Known for its pizza and crudo, the restaurant’s subtitle, the newish Elro at a Montrose-Midtown juncture is also a great stop for a sandwich. There’s just one, The Hoagie, that’s listed in the “Starters” section of its small menu.
 
It’s a version of the familiar Italian-American sandwich, inspired by ones that proprietor Terrence Gallivan grew up with south of Washington, DC. But it’s made with much better ingredients and culinary sense than you’ll find with any chain sub shop offering. The Hoagie arrives wrapped in restaurant-branded paper, cut in half and served on a small plate. It’s quality mortadella, hot coppa – spicy, dried, cured capocollo – slices of provolone, a bit of mayonnaise and pickled vegetable giardinera, with its liquid seeping into the fresh and terrific house-made roll that’s densely topped with plentiful sesame seeds, which are much more for adornment and adding to the overall taste of the sandwich. A bit of a mess, as the fillings extend past the limits of the nearly-sliced-through-roll and with the giardinera juice, but delicious. The wrapping is a necessity in addition to making for a cool presentation.
 
No fries. No chips. No matter. Served solo, it can make for a near-perfect workaday lunch. The Hoagie arrives in two parts, perfect for sharing and as a part of a dinner with other items. Maybe not cheap at $18, it’s certainly worth it.
 
Elro
2405 Genesee (at Fairview), 77006
elrohtx.com

There actually are some very good Italian restaurants to be found in Houston. These varyingly serve Italian, American-Italian, and the familiar red sauce-heavy Italian-American fare, descriptions that hopefully help explain three broad types of Italian-themed restaurants found here.
 
Restaurants that might be called Italian, I believe, try to mimic how food is prepared in Italy, or in very capable and knowing hands express the ethos of Italy, and made with Italian products when necessary. The chef or proprietor is almost always from Italy or has worked there. They know Italy and aim to serve dishes as Italian as possible, as possible as the customers and budget allow. Italian food varies tremendously by locale and region, maybe more so than other cuisines. Trattoria menus in Siena will look entirely different than one in Palermo or Verona, for example. Here, Italian restaurants rarely try to have a regional or local focus, but will usually have a menu of appealing and somewhat familiar items from around that country.
 
For me, American-Italian restaurants use contemporary ideas and products from Italy, but the food is, generally, noticeably different than it is in Italy. It is an Americanized Italian take, done in an enticing fashion. These places are often from an experienced chef who puts their spin on Italian dishes, or a notion of Italian dishes, and might use the Italian cooking philosophy as an inspiration. There is always pasta made in house; showing off kitchen skills and providing a canvas for creativity. The quality of ingredients is usually high, and sometimes expensive. Italian descriptions are often used to signify an understanding.
 
Italian-American cooking is distinct enough for those restaurants to have its own post.
 
The entrée ranges and averages shown do not include items with the increasingly popular seasonal fresh truffles or caviar service, both of which are seen at all of the pricier of these restaurants, and can add a fair amount to the final tab.
 
Below are the best dozen Italian restaurants in Houston listed in order of preference.
 
Alba – Entrées: $25 to $68, $41 average – The successor to Ristorante Cavour in the upscale Hotel Granduca is still led by the estimable Maurizio Ferrarese, and is the best Italian restaurant in Houston. The cooking is rooted in northwestern Italy, if ranging beyond the rich cuisine of its namesake Alba and the Langhe, the land of Barolo and white truffles, though there is agnolotti del plin and with shaved truffle. Ferrarese has the sensibility and creativity of a modern, top chef, but also does a wonderful job with more traditional fresh pasta preparations and no one here is better with risottos, as you might expect of a native of Vercelli, Europe's rice capital, made typically with the aged Acquerello rice. Secondos, meat and seafood, also shine. The setting is comfortable, attractive and usually staid and quiet. Also in the hotel is Giorgio’s, a more casual but quite adept, lightly trafficked option that shares a kitchen and chef with Alba that also shines with a large number of items including a sous vide octopus salad and butternut squash ravioli. Uptown Park
 
Amalfi – Entrées: $23 to $79, $40 average – Focusing largely on the cuisine of his home region in southern Italy, Salerno native Chef Giancarlo Ferrara produces dishes in this bright strip-center locale that are generally familiar but lighter and more vibrant that what you will typically find here. There are preparations with the house-made strands of scialatelli, tubes of paccheri and another pasta flavored with the colatura, the beguiling fish sauce from the Amalfi coast, among the Campanian coastal specialties. The wood-burning is put into good effect; the whole fish encrusted in rock salt and pizzas are specialties, too, serving some of the city’s best Neapolitan-style pies, which can work very well as a starter or a lunch. Save room for desserts, if possible. The dessert menu is lengthier than most and includes Pasticceria Amalfi, a delectable selection of mini Italian pastries, and a fun, Baked Alaska. Briargrove
 
Bari – Entrées: $24 to $60, $39 average – Opened in May 2023 with seasoned chef Renato De Pirro, a native of Tuscany, at the helm, this serves delicious pan-Italian cooking that tastes like Italy – likely no other local restaurant imports as much of its product from the home country – in an striking upscale trattoria-like setting with a soaring ceiling and sprawling sidewalk patio space that fits in perfectly with its high-dollar neighbors. The menu features recognizable favorites like Insalata Caprese, fritto misto, pappardelle Bolognese, spaghetti with clams, and veal scaloppine with lemon that are executed with excellent ingredients and more skill, understanding and flair than most places. A seafood tower, East Coast oysters on the half shell, and the now-days necessary caviar and truffle menu items – and tartufo bianco from namesake Alba when in season – can help make this a luxe lunch or dinner. The enticing, Italian-focused wine list has the well-known labels Gaja, Solaia, Tignanello and Ornellaia, but about a dozen nicely chosen ones by the glass for $15 and less and many selections under $75 – like a bottle of Rosso di Montalcino from star producer Casanova di Neri and a Pinot Grigio but from the Collio. Bari is both a restaurant for special occasions and one to be frequented regularly without tiring of it, especially for those who can shop often at the stores outside its doors. River Oaks District
 
Da Marco – Entrées: $24 to $75, $47 average – Intimately set in a small house with gated parking on Westheimer, Marco Wiles’s Da Marco has long served excellent fare that represents the best of many of the northern Italian regions. Da Marco is much like a very proficient, upscale trattoria whose cooking is not tethered to a particular locale. True to form, here you are expected to dine in the Italian fashion with antipasti, a first course, a meat or fish entrée, and separate sides. The fish on ice that greet you upon entrance is one of Da Marco’s highlights, but it’s all done quite well here and this has been among the best restaurants in the city for years. Along with the food, the wine list is strictly Italian, and pricey, pricier than most. Noticeably attentive service does come with the lofty prices, though. Back in 2006, Gourmet named among the top 50 restaurants (number 29) in the country and the restaurant might be better these days; there’s much more competition. Montrose
 
Tony’s – Entrées: $26 to $105, $55 average – As its website touts, fairly accurately, “Tony's presents fine dining Italian inspired by Naples, influenced by Milan and Cherished in Houston.” The pan-Italian sensibilities expressed here seek to present the best of Italy, the best of prosperous, gourmet Italy, at that, usually infused with a rich American exuberance. Namesake and legendary local restaurateur Tony Vallone passed away in September 2020, but his widow carries on very well with Kate McLean leading the kitchen for the second time, and Tony's seems more approachable and more Italian than ever. Excellent ingredients have long been the hallmark here, and that includes seasonal, fresh truffles whose aroma can pervade the dining room. Flavorful, thin, freshly made pastas – which nicely all come in first or main course size – tender Provimi veal and impeccable seafood are just some of the attractions, not to mention the excellent service, broad wine selection and gracious, modern setting punctuated with dramatic works by Rauschenberg and Jesus Moroles. There’s maybe more attention paid to caviar here than most top restaurants in case you need the tab to reach toward four digits. The wide-ranging wine list is excellent, as its been for decades, with more older vintages and many of bold-faced French names, but also many nice bottles for $75 and under. Greenway Plaza
 
