Latest news with #BellyoftheBeast
Edmonton Journal
18-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Edmonton Journal
The Works Art & Design Festival celebrating its 40 years in Edmonton
Article content The theme — Ground Works — is intentionally environmentally focused, its art full of impressions of flora and fauna. I ran into two-spirit Beave Cree-Métis artist Clinton Minault wearing a 'found' Louis Riel shirt out at North Country Fair earlier this week, where he's making a fox sculpture. For The Works on Churchill Square, he'll be live-building Belly of the Beast — a new bison sculpture to accompany his 2024 piece Beastly Two Eyed Festival Seer.
Eater
17-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Eater
Thomas Bille of Belly and the Beast Takes Home James Beard Award for Best Chef: Texas
On June 16, the winners of the 'Oscars of food,' as the James Beard Awards have been called, were announced. From Houston, the sole winner is Thomas Bille at Belly of the Beast in the Best Chef: Texas category. Bille tells deeply personal stories through his cooking, unraveling his family history and formative years living in Los Angeles. The restaurant began as a pop-up in 2018 and later opened as a counter-service restaurant in Old Town Spring in February 2020. COVID impacted the nation the following month, and in 2021 Bille was forced to close Belly of the Beast after a dispute over increased rent with the landlord. It reopened at its current location in 2023. The menu at Belly of the Beast combines his Mexican American heritage, French culinary training, and family memories into dishes that are personal, playful, and genre-defying. Previously, Belly of the Beast earned a Bib Gourmond at the first-ever Texas Michelin Awards ceremony. The 2025 nominees for Houston included Ema for Best New Restaurant; March for Outstanding Wine and Other Beverages Program; and Emmanuel Chavez at Tatemó in the Best Chef: Texas category. Each year, the James Beard Foundation recognizes restaurants, bars, and hospitality professionals in categories such as Outstanding Restaurant, Best Chef, and Best New Chef. The first James Beard Awards ceremony was held in 1991, when chefs such as Rick Bayless, Nancy Silverton, and Wolfgang Puck emerged as winners. In recent years, the awards have been under increased scrutiny following the cancellation of its programming in 2020 and 2021 due to allegations of misbehavior and abuse against nominated chefs, as well as a lack of nominated and winning Black chefs in the categories. In response, the James Beard Foundation conducted an internal audit to make its voting processes more inclusive and equitable, with plans to return in 2022. In recent years, the awards have shifted the Best Chef category to a regional model to better recognize the diversity and depth of talent. Disclosure: Some Vox Media staff members are part of the voting body for the James Beard Foundation Awards. See More:
Eater
17-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Eater
How a James Beard Award-winning Texas Chef Is Reshaping New American Cuisine in the Houston Suburbs
Chef Thomas Bille doesn't just serve food — he tells stories. At Belly of the Beast, the intimate restaurant he runs in Spring, Texas, with his wife Elizabeth, Bille combines his Mexican American heritage, French culinary training, and family memories into dishes that are personal, playful, and genre-defying. From caviar-topped empanadas to birria tacos with crisp, cheese-laced edges, the menu is a heartfelt mash-up of fine dining and home cooking — and it's earned him both a Bib Gourmand nod from the Michelin Guide and a James Beard Foundation Award, which he won on June 16 at the Beards awards ceremony in Chicago. Bille's passion for food and fusion started early, inspired by his parents, who cooked often. His father, once chef of a French bistro who worked his way up from dishwasher, rarely took the family out to eat — 'unless it was for Chinese food or Pizza Hut,' he says. Instead, Bille tagged along at work, with cooks slipping him filet mignon and lobster Thermidor from the line. By age 10, he was cooking for himself, making French toast, eggs, and pepperoni grilled cheeses. Years later, as a single dad, he enrolled in culinary school, graduating at the top of his class before landing jobs catering and serving as the chef for top Los Angeles restaurants, Qantas Airways, and hotels like the Ritz-Carlton and JW Marriott. After serving as executive chef at Los Angeles's storied restaurant Otium and staging at Michelin-starred spots, Bille, Elizabeth, and their three kids relocated to Texas in search of a neighborhood with better schools, a lower cost of living, and the possibility of opening their own restaurant. The Billes first launched Belly of the Beast as a pop-up in 2018. The name was inspired by Bille's hectic experiences in hotel kitchens where the kitchen team easily cooked for more than 500 people a night. 'We'd say, 'Man, we're in the belly of the beast now,' Bille says. 