april-2012

90 APRIL 2012 • HEMISPHERESMAGAZINE.COM
THREE PERFECT DAYS
HOUSTON
CROSSING THE SPECTRUM Artist Dan Flavin’s
installation at the Menil Collection; below, Hotel
Granduca; opposite, Canino Produce Co.
DAY ONE | With the sun creeping through the curtains
at Hotel ZaZa (1), a swanky retreat that a racts pre y
people with pricey tastes to its bar and design-savvy
travelers to its suites, you manage to rise from the paralyzing
comfort of your bed and step out onto your balcony.
Gazing past the parks, museums and neighborhoods
below, your eyes meet Houston’s skyline. You pull on your
boots and start exploring.
But fi rst, breakfast. You take a cab to Brasil (2), a café
in the lively Montrose district that’s known for its contemporary
diner menu and strong coff ee. Faced with the
daunting choice of egg dishes, quiches and something
called a breakfast salad, you eavesdrop on a local as she
orders. Eggs El Salvador? You’ll have that too. When
the bean-fi lled pupusa with chorizo, poached eggs and
both red and green salsa arrives, you dig into the delicious
mountain of food and resolve to eavesdrop on
Houstonians’ orders more o en.
Hopped up on salsa, you make the fi ve-minute walk
to the Menil Collection (3), a warehouse-like art museum
spread across a full city block. Opened in 1987, the
Renzo Piano–designed building celebrates what appears
to be Houston’s other favorite kind of oil—in paintings
by the likes of Picasso, Ernst, Matisse and Magri e—
although it turns out the two are intertwined here.
Founder Dominique de Menil was the heir to a fortune
amassed by her father and her uncle, who together
patented a device that’s been called a divining rod for
petroleum exploration.