It’s Fresh, It’s Local, It’s French

Today, this lavender crème brûlée at Houston’s Mockingbird Bistro Wine Bar tastes like a Hill Country morning--cool, fresh, and full of sunshine.

Elsewhere on the menu, Texas sweet onions accent the Hudson Valley Foie Gras. A bite of Bibb lettuce salad comes with that sharp and satisfying twang of Texas goat cheese. Salmon nestles under a cassoulet of white beans, andouille sausage, black mussels, and tomato concassé--with some ingredients grown near Houston.

“That’s my king salmon entrée with what I call an East Texas cassoulet,” remarks John Sheely, chef-owner of the restaurant.

The fact that John buys ingredients locally enables him to string the words salmon, cassoulet, and East Texas in the same sentence. He begins his recipes with his fingertips--searching the Internet for fresh products--and with his feet--browsing nearby farmers markets where dirt still clings to purchases.

A Soupçon of Seguin
All add a fresh Texas taste to his French provincial cooking. In his kitchen, John spoons a melted lavender butter on a whole chicken he’ll roast and serve with baby carrots and a mushroom risotto.

“My lavender comes from Hill Country Lavender in Blanco,” he says. “The chickens are from Henry Bryan of Bryan Farms in Hempstead, Texas. I think we really provide a taste of Texas with all our local producers we support.”

John and his chef de cuisine, Jose Luis Vela, cook with Texas spices, Texas produce, and Texas cheeses and meats as well as the map of Texas. Their French dishes include a soupçon of Seguin, Magnolia, Blanco, Dublin, Dallas, and Houston too.

Houstonians love the Lone Star State flavors that enrich his French fare--an elegant sort of “home cooking” for regulars who live in this Montrose/River Oaks neighborhood. John describes his surroundings as “nice and artsy, with bungalows and town houses and little shops. We do a great neighborhood business with a lot of walk-bys, like Manhattan.”

Ski by Day, Cook by Night
Some of those regulars recognize Houston culinary tradition in the bistro’s decor. The bar once graced the old downtown Joske’s store. Above hang chandeliers from Sonny Look’s, a famous local eatery.

Both were in business in the early days of John’s restaurant career when he struck out for Colorado after high school. There he supported his daytime skiing habit by working nights in restaurant kitchens. Later, back in Texas, he opened Mockingbird Bistro.

“It started out as a casual Texas bistro and morphed into white tablecloth fine dining,” John says. “We like to call it ‘Texas Provence cuisine.’ ”

In 2002, the year the bistro opened, Esquire hailed it as one of the top new restaurants in America. Even then most other restaurants waited for trucks from big food purveyors to pull up to the kitchen door.

John was already seeking local sources and now goes on the hunt each week. While shopping at Central Market one day, he bumped into Susan Holle, owner of CheesyGirl Cheese Company of Sealy. He sampled her goat cheese and now orders more from Susan’s “girls.” Other cheese sources include Veldhuizen Family Farm of Dublin and Mozzarella Company of Dallas.

Mercedes Tomatoes
For other menu items, Wood Duck Farms in Cleveland grows his spinach and arugula. His microgreens sprout at Bluebonnet Hydroponic Produce in Schertz. Broken Arrow Ranch, which is near Ingram, raises his free-range wild game, while some of his tomatoes arrive from the backyard of his friend Darwin Seidel, a local attorney.

“He grows heirloom tomatoes in his backyard and delivers them to me in the trunk of his Mercedes,” John relates. “We’re out on the sidewalk. He weighs them out, and we exchange money and tomatoes. It’s something that didn’t happen 10 years ago.”

It happens every day now at this bistro, where fresh Texas ingredients elevate cooking from good to great.

Mockingbird Bistro Wine Bar: 1985 Welch Street, Houston, TX 77019;www.mockingbirdbistro.comor (713) 533-0200.

"It’s Fresh, It’s Local, It’s French" is from the June 2008 issue of Texas Living: People & Places, a special section of Southern Living for our subscribers in Texas.