Chris Cosentino to Make His Texas Debut with Upcoming Houston Italian Restaurant

And so the Houston restaurant moment continues. With a wildly diverse food scene praised by many, the fourth-largest city in the country has seen its fair share of major openings in the last few years, and there's another big one on the horizon.

Celebrity chef Chris Cosentino, who has restaurants in California and Oregon, is preparing to make his Texas debut with Rosalie Italian Soul, a 145-seat restaurant that will serve rustic, Italian-American fare out of the C. Baldwin Hotel in downtown Houston this fall. Named for Cosentino’s great-grandmother Rosalie, the chef is excited to share the “feeling of being cared for with love and delicious foods,” in the same way that she did while he was growing up.

Such a personal project calls for a trusted executive chef, and Cosentino has that in Sasha Grumman, a rising star who was most recently chef de cuisine of Austin’s Launderette, by way of Union in Los Angeles, and Delfina and Cosentino’s Cockscomb in San Francisco.

“Sasha was part of the opening team at Cockscomb, and she was integral in the success of the opening," says Cosentino. "The best part of working with Sasha again is that we have trust and solid respect for each other. Rosalie is a very personal restaurant for me, and having Sasha there gives me peace of mind."

Grumman is excited to reunite with Cosentino, who “knows that the success of others builds him up too,” she says. She’ll be working to execute his vision at the beginning, but plans to lean on her Italian cooking background to put her stamp on the menu.

Adding to the spirit of reunions—Cosentino and partner Oliver Wharton have hired Charlie Skipsey as director of restaurants at the hotel, and Annie Balest as Rosalie general manager. Skipsey and Wharton have been friends for more than thirty years, and Balest worked with him at Jaleo in Las Vegas nearly ten years ago.