Potente – Entrées: $39 to $99, $61 average – Serving American-Italian fare with a luxurious bent, this spot across from the ballpark – and sharing an owner with the perennially contending ‘Stros – has a top chef at the helm, Danny Trace formerly at Commander's Palace then the head of hometown Brennan's. It uses approachable preparations inspired from Italy with excellent ingredients to a satiating and robustly flavored, if quite expensive result. The cheapest pasta preparation is $42, for example. Authenticity is not part of the equation nor appeal here, and the preparations reflect a decadent, ingredient-heavy New Orleans heritage. Veal braised in Amarone with locally sourced mushrooms and served with a contrasting white polenta and a beetroot agrodolce, and agnolotti filled with lump crab meat, artichoke, melted leeks, bright beets and limoncello are just a couple. The wine list is lengthy, with plenty of enticements from Italy, France and California for those on expense account, but also nicely selected to appeal to most wine lovers with affordable bottles from excellent producers like Produttori di Barberesco, Pieropan, and Arpepe. Downtown
 
Ostia – Entrées: $21 to $78, $34 average – Another American-Italian, and fitting in very well in the heart of Montrose. Owner Travis McShane parlays his years with top Manhattan toque, Jonathon Waxman and his well-regarded Barbuto, to serve vibrant, well-executed and very satisfying fare from an edited array of salads, pastas, the famed roasted chicken, and other proteins that evokes a lighter, Californian-Italian tenor. It's also worthy of a visit solely for the pizzas, even one with kale, and just at lunch. Each version feature a properly enjoyable, fairly flavorful soft crust with ingredients that are noticeably higher quality and so tastier than usual. The setting is handsome, casual and inviting with an open kitchen and a pleasant patio. Montrose
 
Rosie Canonball – Entrées: $18 to $60, $31 average – Italian preparations including well-done fresh pastas and pizzas plus a few dishes ranging to other southern European spots. The second of several concepts, three currently serving food, to open in a very smart, quaint complex – acclaimed March is housed just above – this is essentially an Italian restaurant with a more than a few complementary nods to the Iberian peninsula on the short menu. There are some very well-crafted, if possibly too precious, fresh pasta preparations in the Emilian tradition, excellent pizzas, plus breads and greens and other vegetables, and a quartet of proteins including the requisite steak and seafood items. These crowd-pleasing dishes and stylish space have made it an attractive stop for lunch, business or otherwise, and a busy spot at night. The wine list is expansive and mainly Old World and fun for almost any wine lover. Montrose
 
Giacomo’s – Entrées: $15 to $35, $23 average – Lynette Hawkin’s comfortable, friendly spot near River Oaks has been easy to love since it opened in 2009. Affordably priced and featuring a big menu that includes plenty of well-rendered small plates of trattoria-style Italian dishes that often highlight Rome and Tuscany, including items like crostini with chicken livers and fine quality freshly made pastas – the best might be the tortelli di bietola, medium-sized ravioli filled with Swiss chard and soft goat cheese and topped with a sage leaves and melted butter – which are paired with a nicely assembled and extremely enticing 150-bottle or so mostly Italian wine list that has many tempting choices between $25 and $40 in a setting that is comfortable and coolly retro. Casual, welcoming, proficient and well-suited for Houston, this is a tough restaurant not to like. River Oaks
 
Poscol – Small plates: $7 to $20 – The restaurant takes its name from the name in dialect of the main thoroughfare in Udine (Via Poscolle), Wiles’ hometown in the northeastern Italian region of Friuli, can work as an all-Italian wine bar supported with enticing small plate preparations, many meant to be shared. The food has a strong northeastern Italian influence along with impeccably Italian sensibilities that have worked extremely well for Houston diners at Da Marco, not far down Westheimer. The roughly 50-item menu will be comprised of regional Italian specialties. There are risotto dishes, fresh pasta preparations, bruschette, salumi, fried items, a well-chosen selection of Italian cheeses, and seafood including shrimp and prosciutto with garlic and capers and octopus and cannellini beans. Its longtime Sunday special of porchetta, a roasted pork preparation, has even thrilled a former resident of Umbria, where the dish was born. Though a sibling of the dearly departed Dolce Vita that was a few addresses down, the pizzas here show that they miss that proper oven. Montrose
 
Davanti – Entrées: $18 to $31, $24 average – Building on the success of the counter-service Fresco on the Southwest Freeway, and the considerable publicity from an appearance on Guy Fieri’s Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives in 2021, Fresco was essentially replicated as Davanti this summer, in nicer digs. Higher prices, too, but this is still casual Italian done well from the kitchen of Chef Roberto Crescini who hails from near Brescia in northern Italy and cooked professionally for years in Italy before coming to Houston. The main attractions are freshly crafted pastas made with at least a substantial portion of hard wheat flour for a toothsome texture, and the ability to be shaped. And shapes there are. If one of the tasty listed options don’t interest, in user-friendly American fashion, you can choose a shape from among a wide array: bucatini, linguine, fettuccine, pappardelle, spaghetti, conchiglie, small or large rigatoni, tagliolini, fusilli, tagliatelle, casarecce, cavatappi, and gluten-free penne; then top it with one of eight sauces, and even add a choice from a few proteins to that. A ravioli preparation, pasta with the braised lamb sauce or with an all-beef ragù bolognese – this is Texas, after all – and the thick Roman-style pizza al taglio are the highlights from an enticing menu. Also, Crescini is a certified Norcino, butcher, so be on the look out for any salumi specials. Greenway Plaza
 
Perbacco – Entrées: $18 to $30, $22 average – Lower-key, featuring very approachable, familiar Southern Italian cooking geared toward local sensibilities from a longtime restaurateur from Capri, off the coast of Naples, the fare is largely lighter and better prepared than similar dishes elsewhere. It’s set in pleasantly utilitarian fashion in the ground floor of an office building, albeit Philip Johnson and team’s landmark Pennzoil Plaza, the emphasis is on enjoyable eating rather than fine dining. Maybe not a destination restaurant, but it works admirably as a downtown lunch spot and stop pre-symphony or -theater at the end of the week There are several, somewhat hearty, baked pasta dishes such as lasagna and cannelloni, and a dozen other pasta preparations like Penne della Casa with perfectly sautéed Gulf shrimp in garlic, brandy pink sauce, and house-made potato gnocchi with eggplant in a tomato sauce. Its version of the traditional, simple linguine and clams is one of the best around. There are a fair number of protein-centric entries, too – veal Marsala, and Gulf snapper sautéed in white wine, onion, fresh tomatoes, capers and basil, aptly carrying the Snapper Napoli name. Even tripletail was a recent lunchtime fish special. Entrées are served with a small salad, helping to make this an especially nice value. Downtown

Fresh pasta with fresh truffles at Bari

Ham and cheese remains one of the country’s favorite sandwiches, a mostly lunchtime creation at home, with ham usually paired with a slice of cheese. Simple to assemble from easy-to-find, and easy-to-afford ingredients, a well-done ham and cheese sandwich can be quite satisfying. The version at Common Bond is also inexpensive – just $8.99 – but likely tastier. Certainly more French, in any case.
 
Just called the Ham & Cheese, it features the jambon de Paris – the cooked ham from Paris – Gruyère, and is slathered with some Dijon-spiked butter in between a slice of a section of one of Common Bond’s excellent, crusty baguettes. Fairly straightforward and not that large, it’s quite enjoyable, with the nutty, rich and delicious Gruyère – a step up from that slice of industrial cheese used in most homes – and the bite of a bit of mustard complementing the ham. But the tasty, fresh baguette really helps make this a savory treat. You can’t have a good sandwich without good bread, and this bread is better than what you are usually using for sandwiches.
 
The Ham & Cheese can be ordered warmed or not. Warmed is the better choice, as the cheese gets melted some. Though just $8.99 at the drive-thru versions of Common Bond, the sit-down ones charge $11.50 for it, but for the additional two-and-half dollars it comes in two halves skewered with a lengthy, sturdy toothpick, not necessarily an attractive presentation, but a different one.
 
Common Bond’s ham and cheese seems to be a take on the famed Parisian Jambon Beurre sandwich, which is just the ham, butter and baguette. Europeans can seem to shy away from combining ham and cheese on sandwiches. Philippe Schmit’s newish modern bistro, PS-21, takes the same tact as Common Bond and adorns its similar sandwich with cheese, too. Ham and cheese is popular in America, rightly so.

After three full days of mourning following the sudden end to the Astros season, I’m finally able to think about something Astros-related, at least obliquely.
 
