Events benefitting Bo's Place and Children's Assessment Center
Catastrophic Theatre Gala and Project 88's Jean & Jerseys Party
The openings of Sweat 1000, Catalyst, Cottonmouth Club and Paris Texas Apparel Co.
Mercury’s 10th annual gala and the Symphony Ball
Hermann Park Conservancy's Evening in the Park gala
CultureMap’s Tastemakers event and Sugar Land Wine & Food Affair
March in Montrose (photo by Julie Soefer)
Wine Spectator’sannual Restaurant Awards deemed both Houston locales of Pappas Bros. Steakhouse, plus the Dallas outpost, with the coveted Grand Award. Mastro’s at the Post Oak Hotel was the only other Houston restaurant to receive top honors, while 20 other Houston restaurants received special honors — all and all, an impressive turnout.
The Pappas family and Tilman Fertitta, whose Landry’s Inc. owns Mastro’s, have repeatedly won the Grand Award, of which there are only 97 recipients across the U.S.
Pappas’ Galleria-area steakhouse has earned the top ranking since 2010, and the Downtown location joined the exclusive group in 2019 and again this year with a “showstopper list,” per the magazine. The original location was hailed for its epic roster of selections, “the largest of the Pappas Bros.’ wine lists.” The Dallas Pappas Bros. has been in the spotlight as the best of the best since 2011 and continues to wow.
Mastro’s at the Post Oak Hotel was noted by Wine Spectator for its selection of 4,000 wines (37,500 bottles) with strength in the regions of Bordeaux, Burgundy, California, Piedmont, Tuscany, Champagne, Loire and Madiera. Mastro’s has earned the top ranking since 2019, which demonstrates continued excellence from its wine team.
The private dining room at Mastro's
Pappas Bros. Steakhouse
In addition to the Grand Award, there are two other levels to Wine Spectator honors. The Award of Excellence recognizes restaurants whose wine lists feature a well chosen assortment of quality producers along with a thematic match to the menu in both price and style. The Best Award of Excellence recognizes those with extensive selections, excellent breadth across multiple regions and significant vertical depth. No question, meticulous planning and execution of the wine menu is noticed, big time.
Houston restaurants earning the Best Award of Excellence include March, Vic & Anthony’s Steakhouse, Georgia James, Rainbow Lodge, Kiran’s, El Meson and Del Frisco’s Double Eagle Steakhouse. Receiving the Award of Excellence are Capital Grille, Truluck’s, Bludorn, Rosie Cannonball, Perry’s Steakhouse & Grill on West Gray, Brenner’s Steakhouse on the Bayou, Eddie V’s Prime Seafood on Kirby, State of Grace, Seasons 52, Le Colonial, Morton’s the Steakhouse, and the Oceanaire Seafood Room.
We know where we’ll be taking our wine connoisseur friends!
'A Beautiful Mind'
All of the films were selected by artist Salle Werner Vaughn, widow of the late Texas philanthropist and oil heir James M. Vaughn, Jr., who was a longtime supporter of the MFAH film department. The series screens in the MFAH’s Brown Auditorium Theater July 9-24, and each film will be introduced by a member of the Houston Film Critics Society.
Taken together, the six films speak to James and Salle’s Texas upbringing, courtship and marriage (Salle and James met and fell in love in the third grade), as well as James’ fascination with puzzles and math.
In 1972, he created the Vaughn Foundation Fund to support research into a mysterious theorem conceived by the 17th-century math enthusiast Pierre de Fermat, a math problem so complex it was deemed unsolvable until the English mathematician Andrew Wiles, inspired by James and his dedication to the field, managed to solve it in 1994 and publish his proof the next year.
Salle and James were also acquainted with the American mathematician John Nash, who lived with schizophrenia and is the subject of Ron Howard’s film A Beautiful Mind (2001) which screens July 17.
The remaining films include A New Leaf, a dark comedy directed by Elaine May, who stars in the film alongside Walter Matthau; Cat Ballou (1965), an over-the-top slapstick western starring Jane Fonda as Catherine “Cat” Ballou, who teams up with a motley crew of barely competent gunslingers to avenge the death of her father; and Alfred Hitchcock’s classic murder-on-a-train mystery The Lady Vanishes (1938), starring Margaret Lockwood and Sir Michael Redgrave.
Jane Fonda as Cat Ballou
Elizabeth Taylor and James Dean in 'Giant'
