Houston has a New Burger Emperor and He’s a Classically Trained Chef and Restaurateur from California
Sep. 25, 2023
Pham winning the Burger Impossible episode on Chopped (photo by @theenclave.la on Instagram)
CHEF AND CO-OWNER Mike Pham of Houston’s Trill Burgers was the winner of “Burger Impossible” on a recent Chopped Food Network episode and took home $10,000. This honor came on the heels of winning the Best Burger in America competition on Good Morning America in 2022.
What inspired a fine dining chef to switch to burgers? “I’ve always had an affinity towards burgers. Growing up in Little Saigon in Southern California, prominent Vietnamese cultural influences surrounded me, and having a burger in my hand was my gateway to pure Americana. It holds sentimental real estate in my heart,” Pham tells CityBook.
Pham, no stranger to the food industry, moved to Houston this year to open Trill Burgers and is proud to call H-Town home. He and Trill Burgers partner Andy Nguyen worked on dozens of food concepts together in his native California. Pham was first introduced to additional Houston Trill Burgers partners Bun B and Nick Scurfield through Nguyen. Besides the brick-and-mortar location, there are satellite Trill Burger outposts at NRG Stadium and Shell Energy Stadium.
“After high school, I moved to Los Angeles for culinary school and pursued the kitchens there. During my time in L.A., everyone was pushing the burger envelope. It inspired me to take up the art of making burgers.” At one point in the Chopped episode, Pham said that the key to a perfect burger is balancing sweet, sour, bitter, savory and saltiness.
As for the $10K he won, Pham plans to create a youth culinary program that will assist in learning the skills to succeed in the business. “My dream has always been to help others achieve their dreams in the culinary world, especially the next generation.”
Pham travels back and forth to California for work and to visit family, but he manages to stay grounded during long hours at bustling Trill where his focus is on quality control. “I give myself the first hour of the day to workout, read, meditate, take my calls and answer emails. I believe if I have complete control of the first hour of my day, I’ll have complete control of the rest of my day.”
Pham and his wife Hali are raising three youngsters, ranging from two to six years old. When in California, he likes hiking, surfing and enjoying the outdoors, ’natch. In Houston, he’s been spending much of his leisure time scouting out the city and learning about the diverse and expansive culinary scene.
Although he’s committed to the growth of Trill Burgers, a future aspiration is to develop other concepts for Houston. “I would love to achieve a Michelin star one day.
“The love and support I have experienced here still leaves me speechless. ‘Southern Hospitality’ is a real thing, and it's alive and well in Houston,” says Pham about our city.
The Trill Burger
Pham and family
Pham in Japan
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Daisy Patton's 'Untitled (Five Color Fade Women with Bellflowers)' and Tomiwa Arobieke's 'Comforter III'
HAPPY FALL EQUINOX! It’s the start of a new season of art, music, theater, and plenty of other groovy happenings around the city — including superb new shows up at all six galleries at 4411 Montrose, the grey, brutalist-styled building you may have overlooked in between trips to the MFAH and the CVS on Alabama for your combo seasonal flu shot and new COVID vaccine. (Seriously, folks. Get your shots. You don’t want to miss all the cool stuff coming up this fall.) But as art-lovers will attest, and ART IS BOND gallery owner Janice Bond puts it, “the building has a history,” and history continues to be made this month.
After a summer retrospective dedicated to photographer Ming Smith, ART IS BOND is shifting gears to present a group show called Golden Ratio: Mapping Self, Space, and Other. It’s a vibrant exhibit of works by eight uniquely talented artists, including Mia Ghogho, Tomiwa Arobieke, Floyd Newsum, Jasimin Penelope Charles, J. Johari Palacio, Payton Harris-Woodard, Sonja Henderson and — one of our faves — Houston-based artist Wayne Bell. Regarding the installation, ART IS BOND’s website states, “the meticulously curated arrangement adheres to the golden ratio.” We encourage Fibonacci fanatics to leave their measuring tape at home and just bask in the glow of the rich selection of figurative and abstract art on the walls.
Jasmin Penelope Charles's 'Zen Garden Security Guard' at ART IS BOND
Next door to ART IS BOND, the relatively new kid on the block Foto Relevance is showing With Hands Clasped Tightly, the first solo show by Los Angeles-born multi-disciplinary artist Daisy Patton. In these large-scale works, Patton combines abandoned family photographs of unidentified subjects with layers of juicy colors, vintage patterns, and unfurling strands of alien flora. The results are sublime and a bit spooky. Anyone with memories of a long-distance, now-deceased relative they may or may not have met as a child will wonder if Patton has somehow tapped into their ancestral dreaming.
'With Hands Clasped Tightly' by Daisy Patton
Meanwhile, over at David Shelton Gallery, you’ll want to check out Marigold, a suite of paintings by Brooklyn-based artist Benjamin Edmiston, each named after a type of flower and each full of colorful contrasts inspired by the natural world.
Up one flight of stairs at Anya Tish Gallery is Pattern and Power, the gallery’s debut solo exhibition of 30-year-old, Houston-born, South Asian-American artist Ruhee Maknojia, whose work draws inspiration from the aesthetics and philosophies of ancient and contemporary Indo-American culture. This vibrant show includes ten acrylic-on-canvas paintings or “Magicalscapes,” each with its own mysterious tale to tell, an animated film charmingly narrated by Maknojia, and a site-specific, walk-in installation of Banarasi fabric and artificial grass titled Manufactured Paradise.
Across from Anya Tish Gallery at Assembly is Mumbai-born, multimedia artist Manjari Sharma’s Surface Tension, a beautifully installed exhibit of photos, video, and installations that explore the artist’s personal connection to the archetypal power and poetry of water. The theme of nature continues at Barbara Davis Gallery with The Trees are Humming, a stunning solo exhibition by 75-year-old Japanese-born American artist Yuriko Yamaguchi of mysterious, spectral-like sculptures, each constructed with hand-cast resin, paper pulp, and steel wire that seem to hover in mid-air.
A colorful piece by Ruhee Maknojia
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