Brennan’s of Houston has been a staple within the metropolis since its 1967 opening.
Parallels between Houston and New Orleans existed lengthy earlier than Hurricane Katrina. Each cities share ports, the Gulf, and a love of Creole cooking—laying the muse for one of many nation’s most well-known restaurant households.
Brennan-Martin traces his household’s legacy again to the early 1900s, when his Irish grandparents and their six kids settled in New Orleans. In 1943, throughout World Struggle II, his eldest uncle, Owen Brennan, who was exempt from service attributable to bronchial asthma, juggled jobs as a gasoline station proprietor and a liquor salesman. Someday, whereas calling the Outdated Absinthe Home on Bourbon Avenue, the proprietor, who was one in every of his prospects, talked about he’d promote the bar for the suitable value. Owen didn’t have the cash, however his father did. “[Our family] owned it the subsequent day,” Brennan-Martin says.
Three years later, Owen Brennan based his household’s namesake restaurant throughout the road from the bar. Not lengthy after, its chef created the famed bananas Foster, which is flambéed tableside with Caribbean rum, dusted with cinnamon, and served over vanilla bean ice cream. That dish has a enjoyable backstory, too, Brennan-Martin says: One other uncle, John, who had married somebody with a household working within the fruit-importing enterprise, had an oversupply of bananas on the port that had been being dumped into the river. John’s father-in-law had a greater concept—ship them to the restaurant. Cartloads arrived at Brennan’s, the place the kitchen reworked them into the now-famous recipe.
New Orleans raved concerning the restaurant, and the Brennans realized they wanted more room to accommodate their rising clientele. Within the mid-Nineteen Fifties, they moved to their present area on Royal Avenue. Then got here the household’s subsequent huge concept to develop past Louisiana. Brennan-Martin says the subsequent logical step was Houston, a metropolis with which New Orleans had a symbiotic relationship (each had been main facilities of oil drilling and petrochemicals).
They looked for an area in Houston, and within the mid-Nineteen Sixties, the household got here throughout a property they preferred. Constructed by John Staub in 1920, the Midtown constructing that previously housed the Junior League of Houston was practically a reproduction of the restaurant constructing in Louisiana. “There’s simply a variety of coincidence and a variety of good serendipity,” Brennan-Martin says.
Brennan’s of Houston opened in 1967, and it’s since grow to be a vacation spot for Houstonians in search of a style of the French Quarter with out the six-hour drive. Its cameo in the 1983 movie Phrases of Endearment hasn’t harm both. “Filming it was a hoot,” Brennan-Martin says. “Rapidly, Hollywood confirmed up, and there have been 18-wheelers parked throughout.”
The film Phrases of Endearment is honored with a photograph in Brennan’s Courtyard Bar.
For years, followers flocked to the restaurant to dine within the room featured within the movie (dubbed the “Phrases of Endearment room”), which was not too long ago redesigned as a part of the restaurant’s renovation of the Courtyard Bar (all that is still is {a photograph} within the new bar depicting the lunch scene).
Quick ahead 58 years to 2025. The restaurant’s momentum endures regardless of the numerous storms it has weathered, each actually and metaphorically. There have been hurricanes, floods, a significant fireplace adopted by a rebuild, and a pandemic—and, by means of all of it, the restaurant has embraced the spirit and taste of New Orleans.
The menu options staples, together with Haute Creole seafood gumbo, shrimp remoulade, and snapping turtle soup—a creamy creation with Lustau Sherry. Seasonal plates like crawfish enchiladas mix Tex-Mex and Creole traditions, whereas the chef’s desk expertise debuts creative dishes impressed by the crew’s creativity.
Crawfish enchiladas are a seasonal favourite at Brennan’s.
Its hospitality is woven into each element of the restaurant. On the again patio, diners can unwind with pickled deviled eggs, hearty muffuletta sliders, and savory New Orleans–model barbecue shrimp, together with a refreshed drink menu that includes cocktails just like the Parisian Gasoline Lamp. This homage to Brennan’s signature gasoline lamps makes use of Rémy Martin VSOP cognac, Cointreau Noir, and the of completion of a flaming orange peel. To solidify the expertise, diners are given a parting present—Brennan’s signature pecan praline candies.
Brennan-Martin has been a part of the household enterprise since 1984, however a rift inside his household in 1973 practically led him to imagine he’d by no means be concerned. “It was a reasonably traumatic occasion,” he remembers, however Brennan-Martin nonetheless pursued a profession within the restaurant business.
After graduating from culinary college and residing in France, he had stints in eating places in New York and San Francisco. He returned to Houston to assist his household run Brennan’s for what was imagined to be three months. That short-term setup lasted greater than 40 years. “I simply fell in love with Houston,” he says. “Being a Southern boy, it was an excellent match for me.”
Alongside the best way, he’s constructed a workers that seems like household. Jose Martinez, who now works in banquet occasions, began as a back-waiter 37 years in the past. Jose Arevalo, who started as a dishwasher practically 40 years in the past after immigrating from El Salvador, can be nonetheless working at Brennan’s as a Creole chef. He labored his manner up by means of the kitchen, serving to budding cooks like a younger Chris Shepherd, who gained a James Beard Award for the Finest Chef: Southwest in 2014.
Whereas the restaurant business is difficult, Brennan-Martin says giving up has by no means been an possibility. “It’s a labor of affection, and my definition for ‘labor of affection’ is when what you’re doing stops making sense, however you don’t have the sense to cease,” he says.
It’s the success tales, loyalty, and dedication of the restaurant’s workers to serve Houstonians that hold the household restaurant going. Brennan-Martin says he typically adheres to his uncle Dick Brennan’s enduring however simple motto: “We’ve bought the best enterprise on the planet. When our prospects stroll within the entrance door, they’re in an excellent temper. Let’s not screw it up.”
