Houston Hits the Spot
With recent wins in the first-ever Texas Michelin Guide, the Bayou City reaffirmed its place among the nation’s top food destinations. And UH is here for it.
H ouston’s food scene is not full of hidden gems. The diamonds are out of the rough — visible on the surface, bright and shining, and easy to find.
The city’s restaurants show up on lists of the nation’s best culinary experiences and regularly receive accolades from food authorities like the James Beard Foundation. In November 2024, Houston’s status as a destination food city was reaffirmed with the release of Michelin’s first-ever Texas guide, in which six area restaurants received a star and more than a dozen more a Bib Gourmand designation for good food at fair prices.
Of course, this came as no surprise to residents, who’ve been enjoying Houston’s rich culture — and the food that comes along with it — for decades.
“I was blown away by the incredible diversity of restaurants. Everything is just so fun here.”
Regional cuisines from around the world collide and evolve in Houston — the fourth most populous city and one of the most diverse large metropolitan areas in the United States. Authenticity is relative, and tradition is a tool. New American meets Korean. Burnt ends hang with bún bò Huê. “Fusion” fails to adequately describe dazzling dishes such as grilled ribeye with sticky rice.
As Todd Romero tells it, Houston diners meet restaurants where they live. Romero, associate dean of undergraduate affairs at the University of Houston’s College of Liberal Arts and Social Sciences, is a food historian and co-director of UH’s Gulf Coast Food Project, a prestigious food institute dedicated to community outreach, innovative teaching and cutting-edge research on the region’s unique food culture.
He’s also working on a book on the history of the Creole and Cajun foodways of Southeast Texas. “The culture here is really deep and rich,” he says. “There’s just always something that’s going to surprise you.”
Romero — who says he’s more of a gas-station taco guy than a tasting-menu one — has always been interested in food. As a grad student at Boston College, where he studied colonial and Native American history, his roommates wouldn’t be surprised to find him over the stove, blistering red and green chiles sent from home in New Mexico.
Once he finally moved to Houston, he wasn’t prepared for what he found.
“I was blown away by the incredible diversity of restaurants,” Romero says. “Everything is just so fun here.”
Romero loves to explore his adopted hometown; he helped comb the city for the Houston Chronicle’s Top 100 Restaurants list in 2024. For example, the first time he visited Jūn, a James Beard semifinalist in Houston’s Heights neighborhood, the meal lit him up.
“I left it so excited,” Romero says. “I thought to myself, ‘This place is just unrelenting on your palate.’ It gives you no breaks — but I like that.”
How about brisket bathed in curry? At Jūn, a slab of Texas’ most famous barbecued thing is brined and braised for hours, nestled into an amber-bright peanut sauce and zapped with Szechuan peppercorns. This is how restaurateurs connect with diners. Jūn’s brisket is one of many fingerprint dishes: an imprint of Texas time and place whirled around by the hands and memory of someone from someplace else.
Put another way: No one on earth is eating better — or like you — when you’re elbows deep in a meal at a Houston gem like Jūn. “One thing this city is great at,” Romero says, “is showing how new Americans can incorporate cuisines from the place they came from with what has been locally popular and make it into something new and exciting — and, in many cases, better.”
“I’m very happy to say that the interest in opening restaurants, opening bars, opening everything from fine dining down to a neighborhood spot, is as high as I’ve ever seen. Houston is in good hands with the up-and-coming wave of restaurateurs.”
“I’m very happy to say that the interest in opening restaurants, opening bars, opening everything from fine dining down to a neighborhood spot, is as high as I’ve ever seen. Houston is in good hands with the up-and-coming wave of restaurateurs.”
Kyle Hight left Houston in the early 2000s, at a time when old-money steakhouses led the talking points about the best food in the city. He joined the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, where he learned to cook and, more importantly, how to survive in an industry that runs on razor-thin margins.
