HOUGuide
Houston's New Restaurant Openings
If you tried to keep track of every new restaurant and bar in Houston, your head might spin. So just read this list instead. These are the openings that seem like they have the most potential. Although, keep in mind, we make no promises about the places we haven't visited yet. Go forth and be a pioneer—or just keep up with our Hit List to see which new restaurants we checked out and loved.
April 2024
The Local Foods team has been incredibly busy this week, opening not one but two new concepts. And the newest location opened in the Galleria neighborhood. If the thought of leaving your emotional support location has you down, don’t worry, this one still has all of the Local Foods staples, including the pozole and crispy chicken sandwich.
Maximo started out as a food truck doing taco pop-ups around Houston. Now, the Mexican restaurant from the team behind Local Foods has a brick-and-mortar in West University. Grab a crispy fish taco on nixtamalized tortillas, a barbacoa grilled cheese, or have a margarita on their spacious patio.
Bori has been serving Korean BBQ in Spring Branch for years and now has a new location open in Montrose. While the newest iteration of this KBBQ spot might not have the art gallery like the OG location, it still features highlights like the kimchi pancakes, bulgogi fried rice, and enough cuts of meat to feed a small platoon.
KP’s Kitchen opened a second location in Bellaire serving 12-hour baby back ribs and crispy wings during lunch and dinner. During brunch, they have french toast, quiches that rotate weekly, and croissant sandwiches stuffed with scrambled eggs.
Atlanta-based Mexican restaurant Little Rey has made its way to Houston. The River Oaks counter-service restaurant will have carnitas tacos and agua frescas of the day, and for the weekend warriors, Little Rey has an assortment of breakfast tacos made with housemade flour tortillas.
March 2024
Ema is open for breakfast and lunch in The Heights. This Mexican bakery and cafe serves conchas made with brioche, papaya salad, and tacos with confit carrots. You can expect caffe de olla with cinnamon, tejate, and more made with beans from South and Central America.
Bar Bludorn in Memorial is from the team behind Navy Blue and (surprise) Bludorn. The menu focuses on adding their spin to classic dishes, like beignets topped with country ham and their standard oysters served three ways.
From the team behind Lucille’s, the long-awaited Late August is now open for lunch. This Midtown restaurant offers a compact menu of shareable small bites including gumbo with chorizo, smoked chicken wings covered in mole, and five bean chili. Late August will be open in the Ion building for dinner beginning April 8th.
The mezcal bar Quiote has re-opened after a two-year hiatus. Located inside of The Toasted Coconut in Montrose, the bar seats 14 people and serves agave-based cocktails. Come to the candlelit bar for some classic margaritas, have a drink made with goat cheese and Mexican rum, and a plate of duck confit tacos.
A new Detroit-style pizza joint has joined the party. Via 313, a Memorial neighborhood spot, has a menu full of rectangular pies with thick crusts. The pizzas range from a simple cheese to a pie with five different types of meat piled on top. And for dessert, there are baked cinnamon sticks and ice cream floats made with Vernor’s ginger ale.
photo credit: Richard Casteel
The Austin-based bar Nickel City has made its Houston debut in EaDo. The dive-y bar’s menu consists of frozen Irish coffees, beers, and cocktails that can be enjoyed inside or on the connected patio.
Adding to the near-endless concepts by Berg Hospitality, the Timbergrove steakhouse Prime 131 has a little bit of everything. At Prime 131, the meat is cooked by live fire, which can be seen from every table in the restaurant. But steaks are just the start of the menu here. They have a seafood tower with a dozen roasted oysters and an entire lobster, sushi platter with sparklers, and a KBBQ “steak omakase” starting at $135 per person. The limit does not exist.
The latest club-adjacent restaurant to hit Uptown cooks almost everything, including Caesar salad, over a live-fire grill. Duchess—a Mediterranean-Asian-South American cuisine amalgam restaurant that sort of looks like a tavern got an HGTV-style renovation—serves skewers, sliders, and lobster tails covered in caviar.
It’s been a banner year for Italian food in Houston with so many new spots opening. And the latest casual spot Magdalena’s Trattoria & Pizzeria in Upper Kirby keeps the trend going. Opened by someone formerly at Da Marco, Magdalena’s menu lists fresh pastas, a veal osso buco, and over a dozen pizzas.
February 2024
Salt & Sugar is a sandwich and pastry shop in Spring Branch. The “salt” half of the menu includes cold-cut sandwiches like a turkey avocado blt, angus burgers topped with pork rinds, and mesquite-smoked chicken wings. As for the “sugar” half, expect praline bread pudding, salted apple caramel tarts, and slices of coconut cream pie.
What started as a food truck will now be one of the 11 stalls in the new Conservatory Galleria food hall. Blk Mkt Birria will serve their popular beef birria tacos, alongside quesadillas, tortas, and burgers.
While officially a burger joint, Tasty Box in Spring Branch won’t be put in a (food) corner. Beef gyros, and red velvet waffles with chicken strips can be found on the menu alongside, of course, eight different types of burgers.
Goode Eats Southern Cuisine serves Southern-style food all day long. This restaurant keeps the menu loaded with fried pork chops with gravy, fried fish, macaroni and cheese—as well as a mountain of breakfast options, burgers and po’boys.
The Peruvian restaurant Cvché Kitchen, also located in the new Conservatory Galleria food hall, serves, well, ceviche, and dishes like lomo saltado, chicken anticuchos, and grilled octopus.
The folks behind MF Sushi have opened a restaurant completely dedicated to lobster. Housed in Houston’s first completely round restaurant, MF Lobster & Ceviche serves lobster in nearly every form we can think of— sandwiches, sushi rolls, tacos, macaroni and cheese, and more—and has a dog-friendly patio where you might see someone sneak their goldendoodle a lobster nigiri (we would never recommend that).
Postscript is a plush restaurant in River Oaks with a rose quartz bar, convenient “Press For Champagne” buttons at each booth, and enough pink to make Barbie jealous. Expect a decadent menu with seafood towers, oysters on the half shell, and donut holes topped with caviar.
Xiaolong Dumpling is the latest spot to open in the Fourth Ward. As the name suggests, the Sichuan restaurant specializes in dumplings, but you also go for shrimp dry pot, boiled beef, and fish coated in green peppercorns.
