Lasco Enterprises, the Houston-based restaurant group that operates The Tasting Room, Max's Wine Dive and Boiler House, has just recruited some exciting new talent in the person of Eric Hastings, who started Tuesday as the company's beverage director. The announcement follows Lasco's hire of noted Houston chef Brandi Key earlier this year, signaling a boost in the company's culinary ambitions.

Houstonians know Hastings from stints as general manager and beverage director at Mockingbird Bistro, and later as beverage manager at Eddie V's CityCentre. He left Houston seven years ago for a series of high-profile jobs in New York: first as wine and sake director at Brushstroke, chef David Bouley's kaiseki restaurant that's a collaboration with the Tsuji Culinary Institute in Osaka; and later as head sommelier of the highly regarded Del Posto, where he worked with a 3,000-selection, Italian-only wine list and learned the ropes of formal service.

Next he joined chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten's flagship, Jean-Georges, where he led a team of sommeliers at both the Michelin three-star restaurant and its casual offshoot, Nougatine. Hastings calls the experience of building the 1,100-selection wine list both "humbling and tremendously exciting. There was nothing I couldn't get a hold of," he says.

After a year, Hastings was tapped as Vongerichten's corporate beverage director, overseeing the chef's far-flung empire. During his tenure, the Jean-Georges wine list earned a Wine Spectator Grand Award for the first time. He also worked with the restaurant group's business side on bar and storage design, efficiency and staff education.

Ultimately he left Jean-Georges to learn the other side of the wine business as a brand marketing manager at Vintus, a leading American importer. There he worked on marketing and sales with such high-quality producers as E. Guigal and Masciarelli, as well as a few boutique brands, including the burgundies of Lucien Le Moine and the wines of Realm in Napa.

Hastings worked directly with the Vintus sales team on distributor education programs, too. It's just one of the things he believes will serve him well at Lasco, where he's tasked with developing "industry-leading beverage programs, education and service."

He's planning regular tastings and seminars for the public, inspired by the weekly events he once held at Del Posto. And he's promising a retail program that will include not only wines regularly available at Lasco restaurants, but also limited-production wines from sources he's cultivated during his years in the business.

Together, Hastings and Key have the makings of a dream team. Key has already refreshed the Lasco menus. Adding Hastings bodes well for the wine lists at The Tasting Room and Max's Wine Dive, which have never quite had the luster one would hope for from a wine-centric company. Look for that to change, and soon.