The Chef
Martin Fassi
Private chef. Owner of Fassi’s Catering. Houston, Texas.
“I started cooking before I was tall enough to see into the pot.”
It was never a career plan in my family. It was simply what happened every day — Italian hands on one side, an Argentinian fire on the other, and a child underfoot asking why the onions went in first. My grandmother’s techniques are still the ones I reach for when a dish needs to taste like it was made by someone rather than assembled.
I trained at Le Nôtre, then spent years in the places where technique is actually earned: on the line, as a sous chef in Martha’s Vineyard, and running the kitchen at a sushi restaurant — which is where precision stops being a word and becomes a habit. I have cooked in kitchens here and abroad, and today I am executive head chef at an upscale restaurant in Houston. That shows up less as fusion and more as judgment: knowing which tradition a dish wants to belong to, and leaving it there.
Houston is home. I run Fassi’s alongside the restaurant, I teach, and I cook for families across this city — some once, some every week. The restaurant is where I keep the discipline sharp. Fassi’s is where I get to cook for one table.
People ask what I like about it. Cooking is the one place my mind goes quiet. That sounds like a line until you watch a station with four courses pending.
— Martin Fassi
The Kitchens Behind It
Where the technique came from
- 01A half-Italian, half-Argentinian household
The first kitchen
Two food cultures at one table and a child underfoot. Pasta rolled by hand on one side, beef cooked over live coals on the other. His grandmother’s techniques are still the ones he reaches for when a dish needs to taste like it was made by someone rather than assembled.
- 02Le Nôtre Culinary Institute — Houston
Classical French training
Le Nôtre is built on classical French method: stocks and the mother sauces, pastry, butchery, and the kitchen discipline that keeps a multi-course service on time. It is the reason a Fassi’s menu holds together structurally whatever cuisine it is drawing on — the sauce work and the balance come from the same foundation every time.
- 03Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts
Sous chef, coastal fine dining
Seasons on the Vineyard, cooking refined New American food built on Atlantic seafood at its peak. Short seasons and demanding rooms teach a particular skill: how to let an excellent ingredient arrive on the plate without a chef’s fingerprints all over it.
- 04Sushi restaurant — head chef
Precision, and raw fish at volume
The least expected line on the résumé and arguably the most useful. Running a sushi kitchen means knife work measured in millimeters, sourcing and handling raw fish to a standard with no margin, and a palate trained on restraint. It is where the red snapper ceviche comes from.
- 05Houston — upscale restaurants
Head chef, then executive head chef
He has led the kitchen at upscale Houston restaurants and holds an executive head chef post at one today. This is the part most private chefs cannot claim: a working professional kitchen, running nightly service to a standard, rather than a career built only on private bookings. The discipline that keeps a restaurant pass on time is the same discipline that gets four courses to your table unhurried.
- 06Houston — Fassi’s
His own kitchen, and yours
Founder and owner of Fassi’s: private chef dinners, event and wedding catering, and hands-on cooking classes across Greater Houston. He also consults for restaurants and venues on menu development and kitchen training — and still hosts Argentinian asado gatherings, because that is where he started.
- TrainedLe Nôtre Culinary Institute
- HeldSous chef → Head chef
- SpeaksEnglish & Spanish
- CurrentlyExecutive head chef, Houston
- HeritageItalian & Argentinian
- BasedHouston, Texas
- OwnerFassi’s Catering
Principles
How he cooks
Menus are written, not chosen
There is no master list to pick from. Every menu starts with a conversation about who is eating and why.
Technique before trend
A sauce that took two days is worth more than a garnish that photographs well. Preferably both.
The kitchen is yours
He works in it, cleans it, and leaves it as he found it. Nobody should regret having hosted.
Service Area
Based in Houston, cooking across the metro
Chef Fassi serves the whole of the Greater Houston area — every neighborhood below, inside the loop and well beyond it, from River Oaks dining rooms to Katy new builds and Galveston beach houses. If your address is not listed, it is almost certainly still covered. Travel outside the metro is arranged on request.
Reservations
Let’s build your menu.
Start with a date and a guest count. Everything else comes from the conversation.
Request Your DateOr call (346) 533-4583 · email cheffassi89@gmail.com