How Craft Pita is redefining Mediterranean food in Houston

Nasr wishes to represent his own culture at Craft Pita, a fast-casual Lebanese dining establishment that opened its 2nd place in West University inNovember Traditional dishes like hummus, tabbouleh, falafel and Lebanese flatbreads called manaeesh are main to his menu, as is the olive oil he imports from his own household’s olive grove in Lebanon.

His moms and dads Claudia and Hatem Nasr– she from Peru, he from Lebanon– fulfilled at the University ofHouston Known as Raffi, Nasr matured around food in between Houston, where he was born and raised, and his dad’s native land. He keeps in mind summer seasons visiting his grandma in Lebanon as a kid, getting and tasting scraps in the kitchen area. His uncle owned a couple of dining establishments there too, where he ‘d assist as a teen in exchange for ice cream, dropping French french fries in the fryer and making sandwiches.

While studying entrepreneurial management at Texas Christian University, Nasr opened a food truck on school, where great dining alternatives at the time were sporadic, offering shawarma and gyro to university student getting back from the bars. Back in Houston, he had a vision for a brand-new type of Lebanese dining establishment, however the marketplace wasn’t rather there yet.

“In Houston, we have this remarkable Middle Eastern neighborhood,” he states. “But I constantly observed the absence of chef-driven dining establishments in our sector ofMiddle Eastern-Mediterranean food The mama and pops are remarkable locations, however none were utilizing top quality proteins or in your area sourcing their fruit and vegetables.”

He chose to sharpen his abilities at huge dining establishment groups initially, consisting of Island Grill andPappas Finally, in August 2019, he opened the very first Craft Pita place near theGalleria Nasr states he established the menu to be available to individuals who are brand-new to Middle Eastern and Mediterranean food, however he’s still utilizing genuine components doing so. He imports olive oil, mint and za’atar from Lebanon, while likewise sourcing from regional purveyors like Plant It Forward and Atkinson Farms for fruit and vegetables, Akaushi beef from He artBrand, and pita from Phoenicia Specialty Foods.

Craft Pita’s tagline is at as soon as amusing and a bridge to a more nuanced discussion. “We call ourselves ‘True Mediterranean’ nearly as a joke due to the fact that the Lebanese believe they developed whatever,” Nasr states, including that while it’s partially in jest, there’s a more useful factor he made this relocation: approachability. “If we were to put Middle Eastern or Lebanese as our tagline … Some individuals do not understand where Lebanon is on the map. They’ve never ever even become aware of the nation.”

Nasr states that when individuals think about Mediterranean food nowadays, they imagine healthy, fresh and dynamic fare– which’s what he’s choosing. But he acknowledges that the now-trendy term frequently lumps together a lot of nations’ foods that have little to do with one another, even some that do not even touch the Mediterranean Sea.

” I believe individuals have actually utilized this word Mediterranean to toss hummus and pasta on the exact same menu, and there’s no context behind it,” he states. Greek food is everything about the herbs and Moroccan is everything about the spices, he discusses, while Lebanese food is a mix of herb and spice. Southern French and Italian food is often tossed onto a Mediterranean menu together with Levantine food from Lebanon, Syria, Jordan andPalestine

While Nasr utilizes the “True Mediterranean” name to get individuals in the door, he states he was extremely deliberate in making Craft Pita a Lebanese dining establishment, with Lebanese menu products and Lebanese components. Shared plates, called “mezze,” consist of hummus, labneh and babaganoush spreads, along with tabbouleh and fattoush salads. The manaeesh are sprayed with za’atar, Lebanese cheese or both. Alongside pita sandwiches filled with beef kafta, falafel and more, Nasr put some Houston flair on the menu with his Lebanese tacos, packed with rotisserie chicken, rice pilaf and french fries inside the tortillas. The chef carries out tastings of the whole menu for all personnel himself, so they can effectively talk restaurants through the offerings.

There’s possibly no truer devotion to showcasing his culture at his dining establishments than the Craft Pita additional virgin olive oil, included in a number of the meals and readily available for sale by the bottle. An olive orchard in Koura, an area in northern Lebanon that’s grown olives for countless years, has actually remained in the Nasr household for 4 generations. Growing up, on his method back from journeys, he smuggled the oil into the U.S. in Johnnie Walker bottles covered in duct tape. Now, the household is bottling and importing its olive oil in a more main method.

Nasr states mass-produced olive oil is mainly made by utilizing makers to knock the fruit off the tree, which provides the skins an unwanted taste. His household’s olives are carefully picked and cold-pressed, then the oil is bottled in Lebanon and delivered to the U.S. He states it’s an excellent finishing olive oil, much fruitier and lighter than Spanish, Italian and Greek variations, with a vibrant taste and no bitterness on the surface.

In January 2020, 5 months after opening the very first place in Briargrove, Craft Pita got a great deal of attention and a substantial sales bump when it arrived at Yelp’s annual Top 100 Places to Eat list, the only dining establishment in Houston that year. When the COVID-19 pandemic started a couple months later on, Nasr states they fared much better than a lot of, especially due to the fact that Craft Pita’s principle was currently well-positioned for takeout and shipment, and he included a drive-thru operation.

Almost 3 years later on, onNov 19, the 2nd place of Craft Pita opened in West U. The area is bigger, enabling more space for imagination in the kitchen area and a larger dining location for clients. Nasr has actually included Turkish coffee to the beverages program, and is likewise dealing with broadening the all-Lebanese white wine list, highlighting both developed and lesser-known wineries at extremely low mark-ups.

“They’ve been making white wine in Lebanon considering that Jesus lived and it’s simply not the most popular white wine area,” he states. “But in the last 10 approximately years, it’s actually acquired a great deal of appeal.”

He desires the Craft Pita design to be scalable, however preserves that it’s still quite a family-run dining establishment. His mom is his service partner, and he calls his dad the “authorities Lebanese taste tester” of the operation.

Outside the kitchen area, Nasr is associated with the neighborhood in more methods than one. He’s on the advisory council for the Refugee Services of Texas, and was just recently included in Plated Stories: Legacies from Home to Table, a cookbook whose profits benefit the company. When he got stuck in Lebanon throughout the Lebanese-Israeli war of 2006, he experienced the terrible results of displacement on individuals in times of crisis– however it’s constantly been a crucial problem for him.

“My mom left Peru when the Communist routine took control of and took whatever from my household, and my dad left Lebanon throughout the Lebanese civil war,” he states. “They came here under great scenarios due to the fact that my households both fortunately had sufficient cash to come over here, however a great deal of individuals are not as lucky.”

Nasr has actually hosted speaking panels on the subject at Craft Pita, has actually raised cash for Refugee Services of Texas, and supported other refugee-focused nonprofits such as Plant It Forward andBelong Kitchen And every Christmas– including this one– he arranges a winter season clothes drive, where Houstonians can drop off warm clothing at the dining establishments for asylum applicants in requirement.