Tristen Epps is no stranger to challenge and change. The former “military brat” grew up as a latchkey kid in Japan with a single mom, but he was never lonely. He filled quiet afternoons watching the cooking channel and experimenting in the kitchen, perfecting his scrambled eggs.

“I thought it was the coolest thing ever—all the different changes it went through to become something delicious,” he says.

When he wasn’t making breakfast, Epps remembers chowing down on the West Indian food his mom made and trying a new dish at whatever new restaurant his family would stumble into on Fridays. Each meal, in a different country—be it Guam, Japan, or the Philippines—was a chance to learn or taste something new.

Now, he’s creating that experience for diners in Houston and beyond. Epps recently won the most recent season of reality TV cooking competition Top Chef, a series in which he showcased various dishes that reflect Afro-Caribbean cuisine. With the win under his belt, he’s ready to take his talent on the road with multiple pop-ups for his concept, Buboy.

Epps jokes that his career started with humble beginnings. His first job in the culinary world was working the grill at McDonald’s. “I was horrible at it, but I had the time of my life,” he says.

He graduated to other spots like Applebee’s and Dave and Buster’s, learning the ropes of the restaurant world before earning his bachelor’s degree from the Culinary Arts and Food and Beverage Industry Management at Johnson & Wales in Charlotte, North Carolina. There, he says, he finally got a taste of what it meant to cook at a fine-dining level.

Epps catapulted his career during a three-year stint at the Greenbrier hotel, where he worked under renowned chef Richard Rosendale, picked up new techniques, and finally felt inspired to pay homage to Caribbean cuisine. Rosendale encouraged him to conduct additional research on the cuisines they were preparing. Suddenly, Epps says he was asking himself, “Why?” and “Where?” He wanted to know the origin of every dish and ingredient. Cooking with students on J-1 visas from other countries helped broaden his perspective.

“They would say, Oh, this is something from home, and I was like, man, that is so familiar to something that I eat from home,” Epps says. “The connections started to really come together.”

After hopping around—he’s lived in a total of 14 states—the chef moved to Miami, Florida, to work alongside his mentor, celebrity chef Marcus Samuelsson. In 2019, he served as the opening executive chef for Red Rooster, Samuelsson’s American Southern restaurant in Overtown, a historically Black neighborhood in Miami. He earned a Michelin Bib Gourmand in 2022 and soon transitioned to South Beach’s Eden Roc Hotel, where he ran the culinary program. By 2024, Epps was a James Beard semifinalist for Best Chef: South, but rather than staying put in Miami, Epps had his eye on his next move: Texas.

“I love Miami, but I needed out of it,” he says. “It provided so many opportunities, and I really wanted to take those and run.” With an inkling of Michelin’s expansion in Texas combined with his preexisting love for Houston, the decision to move to Houston was easy. “Houston was the only city I’ve ever actually moved back to,” he says. “This was a place [where I] felt like I became an adult.”

Eventually, Epps began hosting a local pop-up dinner series that explored Afro-Caribbean culinary traditions. Still, he knew he wanted to highlight the African diaspora on a larger stage. What better than national television?

Epps and his friend, fellow chef Henry Lu of Heights restaurant Jun, competed in Top Chef’s 22^nd season in Canada, starting in June 2024. Some of his favorite—and most frightening—moments came during filming, Epps says. There was the time he didn’t finish cooking his dish in Episode 1, followed by the relief of making it to the next round and winning an elimination challenge with a Caribbean dish that granted him immunity. It felt validating, he says.

Then, tragedy struck. Epps’ stepfather passed away during filming in September, a moment Epps had to relive when the episode debuted in early May of this year. Many questioned why he stayed, but Epps says the answer is simple.

“It’s just what he would have wanted me to do,” he says. “He talked to me like I had already [won]. For me to do what he knew I could do, I had to go for it.”

Epps kept pushing through, and the hard work paid off when he was crowned the Top Chef champion. In Epps’s mind, he achieved what he set out to do.

The chef has since returned to Houston, where he’s surrounded himself with a supportive cast, including fellow Top Chef alums like Lu, finalists Evelyn Garcia and Dawn Burrell, and Joseph Boudreaux of Boo’s Burgers.

Now, he’s onto his next journey—putting Neo–Afro Caribbean food on the map. As Epps prepares to travel to cities across the country, showcasing his take on African diasporic cuisine, he’s also working on opening a first-of-its-kind Afro-Caribbean fine-dining experience. The dream has always been to open a place that feels diverse, something that he can evolve with—“a community within a restaurant,” he says.

Epps envisions creating a space that allows him to explore and represent culture in a way that will be valued by others as well. Buboy, after his grandfather’s nickname, will be Epps’s fully realized tasting menu destination for Afro-Caribbean cuisine. The menu will feature dishes like Texas Wagyu steak frites, foie gras pate, and ricotta dumplings with greens and truffle, served in an intimate space, though yet to be determined.

“I want to put it in a format that Michelin could look at and say, You know, you’re deserving of a star, and let that be a stepping stone for a next generation of young chefs to see something like that,” he says. “Because I certainly did not.”

Experience chef Tristen Epps’s take on Afro-Caribbean cuisine with a five-course dinner at Guard and Grace on July 31.