Ryan and Matthew Poli are getting iggy with it. The brothers, who worked together at The Catbird Seat, are opening their first solo restaurant in Wedgewood-Houston in spring 2023 — iggy’s will serve pastas and sauces and wines, and have a small market to offer raw pastas, sauces, cheeses and other ingredients for cooking at home. The project is the culmination of years of experience and desire for the two.
In an exclusive interview with the Scene, Ryan Poli says the duo wanted to open their own place when they left The Catbird Seat at the end of 2018. But opening a restaurant is never easy, and of course the pandemic didn’t make it any easier. So Matthew went to work at Blackberry Mountain and Ryan traveled — to Bali, Korea and Malaysia, as well as Las Vegas and Napa — then came back to town to helm the food and beverage program at The Bobby hotel. They took on their new jobs with gusto, while still thinking about — someday — opening their own place. Matthew knows wine and cocktails, and Ryan is a master in the kitchen. But neither of them knew much about pitch decks and presentations to investors.
“I started selling our idea, and I was terrible at it,” Ryan says. “Fortunately, I am a fast learner.”
Ryan told prospective investors about their vision, recounting stories of ordering pasta for delivery during the pandemic and having it arrive gelatinous after being in a car en route for too long. He would have preferred to assemble dinner from a delivery of cold sauce and raw pasta to him during those stay-at-home days, and part of the plan at iggy’s is to enable people to do that. Iggy’s will be a “celebration of pasta and local farms and producers,” with both in-restaurant dining (pasta, no other entrées), a patio and the to-go market, plus Matthew’s wine and cocktails. There will be rotating wines by the glass and bottles, plus an aperitif, spritzer and amaro drink list. Matthew also plans to offer wine dinners. The neighborhood will dictate operating hours, but likely will offer both lunch and dinner.
Landlord Chad Grout of Urban Grout is excited about the project and its potential to be a neighborhood gathering place. The pedestrian-centric space at The Finery will open into the iggy’s patio and Grout believes the two will work well together as a neighborhood amenity.
They are still working on the design and aesthetics for the place, which will be located near Corsair Distillery in Wedgewood-Houston. But Ryan already knows what the restaurant will sound like: He’s been working on the playlist — an eclectic combination of disco and funk — for three years.
Several of the iggy's investors are folks who were regulars at The Catbird Seat. It was seeing diners around the Catbird chef’s counter where Ryan really appreciated how much customers want to be engaged with chefs and the processes that lead to the food on their table. Ryan finds making pasta — the process of rolling it out — relaxing, and looks forward to sharing that kind of focus and meditation with his customers.
“It is awesome to work with someone who shares the same brain,” Ryan says of working with his brother. He admires Matthew’s ability to pair any dish with a wine in addition to his encyclopedic wine knowledge. They trust each other and enjoy spending time together and are committed to building iggy’s for the long term.
The name iggy’s is an homage to a defunct restaurant in Chicago. Iggy’s was a favorite late-night hangout for hospitality workers to frequent when they ended their shifts elsewhere. It was the kind of place where servers remembered your name and your drink order, and Ryan hopes the Polis' iggy’s will have the same cool but welcoming vibe. Iggy’s will be located at 609 Merritt Ave.
