It was the summer romance that sparked a global food revolution. With a PhD in biochemistry, San Francisco native Robert Del Grande did not set out to be a chef, but in 1981 he was cooking for Cafe Annie, a new French bistro in Uptown Houston. The move was for love—he had fallen for the owner’s sister, Mimi—and the couple soon married. It was the formula for revolution, as Del Grande and other upstart chefs began fusing Texas tradition with rustic Mexican flavors and French and other styles.
The result was Southwestern cuisine, with Del Grande, Dallas superstars Dean Fearing and Stephan Pyles, and cookbook author and restaurant consultant Anne Greer, labeled the “Texas mafia,” its swaggering leaders.
In 1992, Del Grande won Houston’s first James Beard award. Cafe Annie remained a Southwestern temple until 2009 (the year after the couple opened group-capable The Grove in the convention district), when it was torn down for development. In its place, they created nearby RDG + Bar Annie. This May, 35 years later, they relaunched Cafe Annie in the space.
“I came for Mimi, and found more to love,” Del Grande recalled. “Discoveries like the rodeo and BBQ tradition made Houston seem larger than life. To this day, I love the culinary influences of our amalgamation of cultures.”
For the chef-guitarist, who plays with Fearing in the Barbwires, reviving Cafe Annie put him back at the mixing board.
“Every new song starts off where an old song ended, and when finished, should feel like an old song,” Del Grande said. “When revisiting classic dishes, even subtle shifts in voicing the ingredients can produce different and unique sounds. The song remains the same—but impresses us in different ways.”
Pioneering spirit still animates the Houston scene.
“Culinary renown is established by not one, but many chefs, and we have a great community-minded group here today,” he said, naming Chris Shepherd (Underbelly), Justin Yu (Oxheart) and Hugo Ortega (Hugo’s, Backstreet Cafe, Caracol) among the “many strong contributors in stylistically different ways.”
When asked whether the scene has changed, Del Grande responded, “When I started, the premium was on culinary ideas and products from far away. Now we prize the local product, idea and feeling, and define great cooking not by which style is best, but how many ‘bests’ there are. That describes Houston—a plethora of bests.”
