Houston is a Mexican food town. And Hugo's Mexican food is among the best in the nation. Rick Bayless in Chicago and Zarela Martinez in New York are chef Hugo Ortega's main competitors -- few others come close. As a native of Puebla who received his culinary training here, Ortega has a big advantage. His grasp of Mexican flavors is so confident that he doesn't feel the need to prove himself all the time. While others slavishly imitate out-of-date Mexican culinary concepts in the name of authenticity, Ortega cuts loose with new American abandon. His roasted rabbit in guajillo sauce with yams and jicama salad seems like a cross between Mexican and American Southern cooking. The tacos al pastor have so much pineapple mixed in with the crunchy pork, they taste Hawaiian. Meanwhile, there's no chips and salsa on the table, no fajitas on the grill, and no compromising to our usual Tex-Mex expectations. It's a brilliant balancing act: Ortega is upholding Mexican culinary integrity and charming the Houston fine dining audience at the same time. If you're looking for a restaurant that will blow away your food snob friends from New York or California, this is the place.

Chef Hugo Ortega, long the top toque at Backstreet Cafe, is now turning out cutting-edge Mexican food at this stunning new spot on Westheimer's restaurant row. You won't find any nachos, fajitas or chips and salsa here. What you will find is roasted rabbit in guajillo adobo with mashed sweet potatoes and jicama-radish salad, and quesadillas stuffed with mushrooms and huitlacoche. Chef Hugo is smart enough to call his cooking "original Mexican food" rather than fall into the authenticity trap. Instead of sticking to outdated regional Mexican recipes, he wisely invents his own combinations and presentations. Still, the restaurant lovingly showcases traditional Mexican ingredients and preparations, grinding its own chocolate, making its own tortillas and offering unusual specialities like cabrito, nopales and squash blossoms. This is the best Mexican food to be served in Houston in years, but it's also the most expensive.

Michael Cordúa's best dishes are shockingly imaginative combinations of bold flavors presented in wild new ways. And there has never been a better stage for Cordúa's brilliance than Artista, his extraordinary new restaurant in the Hobby Center. The location in the performing arts center has inspired everything about the restaurant, from the name to the menu design to the theatricality of the decor. The Hobby's soaring roofline creates a three-story-high space inside the restaurant. And the enormous windows frame the downtown skyline. Wacky overstuffed modern chairs surround the tables, red oval-shaped booths line the back walls, and the romantically lit bar is two stories tall. It's a treat just to walk into this place.

Joyce's is a rarity: a high-end restaurant with great Cajun food. There's lots of grilled fish and a couple of steaks on the menu, but the Louisiana cuisine is the real attraction. The awesome shrimp poor boy is made with shrimp that have been butterflied and dipped in a spicy batter before being deep-fried and dressed on a crusty roll. The gumbo is made with an inky dark roux and lots of seafood. And the New Orleans-style barbecued shrimp come swimming in the richest butter sauce you've ever tasted -- with lots of French bread on the side for dipping. The restaurant was formerly known as Joyce's Oyster Resort. They changed the name because too many people assumed oysters were all they served. Luckily, they still dish up the same oyster stew, oysters Rockefeller, and oysters on the half shell as well as a serious fried oyster platter.

Byzantio Cafe Ilias Giannakopoulos gutted his house on West Gray to make room for the European flourishes omnipresent in this hip new cafe, where he and partner Dora Manolopoulos keep the Greek tradition of hospitality alive day after day. Inside you'll find a smorgasbord of Hellenic delights: stuffed grape leaves, fresh olives, sliced meats and feta, feta, feta. But it ain't the food that makes Byzantio the best new cafe; it's the atmosphere, where wood meets stone meets some random Greek guy yelling about something. Welcome to Europe in the middle of the Montrose. The place changes faces once the sun goes down; the music starts pumping, and maybe, just maybe, the patrons start dancing on the bar. Hey, it's a Greek thing.

Neon beer signs glow brightly in the cool darkness. The taco and tostada are made of old-fashioned ground beef with a minimum of seasonings and a maximum of chopped iceberg. The tamale and rice and beans are served swimming in chili gravy. Larry's seems indistinguishable from dozens of other vintage Tex-Mex joints -- until you dig into the cheese enchiladas. Then, while you're working away on the rolled tortillas, a miracle takes place on the plate. Viscous yellow cheese sauce oozes into dark brown chili gravy in yellow and brown swirls, creating a delicious masterpiece of half melted cheese and half tangy enchilada sauce. This goop that's left on your plate after you finish the enchiladas may be the crowning glory of old-time Tex-Mex. Pass the tortillas, please.

Like fresh fish? Pick out a ling cod swimming in one of the aquariums up front and Fung's Kitchen will rush it to the stove, steam it and serve it up in a minimalist soy and ginger sauce for you. It is the purest fish flavor you will ever taste. But if fish isn't your favorite, don't worry -- you're bound to find something you like on this 400-item menu. The tofu dishes are especially good. Chef and owner Hoi Fung is originally from Hong Kong and comes from a family that has produced many famous chefs. When the daughter of the emperor of Japan visited Houston a few years ago, this is where she and her husband came to eat.

Cafe Brasil The perfect microcosm of Montrose, Cafe Brasil does it all. It has great ambience, a lively, diverse crowd and surprisingly good food. The scones, baked on-site every morning, are miracles of flaky, buttery deliciousness. It's one of the few places in town where you can order an inexpensive, top-notch salad, and the beer flows as freely as the coffee. Housed in an old brick storefront with vintage windows, Brasil hosts wooden tables brimming with professors, chat groups and mysterious, bearded bohemians. The lime-green walls, leafy patio and chic blue tile-work of the bar give the place a classy, vaguely Latin American feel. On certain nights, Brasil even screens classic and foreign films. But don't let the cosmopolitan trappings fool you: One taste of the eggs and crawfish étouffée, and you'll agree this popular hangout is a Bayou City classic.

This cozy little restaurant a few blocks from Our Lady of Czestochowa, the Polish Catholic church, is the place to catch up on the doings of the Eastern European community over blintzes and tea. Be prepared for a long wait if you arrive during the post-church scene on Sunday afternoon. The homemade ruskie pierogi are the thing to order here. Perfect pierogi should be puffy pillows about the size of Chinese dumplings; the dough should be rolled very thin with a tiny crimp so that the area of double thickness doesn't get too chewy. And by these difficult standards, Janina's ruskie pierogi are hard to beat. There are also fluffy potato pancakes covered with goulash on Janina's menu, along with other examples of Polish home cooking at its finest.

Eydie Prior's parents opened Lankford as a grocery in 1939. After a while, Eydie took over and started serving food. It was well received, so in 1977 she decided to turn the place into a restaurant. Since then, generations of regulars have filled the rickety joint to the gills nearly every day. Anyone who's ever heard of Lankford will ask if you've had the thick-'n'-juicy hand-packed burgers. Those more in the know will suggest the enchilada special. These are some of the best cheesy, beefy enchiladas in the downtown area, with a hearty mix of chili powder and cumin in the chile con queso topping. A half order will leave most bellies plenty full. Chicken-and-dumplings aficionados should be sure to pencil in that special as well. There's nothing this place can't do well.