'I thought, 'This would be a really cool name for a restaurant,' and I ran with it.' In February 2020, the Bille's opened a 24-seat counter-service spot in a converted house in Old Town Spring. Weeks later, though, the COVID-19 pandemic hit. The Billes quickly pivoted, serving family meals to-go and offering outdoor seating. Still, a landlord dispute over the space's increasing rent resulted in the Billes closing Belly of the Beast in mid-2021. After a stint at the now-closed Chivos, where Bille launched a nixtamalized masa program, the couple reopened Belly of the Beast in November 2023 inside a humble strip mall — this time, on their own terms. Now, Bille is free to write what he calls a love letter to diners and his past. The menu includes odes to his Mexican American upbringing, Baja cuisine, and his eldest daughter's Persian-Armenian heritage. There's summery street corn agnolotti that combines the comfort of homemade pasta and elote flavors; birria tacos with cheesy, crisped edges and salsa rojo; a yam dish with tortillas that tastes like Mexican Thanksgiving on a plate; and potato empanadas with a silky mashed potato-Comte cheese filling. 'Everything's personal and coming from my heart and soul. What I serve here, you can't get it anywhere else but here,' he says. Defining the Belly of the Beast's cuisine can be difficult. The Billes call it New American but through the lens of a first-generation Mexican American who spoke Spanish at home, honored family customs, and immersed himself in diverse cuisines while growing up in Los Angeles. Simply put, it's his upbringing on a plate, he says. 'It's Mexican ingredients and Mexican techniques,' he says. 'But it's my own version of things.' As with many of his other dishes, Bille reached back into his past to conceive the potato empanadas, which draw inspiration from papas con queso and his mother's taco gorditos, hard-shelled crispy tacos filled with meat, cheese, crema, and lettuce. 'It's a delicacy that I and other children of immigrants eat,' he says. 'How can I elevate this humble dish?' Bille says he channeled his experience working for French chefs by making a nouveau version of pommes aligot, folding Comte cheese into mashed potatoes for a silky filling that is piled onto masa. His mother then molds those potato-packed masa pockets into empanadas and fries them. Similar to caviar service, Bille serves the empanadas with a side of crème fraiche, caviar, and chives. The street corn agnolotti, a Belly of the Beast fan favorite, nods to the esquites of Bille's youth — corn on the cob or sweet kernels in a cup served warm with mayo, cheese, lime, and chili powder. He transforms that memory into delicate agnolotti filled with sweet corn, glazed in a corn broth-butter emulsion, and topped with cotija, roasted kernels, and a homemade Tajin-influenced seasoning that uses his secret combination of dried chiles, lime zest, and powder. 'It's an elevated version of what I grew up eating — corn in a cup but pasta,' he says. The dish is only on the menu during summer, when corn is sweet and in season, making it a fleeting pleasure that's earned a cult-following. When Bille moved to the Houston area around six years ago, he says the city was a bit behind on the birria taco. The quesabirra wave had already hit Los Angeles starting in 2015, with places like Teddy's Red Tacos taking inspiration from Baja California. But for Bille, it was more than a trend. 'I grew up with birria being made with goat,' he says. 'I've been making birria all my life. We'd have a big giant pot every two months.' Bille says he started making the birria in a crockpot, stuffing it with Oaxaca and Chihuahua cheeses that would melt over the sides, creating crispy, laced edges. He debuted the dish at pop-ups and it quickly became a local favorite. From his original opening in February 2020 to the closing in June 2021, Bille estimates he sold 16,000 birria tacos. 'I made 98 percent of those personally,' says Bille, a tiring feat that made him want to take them off the menu entirely. Elizabeth encouraged him not to, and today, birria tacos are still a Belly of the Beast staple. Bille creates a paste from adobo, charred tomato, guajillo, Mexican chiles, cumin, allspice, clove, bay leaves, and other warm spices that he rubs onto a combination of beef cuts, including chuck roll and beef shank. The beef is marinated overnight and then pre-roasted in broth from the previous batch and cooked low and slow for at least four hours until the meat grows tender falls apart. Bille assembles the taco, stuffing homemade tortillas with the beef and cheese and frying them to create the signature cheese crust before it gets served with onions, cilantro, a salsa rojo, and a side of broth for dipping. Evolved from a highly guarded recipe, Bille compares this seasonal dish to Mexican Thanksgiving on a plate. 