With the Addition of Remi, Houston’s Hotel Restaurants Just Keep Getting Better

Remi in Hotel Granduca is one of the newer hotel restaurants in the city worth dining in, even if you’re not a guest

Often, eating at hotel restaurants can be a dull rite of passage — more a convenience for travelers than a destination dining experience to anticipate. But in Houston, the tides are changing.

The new American restaurant Remi is one of the latest dining establishments to open inside a hotel, and the results have been promising. Named after the Transwestern Hospitality Group family’s favorite name for their hunting bird dogs, Remi quietly opened in March in Uptown Park’s Hotel Granduca, offering an array of innovative comfort dishes. Led by Italian executive chef Maurizio Ferrarese, the restaurant doesn’t take itself too seriously: Bar snacks, like truffle popcorn topped with shredded Parmesan, cutesy corn dog poppers, marinated olives, fennel pollen-covered hazelnuts, and crispy hash browns topped with creme fraiche and caviar, offer a playful way to start a meal.

Julie Soefer

Diners may delve into sharable appetizers, like white bean hummus with bomba bread made from pizza dough, a Not So Fancy Buffalo chicken dip, and crispy Roman artichokes with roasted garlic aioli and fried rosemary. Thomas Duncan, whose family owns the hotel’s owner and operator Transwestern Hospitality Group, says that Remi’s main plates allow diners to get as “sophisticated” as they’d like, with broadly European-leaning dishes like fresh pasta and pizzas, tender Ora King Salmon served atop charred broccolini and romesco, steak-frites, a gem lettuce salad, and a half roasted chicken served with truffle tagliatelle. The Remi burger is a staple steakhouse burger on a soft brioche bun topped with cheddar cheese and Dijonnaise, served with a side of crispy fries. For dessert, diners can dig into a soft, warm cookie topped with a generous scoop of ice cream.

The accompanying Bar Remi also offers some classics, with an extensive selection of bourbons and tequilas, its own menu of ice-cold martinis, Old Fashioneds, and Manhattans, plus other light cocktails, like a Campari-infused Primrose topped with fluffy egg white foam and dehydrated Campari dust, and the gin-based Aloe Verde, a combination of Chartreuse, melon, mint, cucumber, and agave. Ryan Gaudin, a sommelier and partner at Episcope, has curated the wine list, which showcases 130 varieties from some of Europe’s and California’s top small-batch producers and wineries. Many wines are available by the glass but can also be purchased by the bottle for between $80 and $140, which Gaudin calls the sweet spot.

The space has interior designer Kara Childress imprinted all over it, with warm tones, burnt orange and gold accents, and a massive collection of images of Western scenes, including a striking Texas rendition of the Last Supper, all by British photographer David Yarrow. The space has six different event spaces for private dining and celebrations, including a room that opens up to the open-air courtyard, which features a garden-like setting with a pool and a fountain from the 1900s — ideal for dining and drinking al fresco.

Julie Soefer

Duncan says that in addition to the restaurant and its kitchen, which received a $1 million upgrade, Hotel Granduca has been renovated as a whole. His family, which owns Transwestern Hospitality Group, bought the luxury, all-suite hotel about a year ago. They teamed up with Episcope Hospitality to revamp it, adding a modern but chic European ambiance.

While James Beard Award-winning chef Hugo Ortego might be one of the best-known Houston chefs to have a restaurant in a local hotel (his Oaxacan-style restaurant Xochi opened on the first floor of Downtown’s Marriott Marquis Houston in 2017), Remi is not the only exciting new hotel restaurant in town. A handful of Houston hotel restaurants have opened in 2025, touting big-name chefs or hospitality groups aiming to bring food that will draw in more than just hotel guests. Most recently, Chardon opened in Houston in February, with chef E.J. Miller at the helm, offering modern French cuisine with a stellar beef cheek bourguignon, innovative takes on classic snacks (the foie gras macaron is something to behold), and a warm ambiance. In January, Chef Aaron Bludorn and his team opened their fourth restaurant, Perseid, in the swanky Hotel Saint Augustine Hotel, which dishes out French cuisine with a Houston and Gulf Coast flair.

Julie Soefer

Gaudin says a noticeable shift in hotel restaurant offerings nationwide began in 2014 when designer and retail store Ralph Lauren opened its restaurant, the Polo Bar, in New York, inspiring other major food and hospitality groups to open destination restaurants inside hotels and interesting spaces. Gaudin’s company, Episcope, has helped open a restaurant inside “Mattress Mack’s” Gallery Furniture store on Grand Parkway. The challenge has always been to offer dishes that are simple and done well to please the business traveler, tourists, and, in some cases, shoppers. “They don’t want anything complex,” Gaudin says. In the end, it’s about meeting travelers where they are while also being interesting enough to draw in local diners.

Remi is located in Hotel Granduca at 1080 Uptown Park Boulevard, Uptown, 77056. It serves breakfast daily from 7 a.m. to 11 a.m., lunch from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., and dinner from 5 p.m. to 11 p.m.

Pricing: Entrees are between $22 and $68. Appetizers are between $14-$24. Pizzas are $14-$22. Salads are $15-$16. Juices are $4-$10. Coffee bar: $2.5-$5. Cocktails: $15-$17 (Non-alcoholic: $10). Reserve cocktails $25-$38.