New Uptown Park Coastal Restaurant Brings a Chef Prodigy Back — Your First Look at Duchess

She doesn’t put on airs despite her regal bearing. Instead she’s delightfully approachable. A glamorous globe trotter, drawn to the sea whether she’s taking a holiday on the French Riviera or docked her yacht along the Amalfi coast. The Duchess is a muse, albeit a fictional one at that, whose sensibilities are firmly planted in American terra firma. This stately persona has inspired the contemporary food at the new Uptown Park restaurant that bears the title Duchess.

Duchess is created by Peggy and Daniel Chang, the husband-and-wife duo known to many as the owners of Uptown Sushi, which is just a stone’s throw away from the new restaurant.

You enter Duchess through the breeze brick front façade (it’s in the former home of the Belvedere nightclub). The new Houston restaurant’s owners have persuaded wunderkind chef Omar Pereney (who is also the owner of Love Croissants, a Midtown bakery where he produces nearly a dozen varieties of the famed French laminated pastry) to consult. Let’s rewind. You might recall the young, Venezuelan-born prodigy came to fame in Houston a decade ago at the tender age of 19 when he became the top toque at the splashy, much-acclaimed Post Oak area seafood restaurant Peska Seafood & Prime Steaks. After Peska shuttered, Pereney consulted for a variety of restaurants before working as the private chef for former President George Bush and First Lady Barbara Bush during the last year of their lives.

We’re giddy to see this giggly chef back at the range doing what he does best — conceptualizing a menu, then training the crew left behind after he departs to deftly execute his dishes with finesse. The all-day offerings at Duchess feature food Pereney dubs “coastal culture” borrowing upon the flavors washed upon the shores from the Mediterranean to Asia to South America, which in many cases, carry an earthy, smoke-imbued flavor after a quick sear on the kitchen’s wood fired grill.

Sit cradled in a plush jewel-toned banquette and start with a glass of wine or cocktail, perhaps the April Bloom ($18) a frothy floral violet hued tincture made with vodka, lavender and crème de Violette, before you mainline the appealing starters that are anything but ordinary. Take the little gem salad ($14) tossed with a tahini-based ranch dressing and adorned with caramelized onions, fresh herbs, glistening pomegranate seeds, crisp shallots and a flurry of pine nut dukkah. The peach and pistachio burrata ($22) features the unctuous cheese perched atop a slice of grilled cranberry sourdough with a smear of arugula pesto and sweet peach red pepper jam.

Speaking of bread, Duchess’ savory brioche ($12) is a small top knot boule baked with parmesan crust and served warm from the oven with whipped goat cheese butter and pickles.

On the hot side do indulge in the tandoori-style lamb lollipops ($23) with a cool cucumber yogurt sauce on the side and the octopus ($25) slow cooked before its grilled to take on the smokey perfume of mesquite and served with truffle potato croquettes and a Spanish chorizo sofrito. My favorite wood fired skewer (there is a selection of six) is the tiger prawn ($28) served head on, its flesh bathed in a coconut red curry, adorned with a sprinkling of cilantro, basil and crispy shallots.

Heartier beef-centric appetites will appreciate dishes like steak frites ($48), an 8-ounce prime beef tenderloin with charred cipollini onions, garlic aioli and fries, as well as the au jus burger ($21) with a grilled Akaushi patty on a toasted brioche bun with gruyere, dolloped with Dijonnaise and caramelized onions. Or share a roasted seafood platter among friends and dive into an array of oysters Rockefeller, sautéed mussels, lobster tail, octopus and tiger prawn ($128).

You can end things on a sweet note at Duchess with a Greek yogurt-based panna cotta touched with an orange blossom syrup and a dice of cantaloupe and apricot atop, or dulce de leche stuffed mini doughnuts with a rich quenelle of chocolate cremoix and cinnamon pastry cream ($12 each).