- We try to make food that you
have some sort of connection to.
We take inspiration from all over,
and we try to allow all kinds of influences in,
so that we're not eating
the same old boring stuff all the time.
We want everything to have some sort
of soulful connection to people,
whether they grew up eating that or not.
The food at Nancy's Hustle, to me,
is ultimately comfort food.
Sean and I decided a long time ago
that we should do a restaurant together.
We talked about it for many years,
and about three or four years ago,
we decided that it was time to actually work for ourselves
and do our own thing.
At that point, we both had enough experience,
we felt good about it.
In my experience of opening a lot of different restaurants
and being able to travel quite a bit,
we've just incorporated pieces of food from all over,
just little things here and there.
We didn't wanna have to cook Italian food
or stick to strictly French.
I would say our food today is inspired
by many, many other cultures.
And, especially in a city like Houston,
there are so many different people here,
cooking all kinds of different foods,
that we just don't want to be in a box about our food.
The Nancy Cakes, definitely inspired by a oyster bar
in Boston called Neptune Oyster.
I had a dish there many years ago,
that was somewhat similar in style,
and I've dreamt about it ever since.
I do think the Nancy Cakes are a good example
of that comfort food that is familiar in some way.
You've maybe never really had anything
that you can directly connect to that,
but you know that it connects with you in some way.
A warm griddle cake with butter, a little bit of sweetener,
and some smoked fish,
is not an uncommon combination of flavors.
So, I think for some people it might connect them
to having smoked salmon and bagels.
To other people pancakes at the, you know, at a diner.
I think any time you can have pancakes for dinner
and someone tells you that's OK,
that's something great.
We very much wanted Nancy's Hustle
to be a neighborhood restaurant.
We have a very, kind of, rustic feel here,
like you're in our house.
Definitely having items on the menu
that are comforting to people.
And in other places, we can push the boundaries a little bit
with some dishes that might not be so familiar.
For the chicken liver mousse,
we blend chicken livers with some cream,
a little bit of egg, nutmeg, and some other spices.
When peaches were in season, we were getting tons of them,
so we did a classic preparation of mostarda,
where it kinda candies them, but leaves them whole.
Then we finish that with a mustard oil and mustard seeds
and some vinegar.
Separately from that, we a whole wheat paratha.
That is a whole wheat dough that we make.
We smear that with whole butter, twist it up.
It gets re-rolled and griddled.
So it's kind of a flaky flatbread
that goes on the side of the chicken liver mousse.
We love dumplings in all forms.
So, I definitely wanted to do some sort of dumpling
for the menu.
I was researching a lot of food from the Silk Roads,
and one of the dishes that stood out was a lamb manti.
It seemed like a great dish.
With the yogurt for acid, the spicy tomato,
the lamb brings the savoriness.
We start with a Australian lamb shoulder,
because we like the gaminess of the Australian lamb.
That gets roasted and braised with some preserved lemon,
coriander, bay leaf, and cumin.
From there we make a dough,
just basic flour, water, dough.
The lamb gets stuffed inside, they get shaped from there.
They're boiled after that.
Underneath, there's some labneh that's been seasoned
with sumac and honey.
And then we put some fried garlic on top,
a little tomato vinaigrette, some chili oil, and dried mint.
I just fell in love with the atmosphere of kitchens
in general.
It wasn't necessarily about the food in the early days.
It was more about the people, the energy.
It seemed like a lot more fun kind of job
than looking forward to a desk job somewhere.
So, I started dish washing,
and slowly worked my way up to the kitchen from there.
I grew up in Houston.
I always really loved this town.
And so I just wanted to come back
and be a part of the growth of the culinary scene here.
I saw a lot of opportunity,
so I wanted to come back here where I'm from,
and start my own place.
We just wanted to open a neighborhood restaurant
without all the BS behind it.