YOU’VE GOT TO LOVE A PLACE whose owner enjoys a rep as the city’s top chef, yet pours as much love and talent into the saloon side as she does into the kitchen. Houston chef Monica Pope even named her restaurant after a house wine that’s infused with local fruits and veggies. Indeed, Pope has turned t’afia (3701 Travis St., 713.524.6922; tafia.com) into a bastion for shockingly original food and drink.
T’afia — the name is Pope’s take on the French Creole ratafia, a wine fortified with ingredients you’d expect to find in a salad — is refreshingly spartan. In a day when gastronomic and libational temples often look like the decor alone cost a few million bucks, Pope and her partner, Andrea Lazar, have gone retro. They’ve housed what has been hailed by one local culinary critic as “the epicenter of the Houston food scene ... with the most innovative cocktails in the entire country” in a former carpet-cleaning factory in Houston’s funky but emerging Midtown area. On the outside, it’s plain Jane, circa 1950s brick and cement; inside, the ’50s theme is carried out with minimalist furnishing, colorful sculptures, art, and a ceiling of crisscrossed steel trusses painted the color of onion skins. Warm, woodsy, clubby — Texas over-the-top this is not. In fact, t’afia’s parking lot hosts the Midtown Farmers Market on Saturdays. Growers stack their produce inside the restaurant and occasionally leave the owners lugs of fruits and vegetables as a thank you.
Meanwhile, back at the small (four-stool) bar, the congenial chief mixologist Joe Murphy insists “the drinks here are really food.” That’s no PR puff. The Ratafia Royale is an infused concoction of Texas white wine, champagne, vanilla beans, a few herbs and spices, and local, organically grown sour oranges. It’s tart and a thrill to the tongue for $8. Ratafia Rocks is a Texas red wine infused with Rio Grande organic pecans and sweet vermouth, also $8. Infusion tough to get your brain around? Think marinating all the ingredients for at least a month.
Murphy has a short list of creative cocktails. And while too many bars today slap their drinks together with cheap liquors and mixers, t’afia puts some real thought and fine spirits into the glass. The Come to Daddy is an unexpectedly tasty marriage of supersmooth Patrón Ańejo (a blend that makes straight tequila taste like tap water by comparison), Chambord raspberry liqueur, and fresh-squeezed lime juice in a glass rimmed with Kafir lime salt ($9). The Pink Onion Gibson is an inventive mating of Hendrick’s gin, fresh-squeezed grapefruit juice, and fresh onion juice garnished with a pickled red onion ($9). T’afia’s version of the mojito uses Charbay blood orange vodka, fresh pomegranate juice, fresh mint from the restaurant’s garden, and organic powdered sugar from Sugarland, a Houston suburb.
Pope, a stickler for fresh and homegrown in the kitchen, follows the same philosophy at her bar, eschewing the pricey designer-vodka bandwagon for local product. T’afia pours lots of Tito’s Texas vodka, distilled in Austin. Texas varietals are also high on the wine list, by the bottle or glass. A glass of 2002 Travis Peak Cabernet from grapes grown in Marble Falls is $13.50. Houston winemaker Lewis Dickson’s 2002 Pétard Blanc is $13.75. Not all Texas wines carry double-digit prices by the glass. I sipped a 2005 Flat Creek Estate pinot grigio, also from Marble Falls, and a 2004 McPherson rosé of syrah from Lubbock. Both were delightful and around $8 for a good-sized pour.
Spend a little time on a t’afia barstool and you’re sort of infused with Pope’s passion. “The fruits and vegetables that go into our infusions have never seen the inside of a refrigerator. And let me tell you something,” she adds. “Organic doesn’t mean vegetarian.” I’m a believer. There is a lounge menu, separate from the dinner menu, that explodes with flavors. Pope makes a date wrapped in bacon and stuffed with chorizo that dazzles the tongue. The beef cubes in spicy sticky rice and the shrimp and sausage on a skewer in a coconut curry are a far cry from Tex-Mex and down-home BBQ. For your fill of greens, there’s a chicory salad with smoked Rio Grande pecans.
More chefs are taking a cue from Pope and paying close attention to their bars, which too often are merely waiting rooms for diners. Pope and Lazar, who co-owned Boulevard Bistrot for a decade before opening t’afia, have one-upped bars that put out cheesy finger food at the cocktail hour. On Tuesdays, Wednesdays, and Thursdays, buy a drink and they roll out a gratis lounge menu that may include tasty options such as sashimi tempura rolls, curried Waldorf chicken salad, or chickpea French fries with red curry ketchup. Murphy minces no words: “This isn’t a rum and Coke bar.”
— Chris Barnett
