Bon Appetit Names Perseid to The 20 Best New Restaurants of 2025

Bon Appetit named Perseid to its prestigious list of The 20 Best New Restaurants of 2025, celebrating Chef Aaron Bludorn's French restaurant at Hotel Saint Augustine as a destination offering "a menu you won't find at another hotel in America."

Published under the subtitle "From a thrilling Mexican seafood spot in New Orleans to outstanding soul food in San Francisco, these are the best new restaurants in the US," the unranked list features restaurants from across the country that opened between March 2024 and March 2025. Restaurant editor Elazar Sontag introduced the list by noting, "An indelible sense of time and place defines the Best New Restaurants of 2025. Each restaurant is worth a visit for its own reason. A meal you won't experience anywhere else."

Writer Sam Stone praised Bludorn for harnessing "Houston's culinary specificity" to create something truly distinctive. Stone described Perseid as sitting "in the courtyard of the Hotel Saint Augustine, an airy, modernist space brimming with sagebrush."

The profile highlights how Bludorn—who spent a decade in New York working at Café Boulud—"cleverly disperses Creole and Vietnamese influences throughout his French-inflected menu as nods to the communities that shaped Houston into one of America's great food cities."

Stone details several signature dishes that exemplify Perseid's unique approach. For breakfast and lunch, the restaurant serves Gulf shrimp in a moat of creamy grits and "massive triangles of quiche suspending earthy layers of collard greens." As evening arrives, diners enjoy burgers dressed up like banh mi, with pickled daikon, rich duck liver mousse, and a burst of cilantro. The sausage made from Gulf Coast crawfish is served in spicy Creole sauce, described as "a piquant tomato-based mother sauce that intensifies the seafood's subtle sweetness."

"What might be a cacophony of notes in less skilled hands blends into a delicious harmony as dinner unfolds," Stone writes, capturing the sophisticated execution that distinguishes Bludorn's culinary vision.

SULLTRAIN, as the communications partner for Perseid and Hotel Saint Augustine, celebrates this national recognition from Bon Appetit. For the complete list of The 20 Best New Restaurants of 2025, visit Bon Appetit below.