Why Houston’s Camaraderie Restaurant Lives Up To The Hype — This Chef’s Put In The Work, Creating a Marvel In The Heights

Chef Shawn Gawle has spent almost 25 years working in every station you’ll find in a restaurant kitchen. From savory to sweet. Educated at the New England Culinary Institute, this Boston-bred chef has earned an impressive CV working under talented toques, including Jean-Marie La Croix at his namesake restaurant in Philadelphia and the late great French legend Joël Robuchon at the premiere of his Four Seasons Hotel New York restaurant — L’Atelier de Joel Robuchon.

Most recently, Gawle served as executive pastry chef at Houston’s Goodnight Hospitality, where he helped open their restaurants Rosie Cannonball, Montrose Cheese & Wine and the Michelin-starred fine dining spot March. This spring, Gawle — who has been hailed as Best New Pastry Chef by Food & Wine magazine and Rising Star Chef by StarChefs — finally realized a dream.

He opened the first restaurant of his own — the already acclaimed Camaraderie in The Heights.

Gawle enlisted Schaum Architects to transform a former metal and woodworking workshop in Houston’s hottest restaurant neighborhood — basically a wood-framed, gable-roof garage — into his new showcase spot.

“Shawn wanted to create the sense of warmth and connection that you might feel in a mountain retreat, but in the middle of cosmopolitan Houston,” Schaum principal Troy Schaum, an associate professor at Rice, says in a statement. “That tension between informality and refinement led us to look at refined Swiss chalets and Japanese ryokans.

“They are spaces designed to make guests feel invited and comfortable. This was part of a kind of urban cabin logic that drove the design of the dining room.”

The clean-lined interior of Camaraderie has warm, light woods and a vaulted ceiling with skylights that bathe the room in natural light. Three sections — dining room, bar and lounge — focus on a market-driven menu of contemporary American cuisine rooted in French technique. The dining room, which can accommodate 32 diners and faces the open kitchen, features Gawle’s prix fixe menu ($75 per person).

This three-course meal begins with shareable snacks and appetizers, followed by house-made bread, family-style sides, individual entrees and a choice of dessert for the table.

Freedom Of Choice at Camaraderie

For those like moi who choose the à la carte option in the lounge or bar, the vegetable-forward selections are tempting. Whether you start with a glass of wine, a cocktail ($16 each, with mini versions running $10), or quaff a tipple-free beverage ($12 to $14), the Manchego cheese curls are the perfect go-with. These are playful spirals of fried dough akin to savory funnel cake, dusted with more shredded Manchego ($12).

I was lured to order the in-season heirloom tomato pie ($18), but what I really loved was the shareable tarte flambée ($18). After Gawl attended a wedding in the Alsace region (the northeastern France region which possesses a strong Germanic cultural influence) and indulged in numerous iterations of the classic dish there, he recreated the unleavened cracker-like crisp crust stateside. Only at Camaraderie, the chef tops it with the traditional lardons of bacon, shallots and a creamy yet tangy cow’s-milk fromage frais.

A more substantial dish is the hamachi, an elegant composition dressed with chili oil and white soy, accompanied by a clarified gelée of sweet summer melons, as well as fresh lime juice and serrano peppers ($24).

Veggie lovers will find lots of alluring options. Dauphiné ravioli is filled with comté cheese and a purée of caramelized onions, stuffed into two delicate sheets of house-made pasta and divided into neat uncut squares, then drizzled with saba, the concentrated syrup made from grape must ($24).

For those who seeking more substantial protein options, Gawle offers skate wing Basquaise ($30) at Camaraderie. His version of steak and potato is made with rotating cuts of local beef (it was hanger steak, when I visited) grilled on binchotan coals and topped with a peppercorn or chimichurri sauce and sided with potatoes ($42).

Two dessert options beckon on the à la carte menu. It’s best to order them both, as Gawle is revered for his pastry skills ($14 each). Miso butterscotch bombe is a silken whipped butterscotch mousse with a hint of miso, served under a dome-like chocolate disk drenched in dark chocolate ganache. By its side, you’ll find a quenelle of pure white buckwheat gelato, the result of a laborious three-day cold-infusion process.

The other sweet option Melba pavlova blends two classic desserts — Escoffier’s peach Melba and the Australian delight pavlova. Gawle’s mash-up lies beneath a crisp meringue shell sprinkled with the dust of dehydrated raspberries. Crack it open to reveal a scoop of peach sorbet atop a shallow pool of raspberry purée and rich crème anglaise sauce.

Just another delightful surprise waiting at Camaraderie.

Camaraderie is located at 608 W. 11th Street in The Heights. It is open 5 pm to 11 pm Wednesdays through Saturdays with the kitchen closing at 10 pm and last call at 11 pm, 11 am to 3 pm for brunch and 5 pm to 10 pm for dinner on Sundays with the kitchen closing at 9 pm and last call at 10 pm.