Chef David Guerrero didn’t get much of a vacation after downtown Latin steakhouse Samba Grille closed near the end of July. For diners, Guerrero’s lack of time off is something to celebrate. His latest project, Alma Cebiche & Bar, is proof that when one door closes another opens, and in some cases it opens very wide.
When I stopped by for a complimentary media tasting on their second day of business, Guerrero told me that the restaurant transition had occurred in one very intense week. Transforming the space that formerly housed a Chatter’s location into what now feels like a sensual art gallery of sorts must have been one heck of a task, but its new persona shows no signs of a hasty hack job.
Art from Bolivian-born, Houston-based artist Javier Duran decks the walls that are painted with elegant warm tones. The most interesting piece of art may be the naked female mannequin with glowing breasts that greets guests at the entrance. While the nude mannequin is likely to stay, Duran’s other art will rotate on a monthly basis. In fact, Guerrero also lit up (though not literally like the art piece up front) when he spoke about having Duran create original pieces as a type of entertainment inside the restaurant on busy weekend nights, alongside live musicians.
Glowing mannequin breasts aside, the touch of whimsy suits Guerrero’s endless energy, which also shines through in his dishes of bright cebiches, sumptuous pork chicharrón, his famous beef heart anticuchos and the sleeper hit of the day, an earthy green soup of pureed herbs and fava beans called chupe verde de habas.
Of the two cebiches I sampled, my favorite was the cebiche limeno made with white fish done in a more traditional Peruvian style (the other was an Ecuadorian shrimp cebiche) with the common accompaniments of fat white corn kernels on the cob called choclo, sweet potato, a red onion salad and crisped corn kernels. Then, of course, there’s that luscious fava bean soup with a drizzle of vinaigrette on top as well as crumbled queso fresco, which stole my attention the second that first layer of flavor hit my tongue.
Moving on to meat, the beef heart anticuchos, cooked medium rare, were as good as I remembered from Guerrero’s Samba Grille days. After the first four small dishes, Guerrero also offered a rich pork chicharrón dish and then insisted I try something from the wok station. I chose the corvine – a white fish – stir fry. But these latter dishes were secondary to the earlier cebiche, soup and anticuchos. To be fair, their secondary status may have something to do with my propensity for eating too much of the previous courses and not pacing myself.
Full and slightly disappointed I’d thwarted my desire for desserts like the pionono, a vanilla sponge cake, or the mazamorra, a purple corn pudding, I decided I’d remedy that on my next visit, because yes, I definitely will be back. And next time, I’m not skipping dessert.
ALMA CEBICHE & BAR, 1275 Eldridge Pkwy. bet. Memorial & Briar Forest, 281-293-0001, almahouston.com