If you thought it impossible for the flagship restaurant of the Schiller/Del Grande empire to reinvent itself as something even flashier, more upmarket, and more of an “it” restaurant than Café Annie, its previous incarnation, then you’d be wrong. Even more pomp and circumstance and showy interior design attend this entry into the most elite of Houston social spheres.

Still, at its best, this restaurant turns out some fascinating flavors, spiking a martini with smoked tea, or adorning maple-cured quail with a wild-mushroom chili, venison sausage, and cornbread dressing—a sort of homage to Texas Hill Country that’s impossible not to stop eating. But turbulence plagues the menu. The simplest dishes are often the worst: “wood-grilled king salmon,” for instance, is little more than a puny, uninteresting sockeye cooked appropriately rare. A $42 wood-grilled ribeye comes out with little of the marbling we associate with that cut or a Prime grade, and its fries come with a radioactive-orange dipping sauce that’s a dead ringer for that Chinese take-out “duck sauce.”

However high the high points may be, and however consistent the execution—cooking meats properly to temperature, expertly frying oysters—these recipes are too clunky, their ingredients too often inferior. It may be great business, but the food, even at its best, is further diminished by the rip-off prices. Do indulge in the bar’s delicious burger.