FAIRHOPE, Ala. — When Plane+Level Coastal opened in Fairhope in late 2023, it brought an unusual story along with its Spanish tapas and small-producer wines. The restaurant was born in a Houston-area kitchen during the COVID-19 pandemic, built by a Venezuelan-born entrepreneur with a love of aviation, his Houston-native wife, a sommelier who had been selling homemade empanadas out of parking lots, and a globe-trotting chef with nearly three decades in fine dining. Their path to the Eastern Shore was shaped by the pandemic and by a lightning strike that destroyed a family home on Ono Island.
The partners shared their story in December 2023, shortly after the Fairhope location opened. The restaurant has since closed, but its origin remains one of the more remarkable tales in the recent history of Fairhope’s dining scene.
A Familiar Space With a New Concept
The restaurant took over the space once occupied by Camellia Cafe, a Fairhope favorite that closed during the pandemic. The pandemic hit the restaurant industry harder than almost any other, with shutdowns, staffing shortages and supply chain problems forcing closures and delaying projects across the country, and years later many operators were still recovering.
Word of a new tenant spread through Fairhope’s restaurant community. Longtime restaurateur Harry Johnson mentioned that a group from Texas was working on a concept new to the area, and Zach Winter, who knew the owner, made the introduction to Brian Culwell.
From Ono Island to Fairhope
Brian Culwell, originally from Venezuela, is a serial entrepreneur with businesses outside the restaurant industry. His wife and business partner, Amelia Culwell, a Houston native, serves as vice president of KATFU Restaurant Group. She described her husband as “the hardest working man I know.”
For several years, the couple split their time between Ono Island in Orange Beach and Houston. Then, in 2023, their home on Ono Island was struck by lightning and burned to the ground. “We had been coming to Fairhope to dine, shop, and play with our kids and loved it. We moved to Fairhope when we lost our home in Orange Beach,” Amelia Culwell said.
The pandemic was the other event that brought the partners together, and that part of the story begins in Texas.
Empanadas in a Parking Lot
Sommelier Thomas Perez, who holds a master’s degree in wine, immigrated to the United States from El Salvador with his family. He is known for seeking out small wine producers, often buying entire allotments to offer exclusively to his guests. When the pandemic hit, he was the sommelier at Dos Brisas, which the partners described as the only Forbes Travel Guide five-star restaurant in Texas.
With the restaurant closed, Perez found himself at home with his two sons. Drawing on family recipes, he began making empanadas with chimichurri sauce and pairing them with a bottle of red or white wine, including bottles from 46 cases of a 2012 Côtes du Rhône he had bought earlier. With his sons’ help, he sold the dinner packages to neighbors. Word spread to other neighborhoods and across Houston, and he began meeting customers halfway to hand off orders in parking lots. After making and delivering 400 empanadas in a single day, he realized the model was not sustainable. He called Brian Culwell.
The two had met in 2018, when Perez was helping turn around a struggling restaurant in Old Town Tomball, Texas. While cleaning up, he came across Culwell’s name on a list from a wine-pairing dinner and called him. They became fast friends, and the Culwells, who love good wine, grew close to the self-trained chef and sommelier.
The Original Plane+Level in Old Town Spring
Meeting in the Culwells’ Houston kitchen, the three talked about a concept that would let Perez keep cooking his recipes. “This was a passion project,” Amelia Culwell said. “From that meeting in the kitchen, we decided to open a tapas studio restaurant and call it Plane+Level in Old Town Spring, Texas.” She added, “We were not restaurant-experienced people, but Brian loves a challenge.”
The first Plane+Level opened in November 2020, at the height of the pandemic, in Old Town Spring, a historic district north of Houston that the partners said was a decade past its heyday. The restaurant became a destination and helped draw other businesses to the neighborhood.
It started with just five items, including three tapas and the empanadas with chimichurri, and added a new dish each week, such as octopus and croquetas. “We wanted to teach our guests about food and wine that they may not be familiar with. We called it a food and wine studio,” Perez said.
