Jeff Gremillion

1 week ago | houstoncitybook.com | Jeff Gremillion

ONE OF THE most celebrated bars in the world will be featured in a one-night-only pop-up in Houston next month. Following its super-cool pattern of hosting bartenders from the best bars around the globe, Four Seasons Hotel Houston’s Bandista speakeasy — you enter it through a book shelf in a back room — will present staff from Singapore’s Jigger & Pony and its sister bar Cosmo Pony from Jakarta on July 20.

1 week ago | houstoncitybook.com | Jeff Gremillion

THINKING OF INTERESTING ideas for a staycation this summer? Consider the newly renovated Moran boutique hotel in CityCentre. If you haven’t spent much time in CityCentre lately, it’s definitely worth an immersive experience. And The Moran CityCentre, recently named a top-three Houston hotel by Travel + Leisure, is a bright, lovely homebase.

3 weeks ago | houstoncitybook.com | Jeff Gremillion

FOR THE SIXTH time, the ballroom of Four Seasons Hotel Houston became an expo for sampling dishes by the city’s hottest chefs — and raising funds for a great cause!“Benefitting Camp H-Town, this much-anticipated evening is one of the city’s premier philanthropy events,” noted a rep for the hotel. More than a dozen chefs turned out for Celebrity Chefs Against Cancer, offering tasting-size delights, washed down with inventive cocktails and special wines from Maisons Marques & Domaines.

1 month ago | houstoncitybook.com | Jeff Gremillion

WHEN JHANE HOANG died late last month after a quiet, private battle with cancer, Houston lost one of its most talented and exacting photographers — and my colleagues at CityBook lost a beloved contributor and friend. Jhane, who was just 50 years old, was a Vietnamese American who, as I understood it, pumped the brakes on her career as a rising star in New York’s edgy, high-end creative set, to return home to Houston in recent years to be closer to ailing family members.

1 month ago | houstoncitybook.com | Jeff Gremillion

THE ALWAYS MEMORABLE Alley Theatre ball took on special significance this year, becoming not just a sexy Post Oak Hotel soiree — with “A Buenos Aires Affair” as the theme, nodding to the company’s production of Noël Coward’s Private Lives — but also an emotional sendoff to retiring longtime Managing Director Dean Gladden. It raised $1.3 million to boot. “Guests walked into the Grand Ballroom transformed into the colorful streets of Buenos Aires,” noted a rep for the Alley.