Jessica Biondi has worked for nearly nine years to bring a new Italian restaurant to life after moving from Italy to Houston with her husband, Alessio Ricci. Now, the doors to her restaurant, Concura, are open in Highland Village.
Located at 4340 Westheimer Road, Concura has been open to the public since Aug. 17 and aims to offer a modern touch on traditional fare. This is Biondi's first dive into the restaurant industry. Her background is in design, which helped her establish the look and feel of her restaurant-meets-wine-bar idea.
The mastermind behind each dish is chef Angelo Cuppone, who previously worked at Roma in Rice Village. The menu is stylized as "aperitivo Italiano;" the restaurant focuses on offering small plates and drinks in the fashion of various Italian coastline locations. Biondi said that style of Italian restaurant was missing in Houston.
“This is a trendy spot; it’s in between a restaurant and a wine bar,” Biondi said. “The reason I like to say that is because we have smaller dishes that are very shareable, so people kind of order different bites as they would possibly in a wine bar. Our plates are more curated than a wine bar would be or a normal bar, so it’s not quite bar food, although they’re smaller dishes.”
The Highland Village location was chosen because it happened to fall into Biondi’s view within the Inner Loop. She was focused on finding a space that was small enough to build her first restaurant with an open kitchen. This space is 1,700 square feet and can hold about 45 people inside the restaurant. A patio is also available with some seating.
The pandemic has had a significant impact on the restaurant industry, causing many across the country to close shop. But in Biondi's case, it actually forced her to open due to growing expenses. Biondi signed the lease just before Covid-19 took hold of the country. Shortly thereafter, she faced construction issues with the open kitchen food vents, which caused unexpected setbacks. Then, as the pandemic began, she had to start paying rent.
Ultimately, she only had one option left.
“It was hard, but at the same time it wasn’t our choice,” Biondi said. “We were forced into it. We had to open during Covid. We could not let ourselves stop because we were running out of our funds as well, so it was kind of a difficult situation. But we managed to get through it, and I wouldn’t have done it any other way. I’m just very happy that at the end we opened when people were craving to go out.”
The restaurant currently has 14 workers. It is currently looking for three more servers.