Perez designed the kitchen, and Brian Culwell designed the dining room. “We wanted to create a small, intimate, very personal dining experience where people could relax and enjoy new offerings in an unintimidating atmosphere,” Amelia Culwell said. “Everything is handcrafted. The food, the cocktails, every interior piece of the decor.” The name came from Brian Culwell’s love of aviation, which began in the cockpit of his uncle’s plane when he was a child. The bar at the Spring restaurant was fashioned from an old airplane wing.
The Spring restaurant earned a DiRoNA designation from Distinguished Restaurants of North America exactly three years and one month after opening. Restaurants must operate for three years before they can be considered, and the partners noted that the other Texas restaurants holding the designation were inside the Houston loop.
A Chef Shaped by the World’s Great Kitchens
Culinary director Orlando Amaro, the other partner in KATFU Restaurant Group, also came to the venture by way of the pandemic. By 2023 he had spent 29 years cooking in fine restaurants, 22 of them as an executive chef, yet he still considered himself a cook. Also from Venezuela, he recalled that “thirty years ago, there was no such thing as culinary in Venezuela.”
He studied at culinary schools in Mexico, the United States and South America and cooked in fine restaurants in Italy and France. He also worked at elBulli, the famed restaurant on Spain’s Costa Brava led by Ferran Adrià and widely regarded as one of the most influential restaurants in the world. “We had 50 chefs cooking for a capacity of 50 guests that included the likes of Mick Jagger and the King of Spain,” he said. The restaurant closed in 2011, and a foundation now carries on its work in culinary innovation.
Amaro holds degrees in chocolate and pastry and had overseen nine restaurant openings over the previous 18 years, with stops at top restaurants in Washington, D.C., Virginia and Houston. “The restaurant business is hard. It’s challenging. Years ago, my goal was for my restaurants to be listed in the Michelin Guide,” he said, a goal he achieved. His family joined the Culwells in their Houston kitchen to discuss the partnership, and Brian Culwell remembers thinking, “I’m finally going to do something that I love.”
A Taste of Madrid on the Eastern Shore
In Fairhope, the partners aimed for something out of the ordinary. “I want people to feel like they have been transported to Madrid,” Amaro said. The menu was decidedly Spanish with South American touches, such as wagyu beef and vegetable empanadas with chimichurri. A tasting included Cava, Spain’s traditional-method sparkling wine; thin slices of Iberian ham, among the most prized cured hams in the world; Spanish cheeses; chorizo; and a Rioja from Spain’s best-known red wine region.
Tapas are a centuries-old Spanish tradition of small plates meant to be shared over drinks, and in cities such as Madrid, going from bar to bar for a few bites at each is a social ritual. The format encourages diners to try several dishes in one sitting, which suited a restaurant that saw itself as a place to learn about unfamiliar food and wine.
Perez said the wine list was about value, not labels, with most bottles from Spain and others from France and California. The goal was a $50 to $75 bottle that tastes like a $300 bottle. “90% of the wine we serve is exclusive to us. Small producers care about every detail in the wine-making process. In my travels, I’ve built relationships with these producers, I know them personally and often buy a full production,” he said.
“We believe we have found a niche to connect people with food and wine and entertain without the fussiness of traditional fine dining,” Amaro said. “For me, the connection is the most important part. I feel the love when I look at our guests and see their happiness.”
“This is a family-focused business,” Amelia Culwell said. “It’s not at all corporate. We want them to feel like they’re dining in someone’s home.” Amaro called the project “the culmination of a life-long career in fine dining,” adding, “No one has to be here. We are here because we love what we do.”
At its opening, Plane+Level Coastal served dinner seven nights a week, suggested reservations and planned to add lunch in the new year once staffing allowed. After the restaurant closed, Amaro stayed in Fairhope and went on to lead the dining program at The Hope Farm, carrying forward the handcrafted, hospitality-first approach that defined Plane+Level.