Restaurant Reviews

Seasons 52 Opens Today with a Full Menu of Dishes Under 475 Calories

Seasons 52, the new restaurant located in the new Millennium complex on Westheimer adjacent to Bo Concept, is opening to the public today. "The name Seasons 52 represents the 52 weeks of the year," said Reuben Rolf, the managing partner. "Every week, our menu offers a side panel of new dishes that ... More >>

Where To Eat: Mother's Day 2013

One of the best ways to show your mother how much you love her on Mother's Day is to take her out to eat and treat her like the Queen she is. All throughout Houston, you will find an ample amount of opportunities to treat your mother to brunch, lunch and dinner. Here's where you can make Sunday, May ... More >>

Go West, Young Man

The top 10 restaurants in Westchase.

Top 10 Wine Lists in Houston

It's exciting to run across a well-priced favorite on a restaurant's wine list, or to discover something new as you dig through its pages. But there's more to making a world-class wine list than just stocking a cellar with Cakebreads and Chardonnays. To spotlight the best wine lists in Houston, we ... More >>

The Eating Our Words 100: Sean Beck, Sommelier Extraordinaire

Who he is: Sommelier and wine consultant to a number of Houston establishments, Sean Beck started working as a waiter at Backstreet Cafe 15 years ago while he was pursuing a history degree at the University of Houston. "At the time, Backstreet had about a 55-bottle wine list," Beck recalls. Backst ... More >>

Ring in the New Year: Where to Eat on New Year's Eve and Day 2012

It's time to start making plans for New Year's Eve and Day, if you haven't already. Houston restaurants are opening their doors for you and your friends and family to celebrate the end of 2012 and beginning of 2013 with a delicious meal and champagne toasts at the strike of midnight. Many locations ... More >>

Your Stress-Free Holiday Dining Guide: Where to Eat on Christmas Eve 2012

Shopping for family, sending gifts to loved ones afar and decorating the house with an obnoxious amount of holiday decor tends to build quite a lot of stress each Christmas. So, we all love anything that eliminates some of the holiday stress. Let some of your favorite restaurants around Houston do t ... More >>

Ring in the New Year: Where to Eat on New Year's Eve and Day 2012

Yes, Christmas isn't here yet, but it's time to start making plans for New Year's Eve and Day. Houston restaurants are opening their doors for you and your friends and family to celebrate the end of 2012 and beginning of 2013 with a delicious meal and champagne toasts at the strike of midnight. Man ... More >>

First Look at Lucille's

Chef Chris Williams may come from Southern food royalty -- his great-grandmother was Lucille Bishop Smith, a culinary pioneer who owned U.S. Smith's Famous BBQ in Fort Worth and helped establish one of the first college-level commercial foods departments in the nation at Prairie View A&M University ... More >>

Underbelly's Underpriced Wine List Gives Us More Reasons to Love It

Because there is so very much to discuss when it comes to Underbelly, the subject of this week's cafe review, I found myself having to trim back significantly in certain areas of the review in order to get a broader point across (which, TL;DR, is that Underbelly is where it's all happening and you s ... More >>

Autumn Concerto in Eight Courses

Wine Subject to Availability? Texas Sommeliers Respond

In the wake of last week's post here at Wine Time ("What To Do When Fine Wine Service Is Really Bad?"), I wrote to some of the top sommeliers in Texas asking them how they would have handled the situation. (Background: I ordered three bottles of white wine from a list at one of Houston's top restaur ... More >>

Wine Time: What To Do When Fine Wine Service Is Really Bad?

Historically, a sommelier was a cellar master who managed a wine collection. He -- and I say he because in the pre-sexual-revolution era, the sommelier was always male -- tracked and tallied the sums of wine (originally stored in cask and later in bottle). Today, the word is used loosely to denot ... More >>

Dining Out on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day

elitemom.net​It's allegedly the most wonderful time of the year. But we're guessing whomever penned that phrase never spent Christmas Eve amid the pandemonium of wide-eyed, frantic shoppers desperately trying to cross those last few names off of the shopping list, or stayed up until the wee ... More >>

Despite Blue Laws, Texas Sommelier Conference Opens on Schedule

​"You'll note that there are pastries in the foyer," said Master Sommelier James Tidwell, as he and Houston's own Master Sommelier, Drew Hendricks, opened the Texas Sommelier Conference promptly at 9 a.m. yesterday morning at the Four Seasons Las Colinas Resort in Irving, Texas. The two co-fou ... More >>

Restaurant Week Sneak Peek: Philippe

Christina UticoneSweet rock baby shrimp salad​Houston Restaurant Week is better than Christmas -- there, I said it. Last year my husband and I went crazy trying new restaurants, finding many of our favorites through the Restaurant Week event. This is the gift that keeps on giving (and I'm coun ... More >>

Houston Restaurant Week's Best Bangs for Your Bucks

​There have been a few significant changes to this year's Houston Restaurant Week, the annual fundraising-through-dining event that benefits the Houston Food Bank. Most noticeably, the event will run throughout the entire month of August (making it "Houston Restaurant Month," technically, but ... More >>