The Mucky Duck or the Duck, as McGonigel's Mucky Duck is always abbreviated, in addition to being a great place to catch live music in an intimate setting, has had a really good kitchen since its inception over three decades ago. It’s long been the best spot for pub grub in Houston, in my opinion. It begins with noticeably high quality ingredients – grass-fed Akaushi HeartBrand beef, for example – for all its preparations, both British-inspired and those more locally popular, including sandwiches. Its “number one selling sandwich,” a unique and delicious one, is The Mark Portugal. Turkey and avocado slices are topped with melted Muenster cheese and then large, thick strips of excellent bacon that is served warm on an open-faced, crusty French roll from Slow Dough.  An order comes with crisp and tasty fries and a length of a pickle, nice complements.
 
Fairly hefty and caloric, it appropriately takes the name – and was actually created under the inspired direction, I believe – of the festively plump, beer-loving former Astros starting pitcher who was a regular at the Mucky Duck while he played for the Astros for five years in the 1990s, a tenure that included an 18-win season. Not just Portugal, but a few other Astros, including a couple of future Hall of Famers, frequented the Duck back then for good beer and good food when the team played down Kirby at the Dome. And another future Hall of Famer, Dusty Baker, was seen just before the start of spring training.
 
McGonigel's Mucky Duck
2425 Norfolk (just east of Kirby), 77098, (713) 528-5999
mcgonigels.com

Though there hasn’t been anything approaching the considerable buzz about it as the sensation that is Trill Burgers, another new burger joint featuring smashed burgers, Stuffed Belly in Spring Branch from the folks at the well-regarded Blind Goat and Xin Chao restaurants, is certainly worth a visit. The small, mostly drive-thru concept sits like a box, usually with cars in its queue, in the parking lot off Long Point in front of the redone strip center that houses Blind Goat.
 
The burgers at Stuffed Belly begin with two smashed all-beef chuck patties – there’s not a single patty option – and are fitted with caramelized onions, duly melted American cheese, quality pickles, the mayo-centric house Stuffed Sauce, all in between a toasted potato bun that was pulled from a bag of Martin’s Famous Sandwich Potato Rolls. The pickles are the only thing green to be found at Stuffed Belly. The caramelized onions provide a note of differentiation to the burgers. The burgers do taste a lot like those at Trill, which are also really good, but with the slight distinction of those onions. The dull American cheese or cheese-food, as always, does not add very much, but burgers can be fitted with provolone or cheddar for an additional buck. Though that’s really the only change you might need, the burgers can be modified in a number of ways. That might be much easier to do when ordering online rather than in the drive-thru, though.
 
From two, you can go to three, four and six patties, with three slices of American cheese. The last is likely overkill, especially for the soft buns. And these are messy burgers to begin with, even messier than most.  There’s also a couple of patty melts, if you want Texas Toast instead of a potato bun.
 
Somewhat oddly, no fries here, but tater tots. But these are much better than typical, certainly much tastier than the tater tots served recently at Wild Oats, for example; even better when dipped in some of the Szechuan mayo ordered for an additional 50-cents, though there’s just some of the “la,” the heat, and no “ma,” the tingling sensation in that.
 
As a new spot, some kinks still need to be worked out. The packages of ketchup thrown into your bag are of a cheap brand, the napkins are the barely helpful cocktail napkins, and on one of my visits, the onions were not caramelized and so the burger was not quite as tasty.
 
If a burger is not in order, there is also an egg sandwich, the Tuna Crunch – tinned tuna with creamy egg, red onion, celery, crushed potato chips, crustless Texas toast – a chicken sandwich with buttermilk fried chicken, Sichuan mayo, pickles. And cookies for a sweet finish, seemingly from Pudgy’s, though some days there might only be one type.
 
Stuffed Belly
8133 Long Point (just west of Wirt), 77055, (832) 224-5422
stuffedbelly.co

The reputation of the most popular names in Italian white wine suffered even before the advent of millions of gallons of bland Pinot Grigio began flooding the market. The estimable Eric Asimov in the New York Times wrote somewhat recently, “Years ago, Gavi di Gavi was one of the best known Italian white wines, along with Soave and Frascati. The reputation of each of these sank under the weight of a profusion of insipid wines.”  Frascati, grown near Rome, was possibly the prime offender in this.
 
Katie Parla, the Rome-based food writer and tour guide wrote that “much of the zone’s vino has been mediocre at best for a couple thousand years. Rome’s proximity guaranteed a built-in market thirsty for cheap wine, while mass production from the 1970s to today saw production grow to supply foreign markets with insipid Frascati.” A wine site thought that “most producers go strictly for quantity as nothing more is wanted beyond wine to fill carafes in the big city.”
 
The entire region of Lazio where Frascati and Rome belong haven’t received much respect even through it produced the equivalent of about 16 million bottles of wine last year. A few years ago, the Gambero Rosso annual wine guide complained about Lazio that “an overall selection that featuring few interesting wines” for the past year’s releases.  Another wine guide, from Slow Food, devoted only three of its 275 wine review pages to the region.
 
I was of the same mind and had long advised friends traveling to Rome to look about Frascati to Orvieto, Friuili, Sardinia for whites while in the Eternal City.
 
But I knew that there was certainly some very good white wine produced there, as the quality throughout the country has improved and looked forward to a tasting a couple of weeks featuring Roman-area wines sponsored by the local Italy-America Chamber of Commerce at Vinology.
 
And the initial wine impressed, Roma from Principe Pallavicini, made with 100% Malvasia del Lazio, that’s also called Malvasia Puntinata, which is one of the main grapes for the Frascati blend. The dry white was slightly aromatic with hints of maybe basil and featured notes of apricot in a fairly long, mouth-filling taste with some heft courtesy of the four to five months of sur lie aging and a 13.5% alcohol. It very pleasantly surprised, a repose to the dull, forgettable Frascatis, and likely a nice match for a wide range of dishes along with being very easy to start with. And, not surprisingly, Gambero Rosso has positively reviewed vintages of Roma, including a prestigious two bicchiere for the 2016 one.
 
From the largest private estate in Frascati, these wines from an old aristocratic Roman family, are not available in the Houston area yet, but the Roma sells for about $18 elsewhere, quite a fair tariff.

The Ai Tre Scalini wine bar in Rome

Vice has a docuseries beginning tomorrow, October 4, that caught my eye: “Icons Unearthed: James Bond.” I was a big Bond fan when I was younger, reading all of the Ian Fleming books and enjoying most of the movies. Later, becoming much more interested in food and drink, Fleming’s detail of Bond’s not-infrequent imbibing caught more of my attention.  
 
James Bond is strongly associated with martinis, shaken not stirred, famously. But, his very first cocktail, the first one described that the Bond character drank in the very first novel, Casino Royale published in 1953, is actually an Italian one, and consumed in France, not something we might think concerning a character so assiduously and identifiably British. Found on page 24 of the edition I somewhat recently perused, set in a fancy hotel in a fictitious French resort town:
 
“Bond ordered an Americano and examined the sprinkling of over-dressed customers, mostly from Paris he guessed, who sat talking with focus and vivacity, creating that theatrically clubbable atmosphere of l'heure de l'aperitif. The men were drinking inexhaustible quarter-bottles of champagne, the women dry martinis.”
 
The Americano is the cocktail that was the basis for the much more recognized (and potent) Negroni. The Americano is:
 
Campari – 1 ounce
Sweet vermouth – 1 ounce
Club soda – splash
Orange slice
 
The cocktail was created in the eponymous Café Campari by Gaspare Campari in the 19th century. It was originally called the Milano-Torino after the location of its two main ingredients, the Campari from Milan and the Cinzano sweet vermouth from Turin. Some decades later as it became popular with American tourists it acquired the name of a typical purchaser of the cocktail. It can still make for an enjoyable aperitivo at an Italian restaurant, whether in Italy or here.
 
By the way, page 33 of the same edition of Casino Royale describes the first martini ordered by Bond in print, which has eventually became known as The Vesper, and a common sight on cocktail lists:
 
“Three measures of Gordon's, one of vodka, half a measure of Kina Lillet. Shake it very well until it's ice-cold, then add a large thin slice of lemon-peel. Got it?”
 
These days, I wonder what kind of drink, if any, you might get after barking that to the bartender in France, in English.

That might seem to be an odd question. If you are dining at an Italian restaurant, you’ll be eating Italian food, right? Not necessarily and not often, actually. What you’ll have will usually be much more accurately described as Italian-American or an American take on Italian food.
 
