Philippe Gaston (well, Jean-Philippe Gaston, to be precise, preferably with an accent) is just your typical French chef who learned to cook Asian food while living in Mexico - and then perfected his most exotic techniques at Japanese stalwarts like Soma and Kata Robata in Houston. With such a tangled culinary bloodline, nothing Gaston does should come as a surprise. Unless, of course, it’s carving out a multi-national raw bar inside another successful Houston restaurant called Haven.
“So Randy and I were wondering,” the chef told me last night, referring to Haven honcho Randy Evans, “why there were no actual raw bars here in Houston when we’re this close to the coast. And we both know there are raw bars every block or two in New York City.” With Gaston’s background in sushi and sashimi, plus a lot of ambient awareness of ceviches, Italian crudi and other raw or nearly raw seafood specialties, the road to something called Cove seemed clear enough.
At the new place, there’s absolutely no “fire in the hole” - no stove or oven or even microwave behind the line, which mostly seems like a sushi bar meets cocktail bar anyway. Anything cooked, like the boiled shrimp that come in a bowl where that fancy tower thing might be or the handful of desserts Gaston makes himself, has to be carted over from the Haven kitchen. Still that leaves wonders like the Ika Mata (from Rarotonga in the Cook Islands) and the Poisson Cru from Tahiti in Fiji (both pictured above, both delicious settings of red albacore in the first and golden snapper in the second).
One of the more striking-looking dishes (all of which, by the way, are divided according to their region of origin) is called PNWS. Hailing from the Pacific Northwest, it naturally is salmon - the delicate fish quick-cured and served with lemon-lime zest, brown sugar, caperberry salt, chile peppers and three upright leaves of candied hoja santa. It takes a moment, this being Texas, to understand that the leaves are not some newfangled form of tortilla chip.
One real Cove signature is the Greek-inspired oktapodi krasato. Yep, octopus. Even if you think you hate octopus - indeed, even if you have hated octopus - you need to give this dish a try. The seafood itself is young, which I suppose makes it more tender, as does marination. (As does beating against rocks, the way the old ladies do in Greece!) It is cooked and brought into the Cove space in the simplest blend of olive oil and red wine vinegar, with a totally Greek sprinkle of thyme and oregano.
Yes, Cove is a “small plate” kind of place, so you and friends can sample a lot of items with your wine, beer and cocktails. But no, it’s not 100% seafood. In addition to the beef tataki from Japan pictured at the very top, there’s a beef heart carpaccio that should make a believer out of anybody. A quick reminder to the squeamish: heart is muscle, not organ - so it tastes and feels like meat. Sliced paper-thin with lemon vinaigrette, parmesan, caperberry and shallot, it’s also tastes like some of the best carpaccio between here and Harry’s Bar in Venice.
Not being a baker by trade, Gaston does his best to come up with desserts that aren’t too much like baking. Really, he accomplishes his goal impressively, all things considered. Our first dessert to sample was the ginger brulee, the custard scented with fresh ginger (still playing around with Asia, obviously) and outfitted with dried cranberry and gingersnap crumble. Best of all, the custard was lush and creamy.
As a ”pastry chef,” Gaston pretty much likes to crumble and crack. In a delicious echo of the gingersnap crumble with the ginger brulee, his version of key lime pie isn’t a pie at all. It shows up with graham cracker “soil” where the crust should be. The “pie” itself is, therefore, more of formed quennelle. And smashed up pieces of Swiss meringue dot the landscape. All in all, I can’t wait to see how Cove does - and what it does for Haven. It’s a delightful, comfortable, intimate space in which you forget you’re inside a large, busy restaurant. It’s a fascinating idea I want to eat more of, however many wandering roads the chef had to travel to get here.
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