Singer Kelly Rowland Returns to Houston to Dine at Her Favorite Soul Food Restaurant
The former Destiny’s Child singer is sharing her favorite Houston dish with the city, and it’s got a lot of gravy
Singer and Houston hometown hero Kelly Rowland surprised local diners on Thursday, September 12, when she visited one of her oldest haunts — Houston This Is It Soul Food, to enjoy a meal she still thinks about to this day.
The recent visit to the Third Ward restaurant was part of her partnership with Pepsi’s Local Eats Better, the soda company’s program spotlighting local restaurants around the country in hopes of finding its next “dine-star,” according to a release. The “Dilemma” singer is the face of the promotion, which encourages diners to nominate their favorite local restaurant and dish through October. Similar to Rowland, who now has a namesake dish at This Is It, winning participants will have a dish at the chosen restaurant renamed after them, which they’ll also get to eat for free for a limited time.
Rowland’s $14 dish at This Is It is a comforting combination of meatloaf-like pepper steak patties served over rice with a healthy pour of brown gravy, a side of green beans, peach cobbler, and a fountain drink of choice. The order is available through September 24.
“Every time I come home, there are certain places you hit up, and This Is It is definitely one of them,” Rowland tells Eater Houston. “It’s not even just about the meal.”
Marcus Ingram/Pepsi
Rowland said the dish brings back memories — reminding her of how her family, originally from Atlanta, cooks at home. “I remember my aunts cooking gravy, and then I remember moving from Atlanta to Houston and finding this gravy that kind of reminded me of my great aunt’s consistency of her gravy and steak. Who doesn’t love steak?” she said. Further proof lies in a framed, signed portrait of Rowland and her former Destiny’s Child bandmates Beyonce and Michelle, which hangs on the wall in the restaurant. On it, the scrawled message: “Houston This Is It have [sic] the best soul food in H.Town!”
During visits to Houston, Rowland says, breakfast at the Breakfast Klub for breakfast, a stop at a local whiskey bar, and her personal favorite, Houston-born chain Lupe Tortilla, are also essential — the latter especially when the craving for queso strikes. “I haven’t been in a minute, but I imagine the atmosphere is the same. I would just go there and have the queso and the chips and put a little bit of the taco meat in the queso, and sit there and have a nice margarita and be so content,” she says.
More often, though, some of the best food in Houston is home-cooked by someone she loves. “I feel like when you’re in Houston, you’re either at a restaurant or you’re at somebody’s house, and that’s when you get the best version of food,” says Rowland, who remembers growing up eating Greek food and downing enchiladas at her best friends’ homes. “I always had an open palate as a kid and still do, even to this day.”
Marcus Ingram/Pepsi
At her home in California, Rowland says she’s often experimenting in the kitchen, cooking up dishes without sugar for her two sons. A staple in her house is a cucumber salad with rice wine vinegar, sesame oil, red pepper flakes, maple syrup, and a hint of salt. “We shake that thing up and pour it on a plate, and it’s amazing,” she says.
Still, Rowland’s not afraid of a hint of sweetness in her alcohol. The whiskey fan (she’s in good company, considering her longtime friend just came out with her own whiskey line) says she’s recently converted into a French white wine enthusiast following an eye-opening week in Saint Tropez.
Little compares to Houston, though, Rowland says. “Houston really is a cultural melting pot, and I love the way flavors kind of blend themselves together,” Rowland says. “It’s just the way it’s done here.”