Restaurants advertising Italian fare in some fashion can be placed under one of the three broad headers, I believe: Italian-American; Americanized Italian; and simply Italian, which is much closer to what is served in Italy.
 
Italian-American easily claims the largest number of restaurants and also dishes. This is what most people think of when they think of Italian food. These restaurants serve items that come largely from the Italian-American tradition. The colors on the plate are largely red and whitish with some green: fried mozzarella, linguine in clam sauce, ravioli in a tomato sauce, cannelloni, fettuccine Alfredo, lasagna with ricotta, ground meat and tomato sauce, eggplant Parmesan, Chicken Parmesan, veal Marsala and, almost always, spaghetti and meatballs. And there is usually a lot on the plate.
 
Italian-American dishes are rooted in the big wave of Italian immigration from the 1880s until 1924. The vast majority of these people came from the Italian south where the tomato has a prominent place, and about half the dishes in the Italian-American canon originate in the Naples area like long-simmered tomato sauce, pasta and clams, and that familiar-looking lasagna. These items might have antecedents in Italy but were adapted and grew with American tastes, abundance, industrialization and pace of life. The people who were eating these dishes were Americans, as the immigrants’ offspring and descendants were, plus the generations of restaurant patrons. The preparations at these restaurants, regardless of the provenance of the recipes, are generally more robustly flavored, much heartier, and cheesier than is found in Italy. Restaurants need to serve what people want, and the menus are never static. Italian-American restaurants usually have fettuccine Alfredo and maybe penne alla vodka, dishes born after the great migration and in restaurants in Italy – to serve for tourists, actually – but have become very American in practice.
 
Here in Houston, the two original Carrabba’s and Damian’s are perfect and enjoyable examples. About a dozen years ago, I took a food writer from Italy and top Sicilian chef to Carrabba’s on Kirby to experience food from a prominent Sicilian-American restaurateur. They did not recognize the food, and frequently muttered the word “barocco,” baroque. For them, it meant extravagant and somewhat strange compared to the significantly smaller more streamlined dishes in Italy they were used to.
 
Similar to the Italian-American restaurant is the newest type, what I call Americanized Italian. These do not hew to the Italian-American traditions for the most part, and use more contemporary ideas and products from Italy, but the food is, generally, noticeably different than it is in Italy. These places are often from an experienced chef who puts their spin on Italian dishes, or a notion of Italian dishes, and might use the Italian cooking philosophy as an inspiration. There is always pasta made in house; showing off kitchen skills and providing a canvas for creativity. The quality of ingredients is usually high, and sometimes expensive. Italian descriptions are often used to portray a greater sense of authenticity or understanding, at least, even if the Italian on the menu is might be mangled. The best local instances are Potente and Ostia.
 
For me, restaurants that might be called Italian try to mimic how food is prepared in Italy, or in very capable and knowing hands express the ethos of Italy, and made with Italian products when necessary. The chef is almost always from Italy or has cooked there. They know Italy.
 
Italian food varies tremendously by locale and region, maybe more so than other cuisines. Trattoria offerings in Siena will look entirely different than one in Palermo or Verona. Here, Italian restaurants rarely try to have a regional or local focus, but will usually have a menu of appealing and somewhat familiar items from around the country. Tony May of the Gruppo Ristoranti Italiani and the landmark San Domenico in New York, one of the progenitors of alta cucina – expensive, fancy Italian food – in the U.S. told me that in Italy “the products are regional, but the cuisine is Italian.” Those Italian products were tough to get here until somewhat recently. May said in 2008 that "twenty years ago it was very difficult to reproduce regional Italian cuisine…..A chef couldn't get imported Parmigiano-Reggiano or buffalo milk mozzarella, virgin olive oil, prosciutto di Parma, or balsamic vinegar. Now, everybody can buy the finest of such ingredients, and it's made a tremendous difference in the taste of the food."
 
Even with excellent and Italian products and an informed kitchen, the way we eat in this country is different than in Italy – no primo then secondo – what customers expect is not the same, and, most importantly, restaurants need to make money. "There's no point in being strictly authentic with an empty dining room," as Lidia Bastianich quipped a few decades ago. Italian restaurants here will almost always be at least a little different than any in Italy.
 
Restaurants that can truly be called Italian include Alba, Amalfi, Da Marco and the new Bari. This Italian-ness usually comes at a cost. To taste that Italian, Italian products are necessary. Chef Renato De Pirro at Bari said about 70% of his are imported from Italy, for example. But there is also Davanti that is more casual and wallet-friendly.
 
I think that it’s fun to mention, that for any of these three broad types of restaurants, including the most Italian ones, there will nearly always be a steak on the menu. We Americans love steak.

A beautiful pasta presentation at Amalfi

I had lunch again recently, another very satisfying one, at Maderas, the vibrant, fairly stylish Mexican restaurant that opened late last year in a strip center on lowest Westheimer. The dish I ordered that day, Enchiladas Rojas, were gorgeous, not a word that’s usually used for a plate of enchiladas and accompaniments. Zigzagging stripes of white crema fresca artistically and attractively punctuated the deep garnet-colored sauce, mildly spicy from the puree featuring guajillo chiles, that covered much of the plate over and surrounding the trio of plump stuffed thin corn tortillas also topped browned bits of queso fresco that highlighted the plate. Bits of red and green from the tomatoes of pico de gallo and lettuce leaves and greens inserted in the middle of the enchilada row provided a fresh-looking contrast at one edge of the plate and separate servings of Spanish rice and charro beans in a couple of metal bowls completed the order.
 
Using many more words than I ever have describing the look of an order of enchiladas – it was about the most arresting presentation that I had seen in a while, and easily the most visually appealing plate of enchiladas I’ve ever seen.  OK, maybe that’s not too much, but it was something.
 
Most importantly, I really enjoyed the dish, which arrived quickly after ordering  Very nice, shredded chicken provided the filling and that and the house-made corn tortillas were well-complemented by the sauce and some of the spice from the adjacent pico de gallo. The two sides were tasty, too: moist, perfectly cooked Spanish rice and the soupy charro beans with garlic, onion, bacon and chorizo, not long-cooked like at many places, but nearly as delicious. The only misstep was that the big lettuce leaves under the pico de gallo were unnecessary, both taste-wide and visually> Easy to avoid, though.
 
Its philosophy, “Fresh Modern Mexican Fare”, corrected from the misspelling on its site, is accurate. The food and service are not quite as refined as at Hugo Ortega’s Mexican outposts nor nearby Cuchara and Cucharita, but the plating and flavors have been nearly spot-on in each of my several visits from enchiladas, to tacos, egg dishes during brunch time and cocktails. The place – an L-shaped space that includes a patio, necessarily underused for a while this summer –  might be easily overlooked even with the small banner, “Now Open” atop many months after opening. But if you enjoy Mexican food, you might want to give this a try.

Maderas
120 Westheimer (just west of Bagby), 77006, (713) 485-4441
maderascantina.com

Updated again on September 8, 2023 – ​A passeggiata is the traditional evening promenade in Italian towns and villages. Though Italian food and restaurants in our area might have a rather undistinguished history in national terms – especially compared to New York, Los Angeles and Chicago – a meandering, somewhat selective, chronological stroll – or passeggiata – of 100-plus of its significant or interesting particulars can be entertaining, and even informative, mainly since Houston is now a top restaurant city. This is due, in part, to substantial contributions from Italian-Americans and Italians.
 
With far fewer Italians than in other cities, it took a while for Italian restaurants to shine here. Even as late as 1982 Texas Monthly, if not the most knowledgeable or critical source concerning Italian-themed restaurants over the years, opined: “Houston was slighted when the restaurant gods passed out Italian eateries.” It’s gotten much better since then, thankfully.
 
I penned the original, much shorter, version of this for My Table magazine back in 2011 and have updated several times since then. It’s an enjoyable topic that has resonated, as Italian food in most of its guises is fun and well-loved, more so than most cuisines it seems. According to a once much-quoted truism from playwright Neil Simon, “there are two laws in the universe: the law of gravity and everyone likes Italian food.”
 
1884 – The Houston Directory published for 1884-1885 lists grocers with names like Fenno, Manno, Maretti and Roco. Alexander Bergamini – the owner of the Casino saloon at 72 Congress – is, appropriately, a New Orleans native. There is also a restaurant named Delmonico; it’s not Italian, but rather named after the famous New York establishment.
 
