Thomas Bille at work in his restaurant kitchen.
Despite his father being a chef in Los Angeles, Thomas Bille didn’t think he’d end up in the culinary world. He didn’t see the appeal, but somehow he was still always in the kitchen. “[My parents] taught me how to make eggs, French toast, and some breakfast, and how to feed myself,” he says.
Bille soon graduated to more complicated recipes like tri-tip sandwiches, grilled cheeses with sliced pepperoni, and Chef Boyardee jazzed up with diced salami. Those moments planted a seed, but his aha moment didn’t come until age 26, while eating at a Michelin-starred restaurant in downtown Los Angeles. “I could totally make this,” he said to his friend.
Nearly 20 years later, Bille and his wife, Elizabeth, are behind one of the best-known restaurants in Spring. Belly of the Beast not only earned the couple a Michelin Bib Gourmand designation in 2024, but it also won Bille the 2025 James Beard Award for Best Chef: Texas.
In the early 2000s, Bille, then a single father to a 6-year-old daughter, kick-started his career after stumbling upon Kitchen Academy, a fast-track program then owned by Le Cordon Bleu College of Culinary Arts Los Angeles. A detailed pasta demonstration during an open house event was ultimately what led him to enroll in the course. “I was like, ‘OK, it’s time to do something with your life.’”
Two weeks later, Bille enrolled in the program and began his culinary education on his own terms. He knew he could have worked at the same restaurant as his father, but he says it felt important to build a solid foundation and work his way up.
At Belly of the Beast, diners are treated to freshly made gnocchi.
Bille graduated a year later with honors and trained in several Los Angeles kitchens, including ones at the Ritz-Carlton, Ford’s Filling Station, and Otium, under chef Timothy Hollingsworth.
Soon, the now-married chef and his wife, Elizabeth, craved a change—a slower pace of life, a safe neighborhood to raise their family, and a more affordable place where Bille could open a restaurant. In 2018, they moved halfway across the country to Spring.
At first, he worked at chef Hugo Ortega’s Downtown Oaxacan-inspired restaurant Xochi. But after securing a converted house within Old Town Spring, Bille ventured out solo. “I always wanted to have my own restaurant,” Bille says. “I [didn’t] want to work for anybody anymore.”
While juggling her own full-time job, Elizabeth helped bring Bille’s dream to life. The two transformed a home into a 24-seat counter service restaurant. This first iteration of Belly of the Beast also served as a launchpad for Adrian Torres (the now chef of Maximo), who joined the project about two weeks after its February 2020 opening. “We had a good, smooth takeoff,” Bille says. Then, the pandemic hit. “It was like, ‘Oh, shit.’”
Belly of the Beast, which originally served only a lunch menu, struggled. Most diners weren’t visiting during the day for takeout, so Bille strategized. “You either succumb or you overcome,” he says. “I started thinking…OK, pandemic: You wake up. You make breakfast. You make lunch. Whoever is doing that, most likely your mom, is tired of washing these dishes, cooking for these damn kids. So, by dinner time, if you give family packs, they’re gonna come buy it.”
Bille pulled a classic 2020 move: He pivoted. Belly of the Beast began serving family-size meals, including carne asada with ceviche, salsas, guacamole, rice, beans, and even tres leches, to go. This tactic helped the restaurant survive some of the toughest months of the pandemic. It also helped the Billes build a clientele that was eager to dine in the restaurant when social distancing restrictions loosened.
The restaurant soon became a hit beyond his Spring community. When it came time to renew his lease, Bille knew the building, with its small size and underlying infrastructure issues, wasn’t sustainable for long-term success. So, Bille paused his dreams and closed Belly of the Beast. “I really wanted to find my space,” he says.
To keep his name out there, Bille worked a yearlong stint as chef of the now-closed Mexican American restaurant Chivos in the Heights, and later hosted pop-ups, all while searching for the right space. He considered Houston for the new outpost, but when he noticed that diners were driving down from Spring to attend his pop-ups in West University, Bille was determined to stay in the suburbs. “I was like, ‘Yeah, this is a no-brainer. We need to open out there because these people are drawn to us,’” he says.
In May 2023, Bille acquired a space in a Spring shopping center, located just off FM 2920, and opened it that November. The menu is built on the traditions, values, and diverse cuisines Bille grew up with in Los Angeles as part of a Mexican household. He reimagines his mother’s tacos dorados de papa (fried potato tacos) as empanadas de papa y queso, fried pastries filled with a silky, rich combination of potato and Comté cheese, and his bluefin tuna tostada, crafted with an uni emulsion and peanut salsa macha, serves as an ode to his travels in Baja California.
While Bille is driven by compassion, he notes that the recent accolades, including the Michelin and Beard recognition, don’t hurt either. It means the hard work is paying off. “Everything we do here is a labor of love,” he says. “I really enjoy what I do. Otherwise, why be here, right?”
