurant. Curious, I peered into the rest of the room. By far the liveliest and most enticing place at Artisans is the chef’s counter. The bright and cheery room features a curved bar for guests, and when I glanced over, one of the chefs was visiting with a guest. I highly recommend selecting the chef’s counter when making your reservation.
Then there is the bar area, bold and glamorous, with a huge jug of red wine aged for 40 years on a trolley and a large window accented with a giant metal representation of the Artisans rooster logo. (The rooster, called “le coq,” is a important symbol in France.) Eight-dollar valet parking or not, I would make the effort to enjoy a few drinks in the posh surroundings, perhaps during social hour from 3 to 7 p.m.. The drama and glamour of the chef’s counter and bar area made the main dining room feel isolated and somewhat gloomy.
The lack of self-parking is a touchy subject for Houstonians, as almost everyone needs a car to get around the massive city. While it’s understandable that restaurants with small or far-flung parking lots would need valet parking, that’s not a popular scenario. Even less so when you pull up and find that valet parking is $8, as was the case at Artisans, and the sign with the price also recommends tipping. That’s annoying, but not a deal-breaker for me when it comes to a restaurant experience.
I may go back to Artisans at some point, but not anytime soon. I have the utmost respect for chefs Fox and Cruz, but the service left me feeling like I wasn’t their ideal customer. I ended up spending $175.13 after tax and tip and didn’t order anything extra except my $17 cocktail and a double espresso for my guest, which was $8.50. So why did I feel like I wasn’t spending enough money when I ordered from the HRW menu? Although the food was great, I have a bad taste in my mouth that will take some time to disappear.
Phaedra Cook has been writing about Houston’s restaurant and bar scene since 2010. She was a regular contributor to My table Magazine (now closed) and was the leading restaurant critic for the Houston Press Cook worked at the magazine for two years and was eventually promoted to food editor. In November 2016, Cook founded the Houston Food Finder and has served as its editor and publisher ever since.