1890s – Veal, popular with Italians of some prosperity and also central Europeans, is a fairly common item in Houston’s many German-owned meat markets in the late 19th century, but eventually became scarce. Decades later, restaurateurs Johnny Carrabba and Frankie Mandola don’t recall ever having it at home while growing up here.
 
1905 – Carrabba’s Chicken “Bryan Texas” is the most popular dish across the entire chain, and named after Bryan, 100 miles north of Houston. An Italian emigration official, Adolfo Rossi, reported that 2,500 Sicilian immigrants were working the land there in 1905. Along with two in New Jersey, it is “perhaps the largest Italian agricultural community in the United States” according to a later government report. Initially, Sicilians from different villages settled on either sides of the Brazos River, an example of campanilismo – the extreme provincialism – of most Italians at the time.
 
1906 – There seems to be a IWW French and Italian Restaurant that opened downtown at 702 Preston, possibly the city’s first restaurant serving Italian food. The IWW had formed just a year earlier in Chicago.
 
1911 – Galveston’s oldest restaurant, Gaido’s, opens in 1911. It is named after the founding Sicilian family that still owns and operates it. It is a seafood rather than an Italian restaurant, though. Eventually replicating in Houston where a New York Times reports seventy years later in an overview of Houston for visitors that “you go to dinner at Gaido's, a seafood restaurant on South Main Street eat six different kinds of oyster dishes…and then drive virtually across the street to see the rodeo at the Astrodome.”
 
1913 – Houston has two pasta factories: Houston Macaroni Manufacturing Co. and Magnolia Macaroni Manufacturing & Co.
 
1915 – An immigrant from Sicily, Joe Grasso, pioneers the Galveston shrimping industry. Through the 1920s he sold most of it as bait as not many locals ate shrimp then.
 
1920 – Houston is home to Chinese and Japanese restaurants, but seemingly no Italian restaurant. This is when the city’s population was around 140,000.
 
1930 – Houston’s first spaghetti house – and seemingly the first full-service, fully Italian restaurant – opens, Del Monico’s.
 
1944 – Massa’s opens in downtown Houston, and is in business for over seventy years. Like Gaido’s in Galveston, it carries the name of Sicilian-American owners and is also a seafood restaurant rather than an Italian one.

1947 – Joe Matranga opens up a an intimate restaurant called the "Ding-a-Ling" on Irvington north of downtown that later changes its name to Matranga’s. The garrulous, oft-crooning owner “was a character,” remembered Johnny Carrabba. It quickly becomes the favorite Italian for most Houstonians, and carries on until 1990 known for dishes like spaghetti and meatballs and veal Parmesan served with plenty of “simmering tomato sauce and garlic – lots of garlic” that resonated with customers. Matranga once admitted to a reporter that his famous sauce contained “onion and garlic and olive oil and salt, pepper and basil” along with tomato paste and was on the stove for eight hours.
 
1948 – An inexpensive Italian restaurant called Big Humphrey’s opens on Park Place in southeast Houston. It is named after owner Joe Vitale’s professional wrestling persona. It later moves to Pearland and operated until January 2020.
 
1948 – Along with her husband Mama Ninfa – later the instigator of the nationwide fajita craze – opens a tortilla and pizza dough factory on Navigation east of downtown. Pizza dough to be used at home. The Italian dough part might not have been a surprise since her husband was an Italian-American with family roots in the Naples area and from the northeast. Much later her offspring open Laurenzo's Italian Bar and Grille that lasts just three months and Bambolino's, a drive-through slice place, one of which still remains on Westheimer.
 
1950 – The Bureau of the Census publication for 1950 lists 4,195 Italians in Houston, those who were born in Italy or who have had at least one parent born there, out of a population of almost 600,000. Forty-three cities have more Italians than Houston, led by New York (684,865), Chicago (116,595), Philadelphia (115,205), Boston (53,335), Newark (49,275), Detroit (43,580), Buffalo (36,615), Rochester, NY (34,555), Providence, RI (34,370), San Francisco (32,960), and Cleveland (32,340); the reason why there was a paucity of Italian restaurants here compared to other large cities for quite a while.

1950 – Frank Sinatra’s scandalous (i.e. adulterous) affair with Ava Gardner is confirmed for the nation in late January at Italian restaurant in Houston, Vincent’s Sorrento. Sinatra is in town for a several week gig at the grand, new Shamrock Hotel. A guest of Mayor Oscar Holcombe at the restaurant – whose proprietor is a Vallone – Sinatra accosts a photographer from the Houston Post who is about to capture the couple on film.
  
1953 – In November of that year, the Sacred Heart Society of West Little York, Roman Catholic men’s group founded by Sicilian immigrants from in and around Palermo, begins its tradition of a Thursday spaghetti lunch that is inexpensive and open to the public at its home in Whitney Hall on Airline just north of Crosstimbers. With the lunches remaining popular well into the new millennium, the meat balls and long-simmered tomato sauce follow the same recipes as when the lunches began. The fresh Italian sausage is made by Society members.

1955 – Pizza finally comes to Houston with opening of Valian’s in July. The reason it took so long is that Houston lacked a critical mass of Neapolitan immigrants that were found in New York, New Haven, Boston, Philadelphia, Trenton and Chicago, each of which had pizza for decades. There are a couple of other contenders for the first pizza place in Houston, but it was certainly Valian’s that made it popular and is remembered as the local pizza pioneer. Near the Shamrock Hotel, the owner of Valian’s – like most new owners capitalizing on the exploding taste for pizza across the country – is not Italian. Armenian-American. The restaurant also serves barbecue and fried chicken.
 
1950s – The most popular place for imported Italian specialties – and about the only one – is Trapolino Import Co. Started by Frank Trapolino, a native of Bisaquino near Corleone in western Sicily. He had previously worked at the Houston Macaroni Co.
 
1960 – Pino’s opens at 3000 Cullen near the University of Houston. It is owned by Pino Farinola from coastal Brindisi in southwestern Italy and his wife. The restaurant is an old house and seats about fifty.
 
1965 – Tony’s from Tony Vallone opens as a casual Italian restaurant, known at the time as a spaghetti house, on Sage Road near where the Galleria would be constructed in a few years. It is later described as, “a place that was fun to visit, with good food and drink, dancing….”  Within a few years it would attract the well-to-do and become much more ambitious culinarily and much more French.
 
1969 – Near the eastern edge of Westheimer in January, Michelangelo opens. Maybe somewhat exotic at first, it continued in business for over four decades later, known for its comfortable Italian-American fare and vaguely romantic setting.
 
1969 – The April 19 issue of Billboard reports, “Tony Bennett Spaghetti House…the first of the restaurants is scheduled to open in Houston in early August. Five additional units will open in the same city before the end of the year, with dozens more planned in other cities for early 1970.” At least one did open, briefly, in Town & Country where, “the food was…was very bland,” recalled a rare patron. Lasting longer is, “Benedetto’s, Texas State Hotel, 720 Fannin…a supper club that features an Italian feast, cheek-to-cheek dance music and name Vegas acts,”  run by the singer’s brother, John.
 
The songs of the popular Italian-American singers interpreting the Great American Songbook after the Second World War are a requisite part of the ambiance of Italian-themed restaurants in this country. From that group, oddly, more than Tony Bennett had ties to the city. Vic Damone lived here for years after marrying an oil heiress, and two of three of Frank Sinatra’s kids were married to Houstonians (at least for short times). Nancy Sinatra married singer Tommy Sands – who attended Lanier Junior High and then Lamar High School – in 1960. Frank Sinatra, Jr. married a Houston-area lawyer in 1998. Plus, one of Dean Martin’s very best songs is his 1965 recording of “Houston.” It might be hard to envision Dino going back to Houston, though.
 
1970 – As the city moves westward, Pino’s follows. It moves to Hilcroft and Westheimer. Its success allows it to eventually grow to four times the capacity of the original.
 
1971 – Antonio’s Flying Pizza opens in 1971 by Sicilian immigrants serving pizza and assertive Italian-American red sauce classics, and proving that this formula with competent hands in the kitchen still works well after fifty-plus years.
 
