I visited MAVEN Coffee + Cocktails at 1501 Silver in Sawyer Yards to partake in its special menu called Sundays Like Spain. By the end, I was bemused at the excellent family style meal I’d just enjoyed in a coffee-house-like setting. It makes extensive use of white marble accents, and the overall effect is sleek but austere. However, the quality of the à la carte, traditional Spanish meal created by executive chef Nicolás “Nico” Baizan de Aldecoa was worthy of chandeliers and plush banquets. 

The name, MAVEN Coffee + Cocktails, is a misdirection, too — a serious enough issue that I think the owners need to reconsider it and simply call the place “MAVEN” or maybe “MAVEN Restaurant, Bar & Coffeehouse”. It does not only serve coffee and cocktails. Unlike the first MAVEN location in the Thompson Hotel (which writer Ryan Kasey Baker visited), the one at Sawyer Yards is a fully fledged restaurant. 

Really, it can be anything you need it to be. There’s coffee, espresso drinks, chai, matcha and juices to go alongside Common Bond croissants, breakfast tacos and sandwiches until 3 p.m. While you can still get the beverages until later in the day, on weekdays starting at 5 p.m., MAVEN flips to a bistro menu. (Get there right at 5 p.m. Monday through Thursday, and enjoy $1.50 oysters and happy hour cocktails until 7 p.m.) 

Considering what MAVEN is serving, the dinnertime bistro dishes are all fairly reasonable, too. An eight-ounce Wagyu steak au poivre with fondant potatoes is $34 while lobster pot pie is $33 — and those are the two most-expensive things on the menu. The creative, Spanish-inspired Caesar Cups of gem lettuce leaves cradling prized ingredients of piquillo pepper relish, fresh anchovies and manchego dressed in Caesar dressing is $18. Deviled eggs garnished with Kaluga caviar are $14. Beef tartare with Dijon mustard, capers, cornichons, shallots, chives, egg yolk and toasted brioche is an affordable $19. 

Brunch is served on Saturdays and Sundays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Some of the above dishes are available for brunch, but there are also more breakfast-y creations such as the MAVEN Muffin, a riff on an eggs Benedict with egg, Canadian bacon and “secret sauce” on an English muffin for $14 and chilaquiles for $16.

So, other than late-night, MAVEN is more than capable of serving anyone for any mealtime. Now, back to Sundays Like Spain: note that this is a late-afternoon to early evening offering that runs from 3 to 7 p.m. Personally, I like getting dinner out of the way sooner rather than later, so this works just great for me. It’s also a flexible meal situation. For example, you can have the pan con tomate — a traditional and treasured Spanish dish of bread prepared simply with olive oil, garlic and tomato — as it is, or make it really luxurious by adding on salted or fresh anchovies or — my favorite — Jamón Iberico. (You get a whole plateful of the thin, rich, cured meat for $26 — totally worth it.) The heirloom tomato salad, again, simply prepared with extra-virgin olive oil and thinly sliced spring onions, was my big eye-opener. I could not get enough of it. It was a reasonable portion, but I still could have downed a second plate and felt good about it. The other appetizer selection is a gem salad with chives, red onion and sherry vinegar. 

Two types of paella are offered for the main course: a dramatic squid ink paella with hunks and rounds of squid and topped with a gorgeous prawn, and a Valencia-style paella with chicken, rabbit, Valencia butter beans called garrafó, Romano beans, which are flat snap beans, and artichoke. I hope that if you visit MAVEN, you’ll bring a friend so you can order one of each. They’re both appealing — some of the best paella I’ve had in a long time. If you have to choose, get the Valencia-style if you want something that’s more meaty, and the squid ink version if you’re more in a seafood mood. 

Dessert was well-executed but dipped into the pedestrian. The choices were flan — traditional other than topped with whipped cream — and lava cake. The rich and tender lava cake was elevated a great deal with the addition of a silky buttermilk ice cream, so that’s the direction I’d aim again the future (although I’m an admitted chocolate fiend, and my companion preferred the flan, so it’s really up to your tastebuds). 

When it comes to drinks, Baizan de Aldecoa and the bar staff have some refined, intriguing ideas. I had the opportunity to try a tomato brandy called, appropriately, Tomates by biodynamic winemaker and distiller Laurent Cazottes. (If the product intrigues you, there’s an excellent Punch article about it.) Cazottes reportedly incorporates 72 different tomato varieties that macerate in a Foille Noir grape distillate (hence why it’s a brandy). The end result is earthy, vegetal and slightly funky, yet very clean. MAVEN uses it in its Perfect Martini along with Navy-strength gin and vermouth. Considering that Tomates alone retails for about $70 for a 375 ml bottle, $16 for this martini is a steal, and it’s worth a visit all by itself. If you’re not ready to dive into the Perfect Martini, you might instead steer towards a classic Caipirinha with or the trendy drink-of-the-moment, a Carajillo with Licor 43 and espresso. 

I am really excited about what Baizan de Aldecoa is going to offer in the future, and he’s an asset to Houston’s food scene. I’d like to see his work displayed in digs that equal the cuisine. Still, better somewhere than nowhere, and I’ll happily make the trek back to MAVEN in the future. 

Maven is open on Sunday from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m., Monday from 7 a.m. to 9 p.m., Tuesday through Thursday from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. and Friday and Saturday from 7 a.m. to 11 p.m.

Phaedra Cook

Phaedra Cook has written about Houston’s restaurant and bar scene since 2010. She was a regular contributor to My Table magazine (now closed) and was the lead restaurant critic for the Houston Press for two years, eventually being promoted to food editor. Cook founded Houston Food Finder in November 2016 and has been its editor and publisher ever since.