HtownGuide
Mexican food spread
Eat & drink

Where to eat.

Houston is the most diverse big city in America, and the food scene reflects it. You can eat Tex-Mex, Viet-Cajun, Nigerian, Persian, and award-winning new-American — sometimes within the same strip mall. Below is how we'd send a visitor in.

Deep dive

Houston BBQ, ranked.

The 7 smokehouses worth your stomach space — Truth, Pinkerton's, The Pit Room, Killen's, and three old-school joints. Where to go, what to order, how to skip the line.

Read it
01

Tex-Mex & Mexican

The genre Houston arguably owns. Tex-Mex isn't Mexican food badly imitated — it's its own thing, born here.

Ninfa's on Navigation

2704 Navigation Blvd · Maps →

The original location of the restaurant credited with inventing fajitas. Order them.

El Tiempo Cantina

5602 Washington Ave · Maps →

Festive, family-style Tex-Mex. Multiple locations across the city.

Hugo's

1600 Westheimer Rd · Maps →

Hugo Ortega's interior Mexican cuisine — moles, Oaxacan dishes, an obligatory weekend brunch.

Xochi

1777 Walker St · Maps →

Hugo's Oaxacan flagship downtown. Get the mole tasting if it's available.
02

Viet-Cajun & Crawfish

Houston has the third-largest Vietnamese population in the U.S., and Vietnamese cooks crashed crawfish boils with garlic, butter, and chiles. The result is one of the city's most distinct food traditions.

Crawfish & Noodles

11360 Bellaire Blvd · Maps →

Trong Nguyen's Bellaire icon. The dish to order is exactly what the name says.

BB's Tex-Orleans

2710 Montrose Blvd · Maps →

Crawfish boils with multiple seasoning blends. Bring napkins.

Cajun Kitchen

5300 N Braeswood Blvd · Maps →

Boudin balls and étouffée done right. Strip-mall hidden gem in southwest Houston.
03

Barbecue

Texas BBQ in Houston means brisket, and the city quietly has some of the best of it — without the Austin queues.

Truth BBQ

110 S Heights Blvd · Maps →

Leonard Botello's brisket frequently ranks among the best in Texas. Pies are also serious.

Pinkerton's Barbecue

1504 Airline Dr · Maps →

Heights smokehouse with technically masterful brisket and inventive sides.

Killen's Barbecue

3613 E Broadway St, Pearland · Maps →

Ronnie Killen's Pearland temple of meat. Worth the drive south.

Goode Company Barbeque

5109 Kirby Dr · Maps →

The classic. Been here since 1977. Get the jalapeño cheese bread.
04

Fine dining & special occasion

Houston punches well above its national reputation here. James Beard winners scattered around the city.

Theodore Rex

1302 Nance St · Maps →

Justin Yu's Heights restaurant. Modern, vegetable-forward, James Beard winner.

March

1624 Westheimer Rd · Maps →

Mediterranean tasting menu, ambitious and refined. Splurge territory.

Bludorn

807 Taft St · Maps →

Aaron Bludorn (formerly Cafe Boulud) brought New York polish to Montrose. Reliable for a celebration.

Nobie's

2048 Colquitt St · Maps →

Inventive, hard to categorize, and consistently one of the best dining experiences in town.
05

Casual and where locals actually go

The neighborhood spots that show up in our group texts.

Lucille's

5512 La Branch St · Maps →

Soul food, Southern, on the edge of the Museum District. Don't skip the chicken.

Doris Metropolitan

2815 S Shepherd Dr · Maps →

Israeli-style steakhouse. Counter-intuitive, excellent.

Coltivare

3320 White Oak Dr · Maps →

Heights neighborhood Italian with a backyard garden. Pizza is the move.

Killen's STQ

2231 S Voss Rd · Maps →

Casual Killen — burgers, brisket, pasta, all done at a higher level than they need to be.
Take it home

Cookbooks from Houston's best.

Want to chase the Houston food scene at home? Start with the people who built it.

Hugo Ortega · Hugo's, Xochi

Hugo Ortega's Street Food of Mexico

Houston's Mexican food laureate translates his restaurant menus into a home kitchen. Mole, tamales, antojitos.

View on Amazon Andrea Nguyen

The Pho Cookbook: Easy to Adventurous Recipes for Vietnam's Favorite Soup and Noodles

Houston has the country's third-largest Vietnamese community. This is the book to understand the pho you're eating in Bellaire.

View on Amazon Ford Fry

Tex-Mex: Traditions, Innovations, and Comfort Foods from Both Sides of the Border

An honest, deeply-researched look at the genre Houston arguably invented. Recipes from a chef who gets it.

View on Amazon