1974 – With the catchphrase, “a great Italian restaurant…with a heck of an Irish bar,” Birraporetti’s opens on West Gray near River Oaks. Though hardly the former, and more accurately the latter, it’s a fun and useful place, dishing functional, familiar Italian-American items that expands to the downtown theater district, the Galleria area, and even sunny Orange County, California – that location closes in 1998 not long after losing a $2.3 million sexual harassment lawsuit brought by two former waitresses. Birraporetti’s is still around, adjacent to the Alley Theatre and with a branch down in Friendswood. The marriage of concepts is the product of a very common marriage in Roman Catholic parishes in much of the country, of the founders, Michael Horan and Shirley Gaudino, Irish- and Italian-Americans.
 
1974 – In their November issue, Texas Monthly reports that "Tony's [is]our nomination for the city's best restaurant… [with] trout Veronique… Chauteaubriand…. Souffle" as it advertises itself as serving the "Poetry of French Food."  Vallone's heart seems to remain with the vibrant culinary verse of Naples and environs, though.

1975 – Cajoled by Houston socialite Maxine Van Dusen, Sergio Ballatori, whose family had run a restaurant in Rome between the main train station and the Trevi Fountain for four decades, moves to the Bayou City to open Ballatori’s at 4215 Leeland in November in a recently occupied bank building east of downtown. Aptly aided by his wife, five children and parents, Ballatori features Roman and Italian dishes like saltimbocca alla Romana, the fresh pasta tonnarelli alla carbonara, and risotto alla Milanese along with sought-after tables set inside a spacious steel bank vault.
 
1976 – In January Star Pizza fires up its pizza oven for the first time. Its thick-crust pizzas – not really the Chicago-style deep dish as advertised – are arguably the best in the city at the time, and quickly become a favorite with the college-age customers.
 
1976 – The February issue of Texas Monthly decries that “it is disappointing that there is such a dearth of authentic offerings in the restaurants of Texas.” No kidding, though there was a dearth in most of the country then, too. The author goes on the write that “Dallasites have the best selection of good Italian restaurants in Texas,” and that “good food doesn’t seem to be a requisite for success in Houston.” The wine lists throughout also draw scorn, offering just Chianti and maybe Valpolicella, Bardolino and Soave. He does praise Renata’s at 2006 Lexington, which opened in 1974, and Matranga’s. The former is lauded for the “Chicken Renata stuffed with ham and cheese,” a dish found nowhere in Italy. He also mentions that Tony’s, which “can’t be called an Italian restaurant, does serve specialties like osso buco and the best veal piccata I’ve eaten.”
 
1976 – Jason’s Deli – founded in Beaumont, Texas in 1976 by a Sicilian-American, Joe Tortorice – eventually includes over fifteen Houston area locations. A noticeable part of its success is due to its version of the muffaletta, the sandwich invented in the French Quarter in New Orleans in 1906. The muffaletta takes its name from a somewhat unusual, dense type of loaf that originated in Piano degli Albanesi, a town home to a large ethnic Albanian community, which is about a dozen miles from the Sicilian capital of Palermo, where the bread also became quite popular.
 
1977 – Nash D’Amico – who had recently run an Italian restaurant in Huntsville, and helped significantly by his cousin Damian Mandola – opens “something new and exciting for Houston,” D’Amico’s at 2407 Westheimer east of Kirby. It is known for dishes like frutti di mare salad, fried calamari, and tortellini in a cream sauce. Several years later, still “one of the busiest restaurants in Houston,” Texas Monthly describes it as “the first sumptuous Italian restaurant in Texas.”
 
1977 – In a small house on W. Dallas – a few blocks west of an area once rife with Italian grocers – Vincent Mandola opens Nino’s, which will grow into a two-block compound over the years. Greatly inspired by the cooking of their mother, Grace, the three Mandola brothers, Vincent, Tony and Damian, will go on to open many of Houston’s most popular restaurants: Nino’s (Vincent), Tony Mandola’s Gulf Coast Kitchen (Tony), Damian’s (Damian), Carrabba’s (Damian), Vincent’s (Vincent), Pesce (Damian) and Pronto (Vincent).
 
1978 – Quaint Arno’s at 5212 Cedar in Bellaire is awarded a star by Texas Monthly in its roundup of restaurants, one of only four so accoladed in the Houston section. Praised in the magazine in the past for the “good taste to explore facets of Italian cuisines heretofore unknown in Houston,” with many Northern Italian-inspired offerings including house-made pastas, veal kidneys and pesto, one of the first here to serve it. Its known for its seafood from beyond the Gulf, including mussels, and for an appetizer of mushrooms caps stuffed with the minced stems, onion, cream cheese and dill, from a recipe in Gourmet. Whatever inconsistencies existed in the kitchen and service seemed to grow after a move to 4002 Montrose in the early 1980s and restaurant loses luster.  

1978 – Destined to become a favorite of astronauts and other NASA personnel, Frenchie’s in a dumpy strip center in Clear Lake opens by the Camera brothers from the island of Capri. Though misleading, the owners decide to keep the name of the previous establishment. Its counter service at lunch – and usually packed – while full service in the evening.
 
1978 – The faccia di vecchia dish served at Mandola’s Deli that opens near the University of Houston takes its name from its likeness to the gnarled face of an old woman. It is a version of the sfincione, a focaccia-esque dish from the Palermo area, the progenitor of the square Sicilian pizza.
 
1981 – Carmelo’s opens on Memorial near Dairy Ashford in west Houston. Carmelo Mauro, a native of the beautiful resort town of Taormina in Sicily, brings Continental-inflected and well-executed Italian-American dishes that quickly become a hit and expands to Austin in a few years, a city with a complete absence in decent Italian cooking, which I was to learn moving there a few years later.
 
1982 – In the March issue of Texas Monthly is an article about Italian dining in Texas. It lists D’Amico’s and Villani at 2907 West Alabama as two of the three best Italian restaurants in the state. The reviewer thought important to add that “it seems that Dallas doesn’t need any more Italian restaurants, it just needs a few good Italian cooks.”
 
1982 – Sonny Bono – an Italian-American singer like Tony Bennett, if without the talent – opens an Italian restaurant called Bono’s on Woodway between Post Oak and Sage. A branch of his West Hollywood original, it lasts for several years.
 
1982 – In the fall of this year Carlo Molinaro, a native of Verona, starts a quaint restaurant called La Trattoria on Westheimer just east of Voss. Serving broadly northern Italian trattoria classics along with American-friendly items like garlic bread, fettuccine Alfredo and cream-laden veal scaloppine, the restaurant is maddeningly inconsistent until its close at the end of 2010. Delighting regular patrons – including many ex-pats from Italy – it is too often indifferent in terms of both cooking and service.
 
1982 – Achille Epifani, originally from Taranto in the heel of Italy’s boot, opens Achille’s on Memorial between Wilcrest and Kirkwood. Having once cooked at the famed Giambelli’s on 50th in Manhattan – the first to have broken the $10 mark for a pasta dish in the country – he brings a customer-pleasing sense to his usually full-flavored preparations. It remains a neighborhood favorite for over fifteen years before Epifani decides to down-scale to a fast-casual operation and move west (to Eldgridge).
 
1983 – In the fall, John Flowers, originally from the Chicago area, opens Kenneally’s Irish Pub, a neighborhood Irish bar, on Shepherd north of Westheimer. It, surprisingly, serves pizza, excellent pizza – a cracker-thin-crust that’s cut into squares and vaguely Neapolitan in heritage. This was the original type of pizza served in Chicago, well before the advent of the deep-dish. Its pizza-maker trained at the acclaimed Vito & Nick’s in southwestern Chicago, a remaining bastion of this style. Though still open in 2023, the pizzas at Kenneally’s haven’t been that great in years.
 
1982 – Tony Mandola opens the self-named Gulf Coast Kitchen, his second restaurant at 1602 Shepherd. In early 1988 it moves to much nicer digs the River Oaks Shopping Center on West Gray. Best described as a regional seafood restaurant, it does serve some unique and popular items that combine Italian-American cooking with regional ingredients and flavors.
 
1982 – Antonio Mingalone, a native of Basilicata in southern Italy, opens Montesano at 6009 Beverly Hill, aptly near Richmond and Fountain View, as the restaurant features a fountain inside. Texas Monthly quickly took note and Montesano will improve and become one of the city’s top Italian restaurants with influences from around that country geared toward the local clientele.
 