He returned to Houston in August 2024, joining UH as an assistant professor at the Conrad N. Hilton College of Global Hospitality Leadership, to teach the up-and-coming generation, aka “The Bear” generation, what he knows. He was shocked when he came back — by the vibrancy, the sky-big and concert-loud flavors, the stories told through meals. The merging of so many varied cultures, from Jamaican to West African to Thai, also staggered him.
But it’s a hard business. A quick count at the end of 2024 put the number of Houston restaurants at nearly 28,000, and restaurateurs face unrelenting challenges: rising prices, third-party apps fighting for a piece of the pie, logistical issues. Then there are the post-pandemic realities, including different dining habits and preferences and dramatic rent increases. A shortage of qualified staff at all restaurant levels, including cooks and chefs, is a persistent problem. And the closing of the Art Institute of Houston’s culinary school in 2023 dealt another staggering blow to the regional restaurant industry.
Hight pours this knowledge into his classroom. He revamps the curriculum frequently to impart the most current, and applicable, real-world wisdom to the incoming generation.
“In talking to the students, I’m telling them what keeps the CEOs up at night,” he says. “We tell students that many people get into the restaurant industry who, honestly, have no business getting into the industry. You can tell who hasn’t attended school, let alone a hospitality program, and who’s never put together a business plan.”
With all the cards on the table, Hight conveys hope.
“I’m very happy to say that the interest in opening restaurants, opening bars, opening everything from fine dining down to a neighborhood spot, is as high as I’ve ever seen. Houston is in good hands with the up-and-coming wave of restaurateurs.”
To train his students, he sends them to Texas Wine Country to learn what our state keeps in its treasure chest. He sends them to the Culinary Institute of America to take a crash course on cooking and running a real restaurant. In the classroom, where he puts on events such as a recent mixology competition, Hight’s approach is hands on.
He predicts smaller, more intimate settings in Houston’s dining future. He believes that massive, Cheesecake Factory-level restaurants will fade, and there will be more spaces where diners can really connect with the food and the city. He emphasizes smaller footprints and sharply focused menus — and maybe a pop-up restaurant for the big ideas.
Romero shares the same hope for the future. As a Houston diner who revels in a good food adventure, the vibrancy of the city means a lot.
“On one hand, food is intensely local, and on the other hand, reflective of the chef’s personal story,” Romero says. He is continually shocked by the affordability yet high quality of the city’s food, as well as the imaginative yet intrinsic ways in which Houston’s chefs and restaurateurs meld national and international flavors and cooking styles.
You’ll probably find Romero at the small-but-dazzling bistro Nancy’s Hustle, which earned a Bib Gourmand in the Texas Michelin Guide. “I think that’s the sweet spot for me in Houston — restaurants that are New American but broadly defined and redefined.”
Another Bib Gourmand awardee, in the Houston suburb of Spring, is Belly of the Beast. For his menu, first-generation American chef Thomas Bille frequently digs into his Mexican roots to devise dishes such as barbecue unagi or birria tacos with Texas-born and -bred waygu or grilled redfish with cilantro corn.
“It’s an interesting restaurant that reflects someone who says, ‘I love cooking and the food that I grew up with at a high level, but that’s not the only thing I’m going to do,’” Romero says. “I find that really refreshing.”
That’s a common story in Houston. Chefs and restaurateurs nod to Texas traditions, acknowledging the joy they elicit, while bringing something personal to their dining experiences. The food isn’t overwrought or pretentious or star-seeking. It nourishes, adapting to its people and the place.
“When I worked in restaurants in grad school in Boston, people would talk about fusion food … and it was always a little bit contrived. It didn’t really resonate with me,” Romero says. “What I see here is food that’s very organic, and of the place, and probably not food you would get in another city.”
He also shares this advice with diners: Stretch yourself if you’re not a fan of adventurous food. Make your palate as capacious as possible, and you will be rewarded.
“If you have ever worked in a restaurant, you know that chefs are exquisite thieves and borrowers. Food, like everything in our culture, like music, is on the move.”
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