{"id":246698,"date":"2025-09-22T16:19:30","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T16:19:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/246698\/"},"modified":"2025-09-22T16:19:30","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T16:19:30","slug":"houstons-rising-star-chefs-shine-in-national-magazines-2025-awards","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/246698\/","title":{"rendered":"Houston’s rising star chefs shine in national magazine’s 2025 awards"},"content":{"rendered":"

On this week\u2019s episode of \u201cWhat\u2019s Eric Eating,\u201d chef Tristen Epps<\/strong><\/a> joins CultureMap editor Eric Sandler<\/a> to discuss winning season 22 of Top Chef<\/a>, his plans to open a restaurant in Houston, and more. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

The conversation begins with Epps sharing how, as the son of a career army soldier, he developed an interest in cooking while watching TV shows oversees. Eventually, he made his way to Houston, where he worked at Quattro (the Italian restaurant in the Four Seasons), The Pass & Provisions, and The Inn at Dos Brisas. After coming in second on reality TV competition show The Taste, he moved to New York, where he learned from his mentor, superstar chef Marcus Samuelsson. <\/p>\n

Ultimately, he decided to apply for Top Chef after seeing that other chefs who utilized Afro-Caribbean flavors, including Houston\u2019s own Dawn Burrell, could be taken seriously by the show\u2019s judges. He earned victories in both Quickfire and Elimination Challenges, including the critical \u201cRestaurant Wars\u201d challenge. Sandler asks Epps at what point in the competition did he start to realize he could win.<\/p>\n

\u201cAfter the pizza challenge is when I was like, okay, I think I\u2019m a good cook,\u201d Epps says with a a laugh. \u201cI stressed about making the right decisions, and they were paying off \u2014 even for things I didn\u2019t want to cook. Maybe if I can cook things I actually want to cook, I can crush this.\u201d <\/p>\n

Listen to the full episode for an update on Buboy, the tasting menu concept Epps intends to open at some point next year. <\/p>\n<\/p>\n

In this week\u2019s other episode, Sandler and co-host Felice Sloan discuss the news of the week. Their topics include fhef Kate McLean\u2019s departure from Tony\u2019s; the upcoming closure of Bosscat Kitchen & Libations; and Chopnblok earning a place on the New York\u2019 Times.<\/p>\n

In the restaurants of the week segment, Sloan and Sandler begin with their assessment of Butter Funk Kitchen, a modern soul food restaurant in South Houston. They also visit Southern Jerks, a Carribean-inspired fried chicken restaurant that operates out of a gas station in the Champions area of north Houston. <\/p>\n

—–<\/p>\n

Subscribe to “What’s Eric Eating” on Apple podcasts<\/a>, Spotify<\/a>, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Hear it Sunday at 9 am on ESPN 97.5<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"On this week\u2019s episode of \u201cWhat\u2019s Eric Eating,\u201d chef Tristen Epps joins CultureMap editor Eric Sandler to discuss…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":246699,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5130],"tags":[5800,4345,980,398,12212,131087,358,3187],"class_list":{"0":"post-246698","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-houston","8":"tag-awards","9":"tag-houston","10":"tag-lists","11":"tag-media","12":"tag-news-you-can-eat","13":"tag-starchefs","14":"tag-texas","15":"tag-tx"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115248861810713844","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246698","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=246698"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/246698\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/246699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=246698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=246698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=246698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}