1985 – Following up the popularity of D’Amico’s, Nash D’Amico’s Pasta & Clam Bar opens at 2421 in the heart of the Rice Village. Nicely tiled and adorned with glass bricks 80s-popular neons, the Italian-American offerings skew toward pastas and Gulf seafood and Texas Monthly commented that it “still draws the trendy crowd” a few years after opening. It lasts for a decade there expanding to the Galleria area, Galveston and Clear Lake.

1985 – In their April issue, Texas Monthly notes that, “Joe Matranga, Owner of Texas’ Best Spaghetti Joint, gives out free postcards of himself as a valiant Greek warrior impaled on a bloody spear,” something he has done for years – odd but eye-catching – in awarding it the Best Restaurant Postcard, a time when postcards printed by restaurants were a thing.
 
1985 – On Smith Street in what would be called Midtown, Damian, Frankie and Vincent Mandola along with Ciro Lampasas and Johnny Carrabba, Sr. open Damian’s in the fall serving more refined and better executed Italian-American cooking with a Gulf Coast touch. It is soon to become one of Houston’s best-loved restaurants.
 
1986 – Ciro Lampasas opens his eponymous restaurant, Ciro’s, on the north side of I-10 at Campbell that becomes a Spring Branch favorite.
 
1986 – Aldo Cantania opens La Strada on a dicey stretch of Westheimer in Montrose. The California-style Italian food never draws raves, but its wild Sunday brunch becomes an institution. A second location opens in 1996 in the Galleria area. A fire shutters the original in 2002. It reopens in 2004, but never regained its former popularity. Both are closed by spring 2009.
 
1986 – With proprietors Damian Mandola and his nephew Johnny Carrabba, Carrabba’s opens in the site of a former adult bookstore on Kirby north of Richmond in December and not far south from River Oaks. More casual than Damian’s, the most expensive item on the menu is $9 and the wine offerings number in the single digits. The robust, familiar southern Italian-American fare some nods to their Sicilian roots, attentive service and lively atmosphere quickly resonates with Houstonians and becoming a local favorite.
 
1987 – Backstreet Café’s Tracy Vaught invests in Prego, a failing restaurant in the Rice Village. It was one of the scores of restaurants nationwide that had used Wolfgang Puck’s Spago as its inspiration. The next year it becomes Italian-themed, more competent, and a favorite of the nearby soon-to-be-booming West University and Southampton neighborhoods.
 
1988 – In January, due to the phenomenal success of its Kirby original in the past year, Carrabba’s opens a second location near Briargrove on Voss near San Felipe.
 
1988 – Augie Vasquez, a native of Argentina who had worked with Nash D’Amico, opens Augie’s at 5901 Westheimer at Fountain View. Drawing on his Italian heritage and restaurant experience, he serves dishes found infrequently in Houston, including some of the over thirty pastas and an excellent version of mozzarella in carozza dished from an open kitchen. Though the Houston Chronicle’s review noted that “this is one of those rare Italian restaurants where the meat and fish dishes rival the pastas,” the restaurant does not last but a couple of years.
 
1988 – The November issue of Texas Monthly raves about Damian’s grilled quail on polenta and its “fettuccine in Alfredo sauce adorned with dandelions… [with] moist grilled boned chicken breast.”  It garners two stars (out of three) making it one of the top seven restaurants in the state according to the magazine.
 
1989 – Tony Vallone opens Neapolitan-spiced Grotto in January. The food is excellent; not really authentically Italian, but the execution and ingredients are top-notch. The flavors are properly distinct and vibrant, more so Italian, southern Italian, rather than typically Italian-American. The exuberant scene rivals the food. The restaurant is notable also for introducing to locals the Sardinian flatbread pane carasau as part of its copious complimentary bread basket and bellinis, that classic first concocted in the famed Harry’s Bar in Venice. Grotto is named one of the top new restaurants in the country by Esquire magazine in 1990.
 
1991 – On Lovett just off Montrose, Lynette Hawkins opens La Mora, occupying the spot of another Italian restaurant, Villa Borghese. Hawkins had lived in Florence and La Mora is the first of the area’s first Tuscan-themed restaurants that proves to strike a welcome cord among Houston diners.
 
1991 – Pino Luongo, the New York restaurateur that helped introduce and popularize Tuscan food in this country beginning in New York the 1980s, opens a restaurant in the Galleria near the pricey Barney’s spot in August. Texas Monthly wrote a few months later that, “the most sophisticated Houston Tuscan restaurant is the largely undiscovered Piccola Cucina.” Unfortunately, it remained that way and shuttered after a not-too-long tenure. It was probably the most truly Italian restaurant in Houston to that point.
 
1991 – Tony Vallone opens La Griglia on West Gray just east of River Oaks in the fall. Esquire names it a best new restaurant in the country soon after opening. Less Neapolitan and maybe less Italian than his Grotto, it is similarly boisterous and stylishly casual, and quickly becomes a place for socialites and politicians. The restaurant scene remarkably remains so, two decades, and a change of ownership later.
 
1992 – In January an unpretentious spot dedicated to well-prepared Neapolitan style pasta dishes and somewhat odd, but popular, baked casserole creations opens a corner of the Pennzoil Building downtown. Called Buca di Bacco until the chain Buca di Beppe paid owner Vittorio Preteroti, a native of the isle of Capri and related to the family that runs Frenchie’s, to change. So, it has been known as Perbacco for years.
 
1992 – The first area Romano’s Macaroni Grill from Brinker International opens at 5802 Westheimer and is a hit. The very quaffable jug wines sold on the honor is a big reason, helping it last for a couple of decades. The chain began in Leon Springs, outside of San Antonio, in 1988.
 
1992 – In December two chefs from the famous Cipriani Hotel in Venice open Torcello at 2300 Westheimer, east of Kirby. Taking the name of the island where the hotel is located, its Venetian-inspired cuisine – including Harry’s Bar classics – is some of the very best Italian food that has ever been served in Houston, and its interior wins a local design award. The restaurant lasts for about a year-and-a-half, closing in 1994. It could be the address as Armando's, Dish, Two Chefs Bistro, Beso, and most recently a’Bouzy – to name most of the ones which followed, most having abbreviated tenures.
 
1993 – In April Outback Steakhouse purchased a 50% stake in the cash flows of the two Carrabba's restaurants and entered into a 50-50 joint venture with the founders, Johnny Carrabba and Damian Mandola, to develop new locations. Houston’s version of Italian-American food and hospitality is poised to spread nationally. From soon after this, as most Houston restaurant-goers know, but it bears mentioning, the first two Carrabba’s locations – now just owned by Johnny Carrabba and family – are much better than the nationwide Carrabba’s Grill outposts.
 
1993 – The Leading Italian Restaurants of the United States by Gruppo Ristoranti Italiani, which promotes “the highest traditions of Italian cuisine” in this country, includes Tony’s, the only entry for a restaurant in Texas.
 
1993 – Del Vecchio Foods is founded in Houston and produces a line of fresh Italian sausages that can be found at Spec’s and not enough other local outlets. Its best product in 2023 might be its Spanish-style chorizo, actually.
 
1994 – Anthony’s reopens at 4007 Westheimer in Highland Village, though it is not as Italian as it once was. The oft-decadent Italian-scented veal dishes remain excellent, though.
 
1994 – Using a far cheaper and less competent designer than Anthony’s – the odd Il Dio di Vin’ opens on the 7600 block of the Katy Freeway. The stuccoed interior is meant to resemble a grotto setting, but harkens more to the caves described in the depressing Christ Stopped at Eboli. The menu is entirely in some southern Italian dialect – Neapolitan, I believe – and the food is a mix of Italian-American and Neapolitan dishes done a little differently. The wine is inexpensive; the food is moderately priced, robustly flavored and usually terrific, especially the pasta dishes.
 
1994 – Nearby, also on the Katy Freeway, Tony Mandola's Family Table. It served giant Italian-American dishes meant for several, and meant to be like “going to grandma's house for Sunday dinner,” provided she was first- or second-generation southern Italian or Sicilian. The concept did not work for Houston, and it changed into another Blue Oyster Bar, which remained until the freeway expansion chased it north.
 
1994 – If not quite new, at least renewed, Anthony’s is named a top new restaurant in the country by Esquire magazine in October.
 
