Business
BY ROO MOODY
The dining experience at Haii Keii transports guests to a surreal reimagining of a Japanese ryokan.
ChòpnBlok, a fast-casual West African restaurant by Ope Amosu, features a vibrant community space perfect for the eclectic Montrose neighborhood.
PHOTOS BY GIN DESIGN GROUP
Meet the designer behind several hotspots in Houston Gin Braverman, the interior designer behind
the industry was di erent from what it is now. For one, she said it wasn’t very common for indepen- dent restaurants to use interior designers the way they do now. Braverman described her creative process as the opposite of formulaic and more of a feeling, saying it often starts out as a "scribbly jumble" before all of a sudden becoming clear. As she works with hospitality clients, she said she interviews them about the space’s cultural attachments and the elements they want to see displayed. Then, she’ll reinterpret those into an interior design component. For example, instead of just putting a bonsai tree in Haii Keii, Braverman chose to put an inverted, illuminated design of the tree to re ect the space’s wild and edgy energy. To add more cultural signi cance to ChòpnBlok, Braverman used a plaster material on the walls to resemble the mud huts in West Africa. “It’s a feeling. It’s an essence,” Braverman said. “And I think people have said that when they walk into a space we’ve designed, they get a feeling. It’s not just visual, it’s visceral.” Looking ahead As for the future of hospitality in the area, Braverman said she is currently working on a few exciting projects, including a pizzeria coming to the Heights. She said she is also working with the sushi bar Handies Douzo and on the wine club set to open later this year called 55 Seventy, as well as several other projects.
hospitality hotspots such as Haii Keii, Eunice, Jūn, Goode Company, ChòpnBlok and Raven Tower, said part of her success comes from navigating the chaos in creativity. Braverman started her own interior design rm nearly 15 years ago and, since then, has racked up a list of accolades, including being shortlisted for the 2025 Restaurant & Bar Design Awards. But for Braverman, recognition and awards don’t measure success. “If I love a project, I love a project,” she said. “If it wins an award, cool, but for me personally, I don’t need to enter it into an award competition to know it’s a good project.” How it started Braverman rst became inspired by design around the age of eight, while spending time in her grandmother’s house. She later worked on the design team for HGTV sets in New York before moving to work for a design rm in Taiwan. She said her travels still in uence her work. “Houston is such a wonderfully culturally diverse place that we’ve had the opportunity to do so many di erent concepts for di erent cuisines,” Braverman said. “It really informs my perspective to have actually traveled to some of these places in real life ... it’s just a little di erent than looking at pictures on Pinterest.” Read all about it When Braverman started her interior design rm in Houston a decade and a half ago, she said
Braverman’s work is de ned by multicultural fascination and global immersion.
De Fortune is an escape into a world of opulence, with rich colors, bold materiality and meticulous layering.
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3227 Milam St., Houston www.gindesigngroup.com
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