[Urbannizer]

First look: Local Foods Downtown

The Downtown Houston restaurant scene improves dramatically this week when restaurateur extraordinaire Benjy Levit opens his fourth Local Foods restaurant in the Art Deco jewel that was formerly Byrd's Department Store at 420 Main at Prairie.

Levit set Jan. 12 as the official opening day for the 9,000-square-foot space (Georgia's Market was most recent tenant) housing his and chef-partner Dylan Murray's brand of simple, fresh, locally-sourced foods. The Local Foods concept was launched in 2011 next door to Levit's iconic Benjy's in Rice Village. The casual counter-service restaurant serving sandwiches, soups, salads and marketplace side dishes was an immediate hit, spawning a second store at Westheimer and Kirby in 2014, and a third (boasting a wood-fired pizza oven) in Tanglewood this past summer.

Design-wise, Local Foods is gorgeous. Levit tapped Michael Hsu and Micah Land of Michael Hsu Office of Architecture in Austin and designer Aaron Rambo of Found for the Home in Highland Village to execute his vision for the corner space with walls of windows that front Main and Prairie.