The owner of Slate Table + Bar—a modern Italian-fusion restaurant in League City—points to his recipes for gumbo pizza, elote ravioli and the Bougie Smash Burger as evidence of a creativity he developed from youth.
“As a poor boy growing up in South Central Los Angeles [I ate] whatever was in the refrigerator,” Slater said. “As crazy as it sounds, I’d have leftover meatloaf and some hot dogs and noodles. Sometimes that was the only thing in the kitchen to make a dish out of. There was no separation of foods and categories.”
Slater moved from Los Angeles to Friendswood to live with his grandmother during his senior year and attended Clear Creek High School. Initially, it was a culture shock—but eventually, he would see it as his new home, he said.
“That's the reason why I wanted to start a restaurant in this area. Friendswood saved me, in a sense,” Slater said. “It gave me a different perspective of life, education, schools, possibilities. So it was always a new home to me.”
Slater said his years of experience in the restaurant industry and memories cooking with his grandmother culminated in the opening of the "culinary art house" in May 2024. All of the restaurant's plateware is black, intentionally designed to serve as a canvas for each dish to make the food look like art, Slater said.
Combining leftovers from his childhood refrigerator helped him create the concept of the gumbo pizza—which is topped with andouille sausage, shrimp, chicken, Creole seasoning, okra and micro mustard greens. His elote ravioli was reimagined from an award winning taco, he said. It's a pasta stuffed with roasted corn, morita salsa, cilantro, and house blanco sauce.
In addition to the brunch, lunch and dinner menus, Slate Table + Bar also has its own wine line called Slá, which is infused with tequila and is the main ingredient in some of its signature cocktails.
Slater's background encourages him to be courageous with his menu and interactive with his customers, he said. This March, he will begin a series called "Community and Recipes," where he and his team will select one customer’s family recipe a month, recreate it and add it to Slate’s menu. Proceeds will go towards a charity of the customer's choice, he said.
“It's like paying it forward,” he said. “And food brings everyone together. Regardless of religion, politics, race, whatever the case is, we have one common denominator—and that’s that people like to eat.”
- 1120 Grand Oak Blvd., League City
- www.slatetableandbar.com