'In L.A., everybody had a yam taco, but they weren't great,' says Bille, so he created his own. Similar to preparation for a candied yam, Bille peels and purees yams before combining them with butter, maple syrup, piloncillo Mexican brown sugar, lime, and sea salt. He then packs the yam mixture into a tortilla and garnishes the taco with an earthy almond salsa macha, queso fresco, and chicken cracklings for textural contrast. The dish sold out at an event, with 700 tacos consumed that night alone. That same recipe lives on at Belly of the Beast, with the special That's My Yam plated and served with a side of tortillas during the fall. Though Bille considers himself more of a savory chef, he's given his take on one of the most iconic Latin desserts — the tres leches. The cake itself, made from a sponge cake batter, is soaked in milk, heavy cream, evaporated milk, condensed milk, and a splash of vanilla. The cake then gets topped with meringue, made from egg whites and passion fruit juice for a bright tartness, and torched for an added layer of flavor that Bille compares to burnt marshmallow. 'The char creates a nuance that cuts through the sweet and creates this bite,' he says. 'It's a pretty damn good tres leches.' See More:
Axios
17-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Axios
Thomas Bille of Belly of the Beast named Best Texas Chef
Belly of the Beast chef Thomas Bille took home the title of Best Chef in Texas at this year's James Beard Awards on Monday, beating out top talent from across the state. Why it matters: The award spotlights the Houston region's culinary clout in Texas in what's long been considered the Oscars of the culinary world. Bille beat out four finalists in the regional category and was the only Houston-area win at the award ceremony in Chicago on Monday. Houston had 13 semifinalists and four finalists this year. Zoom in: Belly of the Beast in Spring blends traditional Mexican flavors with Texan and global influences like Texas Wagyu with kimchi, tuna tostadas with nori and street corn agnolotti. Thomas and his wife Elizabeth first opened the restaurant in Old Town Spring in 2020. After a pandemic hiatus, they reopened in a new space in Spring in late 2023. Within a year, Belly of the Beast earned a Michelin Bib Gourmand for its innovative meals at an approachable price point. What they're saying: "My flabbers have been gasted," Bille told Axios after he won his award, adding that it feels like "validation." "So many people in this in this field have like imposter syndrome, which I had for a very long time, working under a lot of chefs that I never got recognition for ... And to be able to create my own table, my own chair, and have my own concept without any financial vacuum — my wife and I just doing it all on our own — it is gratifying to see that our hard work is paying off for my team."
CBS News
22-04-2025
- Politics
- CBS News
Elian Gonzalez, 25 years after custody battle, seeks to bridge divide between Cuba and U.S.
Twenty-five years after federal agents stormed a Miami home to seize 5-year-old Elian Gonzalez and return him to Cuba, the now 30-year-old industrial engineer and Cuban National Assembly member reflects on his simple life in Cardenas, his mother's sacrifice and his desire to unite Cubans across the Florida Straits. The fight over custody of Elian Gonzalez ended on April 22, 2000, when heavily armed federal agents raided the Little Havana home of his Miami family. Elian was seized at gunpoint and returned to his father, Juan Miguel Gonzalez, who was soon back in Cuba with his 5-year-old son. Today, Elian still lives in the house where he grew up. "I grew up with my family. I grew up with those I had to be with and that makes me very happy," Elian said during a 2023 interview with Liz Oliva Fernandez, an independent Cuban journalist for the U.S.-based media outlet Belly of the Beast. Elian said during the interview that his life is simple, he is married and has a 4-year-old daughter. Her name is Eliz in honor of his mother Elizabeth, who died at sea during the ill-fated attempt to escape from Cuba. "My mother was an excellent mother," Elian said. "She lost her life trying to save me. And looking for a better place to live. She was also a victim of that policy of sanctions against Cuba that makes Cubans want to emigrate." Elian was elected to a seat in the Cuban National Assembly. He represents the city of Cardenas. He says he has never regretted returning to Cuba and that he's led a normal life despite the popularity he gained during the international custody fight that saw protests on the streets of Miami and Cuba. "Oh, I'll never forget that day," said former Miami Mayor Manny Diaz. He was an attorney for Elian's Miami relatives. Diaz fought court battles to keep the boy in the U.S., facing off against then-Attorney General Janet Reno, whose hometown was Miami. Reno knew the passion Elian's story ignited in Miami. "The whole thing became very political." Diaz said. "It took on a life of its own with the family pitted against each other in a very adversarial way that didn't have to be." Liz Oliva Fernandez, the Cuban journalist who interviewed Elian in 2023, said Elian wants to reunite Cubans on both sides of the Florida Straits. You can see the entire interview here at "I really believe he wants to build bridges between Cuba and the United States," Oliva Fernandez said. "I believe he wants to find a balance between the two sides." Elian added that he wants to make sure no other mother risks her life or the life of a child trying to escape conditions in Cuba like his mother did 25 years ago.