Zelko Bistro Puts Female Winemakers and Craft Beer Front and Center

Photo by Tam VoChef Jamie Zelko.​Zelko Bistro, although it's only been open for less than two years, has already garnered a reputation for its wine list: Aggressively priced, the list offers an excellent selection of wines between $28 and $46 a bottle. Chef and owner Jamie Zelko wanted it that ... More >>

Another Day, Another National "Best of" List That Mostly Ignores Houston

Photo by Troy FieldsCrispy-skinned snapper at Reef.​According to The Daily Meal, Texas is still primarily home to barbecue and Tex-Mex. Oh, and, okay, maybe a little bit of seafood. The national food website released its list of The 101 Best Restaurants in America this morning, and, as expect ... More >>

It's the Final Countdown

2011 is almost here — how will you ring it in?

Stretch That Dining Dollar: Eat Fancy at Lunch

Photo by Kent WangEat like a prince at Da Marco (on a pauper's salary).​At Da Marco, as I ate the last, sweet bites of my antelope paillard -- the barely gamy meat pounded thin and just slightly crispy at the edges, draped with caramelized peppers and finished off with a beautiful mound of flu ... More >>

Bailey's Shutters Seabrook Location; New Venture Planned

You'll have to get your banana pudding fix at Sudie's for now.​The second shocking shuttering of the week -- after the discouraging closure of the wonderful Sabetta Cafe & Bar -- took place in Seabrook, when employees showed up to Bailey's American Grille on Monday to find it closed after thre ... More >>

Bella Italiano

Duck Fat: the New Butter

Is the theme of the awesome Branch Water Tavern "fatty foods for lean times"?

Top 11 Houston Restaurant Openings of the Decade

Since I started my job as restaurant critic of the Houston Press in May of 2000, I've had a chance to observe the Houston restaurant scene for just about the entire decade. Our fine dining scene has evolved in the last ten years, and so have our ethnic cuisines. Houston became the birthplace of some ... More >>

Branch Water Tavern: The Best New Restaurant Not Open Yet?

​Branch Water Tavern at 510 Shepherd will be a new American tavern with outstanding whiskeys, microbrewery beers and one of the hottest chefs in the city behind the stove. CIA grad David Grossman used to cook at Gravitas and Reef. Before that, he worked with the legendary Alfred Portale at Got ... More >>

Lingering Over Lunch: Rioja's

Photo by Robb Walsh​Fine dining establishments are suffering in these days of the downturn. But as we've mentioned many a time before, the best restaurants in the city have some of the choicest lunch specials. Bistro Don Camillo's business lunch, an appetizer, entrée and dessert for $18.95 is ... More >>

Washington Ave. Revisited

Forget what I said about Catalan – Chris Shepherd is one of the top toques in Texas.

Upcoming Events

Photo by Troy Fields Pizza at Bistro Don CamilloThe heat is already on this summer, so take advantage of the cool air conditioning and the cool deals going on at some of your favorite restaurants. Fleming's Steakhouse will be offering special deals starting June 23. The summer prix fixe ... More >>

Treat Mom Right on Mother's Day

Mother's Day is quickly approaching, and if you've already made plans to take your dear, sainted mother out to a lovely meal on Sunday...wonderful! You're ahead of about 90 percent of us. Make us all look bad, why don't you? If you're like the rest of us, you're probably still trying to deci ... More >>

The Tastes of Textile

When it's on, there's no place in town like Scott Tycer's new restaurant.

On a Budget at Bistro des Amis

Christmas Eve Dining, Without the Duck Heads

Want to take the family out for a nice meal tomorrow night so someone else can wash the dishes for a change?  Worn out from holiday shopping and don't want to cook dinner?  Or have the Bumpus hounds destroyed your turkey and you're looking for an alternative? Never fear!  There are p ... More >>

Simposio

An old favorite has opened at a new location, but is its upscale Northern Italian fare still worth the price?

$13 at Fu’s Garden in Rice Village

Reef

Chef Bryan Caswell is putting a new spin on Gulf red snapper and serving up some fish you've never heard of

This Week in Café: VIN

This Week in Café: VIN

Spy vs. Spy

Our restaurant critic gets busted at Gravitas, so we send in our counterintelligence team

Crispy Muc, Tender Bo

There's a thrilling new Vietnamese restaurant on Bellaire with a menu that reads like a mystery

Letters

Brain Food

You may puzzle over the menu at Robert Gadsby's Noé, but you'll love the clever chow

Best Indian Restaurant

Monica Hits Midtown

Pope's new restaurant is flat-out brilliant

Is Zin In?

Zack Ateyea gives up the ghost of continental cuisine and bets the bank on a California red

Truth in Advertising

Daniel Wong's Kitchen

America's Volume Dealer

The Zagat Survey spits out large amounts of data, not informed criticism

And the Survey Says...

Local Restaurant News

Everything Old Is New Again

Darby's flashes back to a gentler time

Letters