Robert Del Grande prepares to step into Chef Emeritus role
It’s the end of an era at The Annie — and in Houston — as trailblazing chef Robert Del Grande steps down from day-today duties at the restaurant and into semiretirement.
Del Grande will stay on staff (and on payroll) as Chef Emeritus with Berg Hospitality. Benjamin Berg’s ever-expanding Houston restaurant group bought RDG + Cafe Annie in 2019, making Del Grande a partner, and transformed it into The Annie Cafe & Bar. A year later, just as the pandemic lockdowns hit, they opened the clubby, super-high-end Turner’s in a snug space on the ground floor.
The 67-year-old Del Grande made his mark — locally and nationally — at what was originally called Cafe Annie. Over the decades, and through various iterations, the restaurant was a staple on the city’s finedining scene at its high-end
location on Post Oak Boulevard, north of the Galleria.
Del Grande was an innovator in what was known in the 1980s as the New Southwestern Cuisine, which laid the foundations for Houston’s melting-pot culinary culture by introducing regional ingredients and forms to high-end American dining. It was a radical change to encounter
an enchilada on a fine-dining menu back then; and Del Grande’s famous green mussel soup, livened with a brisk current of cilantro, tasted revolutionary.
Del Grande got that particular idea from Mexican cooks working on his kitchen line, he once told me. It marked a new, more democratic way of thinking about food in the city, and not everyone appreciated it. Tony Vallone, the king of fine French and Italian dining here for decades, once dismissed Del Grande’s menu as “just Mexican food.”
Del Grande’s background may have helped him see things in a different way. A biochemist by training, he taught himself to cook when he arrived in Houston in 1981 and began working at the little bistro run by his wife-to-be’s sister and brother-in-law, Candice and Lonnie Schiller. Reading avidly, he grounded himself in classic French technique and became enamored of nouvelle cuisine, which was lighter and more dynamic.
Del Grande’s kitchen at Cafe Annie became a must-stop during its heyday for famous food writers and chefs coming through town. Everyone from Mimi Sheraton to Jame Villas to Paul Bocuse stopped in. Del Grande earned a James Beard Best Chef Southwest Award in 1992 — a feat not repeated until Chris Shepherd won the title in 2014.
Del Grande’s movie-star looks and his wife Mimi’s effervescence at the front of the house made their restaurant even more of a place to be. Cafe Annie was long a society hangout, although the restaurant had lost some of its luster and daring by the time Berg stepped in with his offer for the expensive, twostory space.
Now, it’s on the brink of another big change. Del Grande hopes to assist in the search for a new executive chef that’s underway. And he aims to fill a mentoring role at the restaurant, while getting to spend more time with his family and his new grandson. He’ll still step in for appearances and special events.
Whatever roles he takes on, Del Grande’s place in Houston’s food history remains assured.