About Chef Aaron Bludorn
Aaron Bludorn is a Houston-based chef and restaurateur who built his career in New York before relocating to Texas to open his own group. He spent nearly a decade at Cafe Boulud in Manhattan, rising to Executive Chef under Daniel Boulud, where he earned a James Beard Award semifinalist nomination for Rising Star Chef of the Year in 2019. He left New York in 2020 to open Bludorn in Houston, a refined American restaurant that quickly became one of the city’s most celebrated fine dining destinations. He subsequently opened Navy Blue, a seafood-focused restaurant also in Houston. His move from the New York fine dining pipeline to building an independent restaurant group in Texas has made him one of the more closely watched operators in the South.
Episode Overview
In this milestone 100th episode of Chef’s PSA, André Natera sits down with Aaron Bludorn for a wide-ranging conversation that covers Bludorn’s full arc, from his formation at Cafe Boulud under Daniel Boulud to the experience of opening and scaling a restaurant group in Houston. Bludorn talks candidly about what the transition from New York to Texas taught him, the operational and cultural differences between the two markets, and what it was actually like to open a restaurant in a city where he had no built-in audience.
They also discuss a derecho, the severe weather event that hit Houston and severely damaged Bludorn’s restaurants, and what it took to navigate that kind of crisis as a restaurant operator. The conversation covers advice for young cooks, what competition cooking taught Bludorn about pressure and performance, and his perspective on what the Houston dining scene is becoming.
Topics covered in this episode:
- Aaron Bludorn’s career at Cafe Boulud in New York under Daniel Boulud and what that environment built in him
- The decision to leave New York and open Bludorn in Houston as an independent operator
- Opening a restaurant in a new city without a built-in audience and what the first year taught him
- Surviving a derecho and what a major weather crisis does to a restaurant operation
- Building Navy Blue as a seafood concept and expanding the Bludorn restaurant group
- The differences between New York and Houston dining culture and what that means for operators
- Advice for young cooks on building a career with longevity in fine dining
- What chef competitions taught him about performing under pressure
Guest
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