As was predicted, I did wake up one day and feel that I was ready, and only think about having my own kitchen, and truly believe that it was the right time.  So what did I do that day?  I wrote a list.

I started with the most natural thing for me:  ingredients.  I took out my favorite notebook and made a wish list of sorts; a list of all my favorite ingredients that I had to have in my kitchen.  As the list grew, my ideas became a seed for a menu and a kitchen and a style of food that I did not yet know would be.  The list was flooded with lemons and fennel and sumac and tomatoes and cheeses and octopus and sausages and herbs that you see on the COPPA menu today.

I now took my list full of things that I loved, and cross-referenced them with countries and what was indigenous to what and how they ate.  I made lists of foods from Turkey and Italy and Spain and France and Morocco.  I discovered that if a country touched the Mediterranean, it was a country that used and cherished the ingredients that were on my list.  I read as many books and learned as much as I could about all of these countries.  I became a student of their cuisine and culture.  And then I waited…

When introduced to Grant and Charles, months after beginning my list, I knew from a handshake that this was going to be something special.   The times that Grant and I discussed COPPA we were talking about the very same ingredients and recipes and dishes that were on my list.  Conversations were full of garlic and mushrooms and eggplant and anchovies and chilies and arugula.  I now had a huge task at hand.  A new list had to be started; a list that would define what the food at COPPA would be.

The Ibiza boys, chef Charles and Clark and Grant Cooper, have been busy. First, they had the debut of Brasserie 19, and now their Catalan mainstay has been reborn as Coppa Ristorante Italiano.

Anticipate a minor facelift of the lofty space with new furniture, including rustic wooden dining tables and other casual-chic touches. The new Mugnaini brick oven–handcrafted by a family of Italian artisans dating back to 1890–is most significant. Made of clay from the hills above Florence, Italy, the oven reaches temperatures near 900 degrees, and perfectly cooks a pizza in less than three minutes.

New chef Brandi Key’s pizza highlights include Coppa “ham & eggs” with spicy pork shoulder and quail eggs, and the four-cheese Bianca with mozzarella, fontina, Parmesan and taleggio, topped with herb salad.

Like its Ibiza, Catalan and Brasserie 19 predecessors, Coppa follows Clark Cooper Concepts’s wine philosophy: a creative and expansive wine inventory priced just above retail. Cheers to that! 555 Washington Ave. 713-426-4260, copparistorante.com

My carbonara is how I got my job,” said Key, who in August found herself in the center of the hottest restaurant opening of the summer. Key put a lot of thought into the dish - a familiar, often-maligned classic in Italian cuisine – before presenting it to her prospective bosses. She sat down and sketched out her take on the peppery pasta tossed with pork and egg.

After hours of carbonara contemplation, she hit on what is now her signature dish. I knew that was it - that was the one.” Clark and Cooper thought so, too. They hired Key, formerly head of research and development for Pappas Restaurants, to helm their seductive new Italian concept in the home of the former Catalan. Their decision has proven to be as golden as the egg yolk that sits atop the salami-flecked spaghetti in Key’s elegant, lusty carbonara. Since its opening, foodies have packed Coppa nightly to sup on a menu of Italian favorites colored by a West Coast aesthetic.

“It’s freshness, minimal handling and buying the best and letting it speak for itself,” Key said. “We go with what’s seasonal and prepare it very simply.” How does that translate to the plate? In remarkable ways. The artful garden salad is a breathtaking composition of beets, carrots, tomatoes, mushrooms, zucchini, green beans and fennel dressed in a whisper of herb vinaigrette. The delicate agnolotti is filled with sweet corn and Texas crabmeat and glossed in lemon butter. Linguine, wearing a lush parmesan cream, gets in a delicious tangle with Gulf shrimp and lemon. Houston’s most velvety burrata shares a plate with the juiciest Campari tomatoes. And whipped mortadella - yes, a luxurious fluff of Italian sausage - is served with crispy crostini and fig mostarda.

It’s precisely the type of food that Coppa’s partners were looking for. ”From the first tasting I knew  she was the person for the job,” said Cooper, whose year was marked by  not one, but two restaurant openings (Brasserie 19). “We knew right away she had the direction we wanted to go.” Both Cooper and Key are proud of Coppa’s pizza – blistered Neapolitan-style beauties sporting a crust with a yeasty chew and inventive toppings, including a frilly scatter of summer squash on a vivid green onion pesto and a “ham and eggs” pie featuring cured pork shoulder and quail eggs. Coppa is a joy for Key, who said she has been waiting 10 years to unleash her creative talent as head of her own kitchen.

“This is a blast. I’m having the best time I’ve ever had,” she said. ”I honestly, seriously get up every morning and say, ‘Wow, I’m really getting to do this.’”

Coppa’s fans are glad she is.