Chris Shepherd of Underbelly.: Photo: Michael Paulsen/Chronicle

Welcome. It’s one of the first things you see when you step inside Underbelly: a fanciful chalk drawing by Houston artist Carlos Hernandez that sets the tone for the restaurant helmed by Chris Shepherd.

Tomorrow, Feb. 24, Underbelly wants to begin that welcome in person. The long-awaited, highly-anticipated restaurant connected to the already-open The Hay Merchant on Montrose is going to welcome its first customers. No, the restaurant’s not open yet – that won’t come until maybe the first full week of March. But the partners plan to open the restaurant’s wine bar tomorrow at 4 p.m. as a sneak-peek glimpse of the beautiful culinary promise to come.

Welcome sign by Carlos Hernandez/Burning Bones Press

On the menu? “Jars,” said Shepherd in typical understatement. Small jars filled with pickled quail eggs served with home-made Ritz crackers; chicken liver; pork rillettes; smoked oysters; butter-poached shrimp; and maybe, just maybe, the house’s take on Vienna sausages sitting snug in a glass vessel.

The wine bar, to be managed by sommelier Matthew Pridgen occupies a triangular slice at the entry of the imaginatively- and cleverly-designed restaurant. The wine list sources only family-owned and family-operated wineries, in keeping with the farm-driven focus of Underbelly, which Shepherd describes as “a story of Houston.”

Everywhere you look there are elements that suggest the people, places, foods and flavors of what Shepherd calls this “New Creole city.”

Artwork at entrance of Underbelly by Burning Bones Press (Cathie Kayser, Carlos Hernandez, Patrick Masterson, Lenard Brown)

Lighting is hung from old butcher rails and meat hooks; walls are filled with house-jarred pickles and preserves; cheese plates are crafted from slices of old wine barrels; a private dining room floored and paneled with ceiling wood from the old Chances; building materials reclaimed from local buildings and farms.

Working with butcher Peter Jahnke and sous chef Ryan Lachaine, Shepherd is still creating the menu that he says will be reflective of Houston and its farmers and ethnic influences.

“It’s showcasing the cultural diversity of our city,” he said, adding that he’s aiming for spotlighting the Houston “trifecta” – the Gulf, local farmers and local ranchers.

House-made pickles in the dining room at Underbelly.

“Will it be all of the dish? No, but it’ll have touches,” he said.

Examples: local triggerfish spiced with garam masala; local snapper with cauliflower hummus; seared New York strip with potatoes and bone marrow butter.

“You may not see all the diversity but it’s there in bits in pieces,” he said, explaining how he plans to take pho broth and reduce it to be used in a vinaigrette for a salad.

He said the restaurant will offer about 15 dishes, four family-style dishes, four desserts, and that the menu will change probably weekly.

The restaurant will only use whole animals – whole beef, goat and lamb, hogs and chicken -- and break them down in the butcher shop. Nothing will be wasted. “Even the tails and the feet will go into a stock,” Jahnke said. Excess produce will be pickled and jarred, Shepherd added.

“This is the right way a restaurant should be done. It’s not easy. It’s difficult,” he said. “But it’s done right, at least in our eyes. We feel we’re doing the right thing.”

You can judge for yourself once Underbelly, which is already in the national media radar, opens.

Until then, perhaps a jar or two of pickled quail eggs and smoked oysters will do. Welcome, indeed.
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Underbelly, 1100 Westheimer