1995 – In January, Johnny Carrabba and Damian Mandola purchased Outback’s shares in the original two Carrabba’s and modified the terms of the expansion agreement. The numerous Carrabba-named outlets grow to over 230 during the next fifteen years while the two initial locations remain amazingly popular.
 
1996 – Thai-born Somchai Rapesak who had cooked for La Strada for nearly a decade opens Crostini in a small house on Shepherd north of Westheimer early in the year. It grows to incorporate the then-trendy Southwestern ingredients and Thai flavors into American Italian cooking that works quite well. The restaurant has a successful dozen year run.
 
1996 – In March, two local Italian restaurant stars, Damian Mandola (Damian’s, Carrabba’s) and Lynette Hawkins (La Mora, Giacomo’s), marry, though the union doesn’t last.
 
1996 – Deep in the heat and humidity of August, Arcodoro opens in the Galleria area. The elegant spot quickly becomes regarded as one of the best Sardinian-focused restaurant in the country (not that there are too many). Its Seadas Al Miele dessert – puff pastry filled with sweetened cheese, fried and drizzled with bitter honey – is “perhaps the oldest dessert in the world” according to an Italian food authority.
 
1996 – Nash D’Amico opens D'Amico's Italian Market Café on Morningside in the Rice Village that is both a market and café, or restaurant more properly. The casual place, with red checkered tablecloths adorning tables near shelves filled with grocery items and featuring Italian-American favorites and popular restaurant items along with regional favorite, crawfish ravioli, quickly resonate with the neighborhood that misses his long-running place around the corner. It expands in 2011 to the Heights and 2013 to Katy, each for just a few years.

1996 – Villa Capri in Clear Lake – run by the family that owns nearby Frenchie’s – hosts the Italian head of state, President Oscar Luigi Scalfaro, who was visiting NASA.
 
1997 – In an April 11 review in the Houston Chronicle, Alex Truex writes, “Houston is blessed, but also cursed, by its plethora of upscale Italian restaurants,” proving definitively that he is no Robb Walsh or Alison Cook.
 
1997 – The restaurant with a bank vault run by a family from Rome, Ballatori’s, closes after a two decade run.
 
1998 – In April the Jay Leno on “The Tonight Show” pokes fun at the name of the Houston restaurant Crapitto’s located on Mid Lane near Highland Village. It is the last name of the owner, by the way.
 
1998 – In the summer of 1998 Aldo El Sharif of the extravagant Aldo's – along with Marco Wiles – opens a wine bar called Osteria D'Aldo at 301 Main downtown.
 
1998 – Husband and wife Bernand and Kathy Petronella open Paulie’s, named after their son, on Westheimer across from Lanier Middle School that serves a crowd-pleasing menu long on sandwiches, hot and cold, leafy salads, Italian-American dishes and cookies in a comfortable space done via counter-service. A second location on Holcombe opens and closes in the next decade and then Camerata, one of Houston’s most serious wine bars, in the space adjacent in 2013.
 
1998 – From two cousins born in Calabria and veterans of New York City pizzerias, Romano’s Pizza opens in a retail center on West Gray near Waugh. Serving Italian-American standards like manicotti, eggplant Parmesan and chicken Francese along with the pies all via gruff counter service, this becomes a favorite of transplants from the New York area looking for a taste of pizza they grew up with.
 
1998 – With skilled Alberto Baffoni a native of the Marche in central Italy manning the kitchen, Simposio opens on Richmond and Chimney Rock. It is named as one of the top new restaurants in the country by Esquire that fall, being praised by bringing to Houston “authentic Italian cooking.”  Simposio takes its name from the Michelin-starred Symposium restaurant in Carteceto, Marche where Baffoni had worked.
 
1999 – In July of 1999 the Houston Chronicle lauds La Griglia in a review, as “Marco Wiles brings glory back to the kitchen.” It is planned as a short time gig.
 
1999 – Arcodoro is awarded three stars out of four by famed Italian journalist Luigi Veronelli and his team in the The Best Italian Restaurants in America. Barely more than twenty other Italian restaurants in the country were rated as high.
 
1999 – Also that year, another Italian publication, the magazine La Cucina Italiana has a feature article about Tony Vallone citing him as one of the Southwest's best-known Italian-food gurus.
 
2000 –In January divino on West Alabama near Dunlavy opens. Though as much a wine bar at first – and a place with intelligently chosen and well-priced wines – it can probably lay claim to being Houston’s first trattoria. It serves basic, proficient cooking that aims for true Italian sensibilities, inspired from Emilia-Romagna.
 
2000 – In March Marco Wiles – who had worked locally for Tony Vallone, Antonio Mingalone and Aldo El Sharif – opens Da Marco, which sports an unusually all-Italian wine list, and is to become the most lauded Italian restaurant in Houston’s dining history.
 
2000 – Both Tony Vallone for Tony’s, and Alberto Baffoni of Simposio have recipes featured in John Mariani’s The Italian-American Cookbook published in 2000 that highlighted Italian-American standards and broadly Italian dishes from well-known chefs like Eric Ripert, Daniel Boulud and Ming Tsai. Vallone’s recipe is Capellini with Calamari and Shrimp (page 146); Baffoni’s is Potato Gnocchi with Wild Mushroom Ragù (page 196), “one of his masterful dishes” according to the author. Future Houston restaurateur Piero Selvaggio also has a recipe, Risotto with Corn (page 217).
  
2001 – Damian Mandola and Johnny Carrabba were asked to host the fourth season of the nationally syndicated PBS series “Cucina Amore.”   It spawns the cookbook, Ciao Y’All, possibly the closest tome that describes the Italian-themed cooking here. The hosts’ ebullient and irreverent style are such a hit they film two additional series featuring the cooking of Sicily and Tuscany – and companion cookbooks – in 2003 and 2004.
 
2001 – Just a year after it opens, talented sommelier Antonio Gianola joins Da Marco. He expands and greatly improves the all-Italian wine list to include a diverse, complementary and intriguing array of finds that help make the restaurant even more commendable. Gianola later goes on to Catalan as one of the opening partners helping to turn that into one of the city’s most exciting restaurants.
 
2001 – Nino’s (and Vincent’s, Grappino di Nino and later Pronto) Vincent Mandola is featured preparing his Veal Vincent on “Food Finds” on the Food Network.

2002 – In January the restaurant in the Four Seasons hotel downtown with talented Tim Keating heading the kitchen is rechristened from the well-regarded but stale French-themed DeVille into Quattro following a reported $3 million remodel, a contemporary Italian restaurant. Keating’s recent turn at the landmark Four Seasons property in Milan makes this one of the most authentic Italian kitchens in the city. Alison Cook writes a review in the Houston Chronicle a few months after opening that “it's the best place downtown by a long shot.”

2002 – Arcodoro’s Ravioli Arcodoro wins an international ravioli competition. Remaining on the menu throughout the restaurant’s tenure, these are good-sized ravioli filled with minced shrimps and scallops and wine must and finished with a flavorful seafood reduction.
 
2003 – Formerly just a wholesaler and a gelato maker to area restaurants, Nundini’s on N. Shepherd become known also as a retail import shop, sandwich purveyor and Houston’s first notable outlet for gelato and sorbetto.
 
2003 – In November Tilman Fertitta’s Landry Group purchases La Griglia and the two Grotto restaurants from Tony Vallone. That deal seems to stipulate that Vallone divest himself all but one restaurant. The Landry organization subsequently preserves these once interesting spots into amber, but these remain popular, if with a likely less discriminating group of patrons.
 
2004 – Amici Olive Oil, produced in Tuscany and owned by a Houstonian – begins distribution and is found at outlets like Spec’s and Leibman’s plus on-line.
 
2004 – Damian’s caters the All Star game held in Houston providing Italian food for Joe Torre and others while serving Caribbean-style food to the numerous Latin ballplayers on the American League roster.
 
2005 – Appropriately relocated to the former site of Maxim’s (once “the secure haven of the River Oaks plutocracy”) and featuring contemporary artwork from likes of the acclaimed Texas-bred artists Robert Rauschenberg and Jesus Moroles, Tony’s is named among the top new restaurants in the country by Esquire magazine. The French executive chef with the tough-to-pronounce Polish last name, Olivier Ciesielski, directs a kitchen staff that is capable of creating excellent Italian food.
 
2006 – In January Marco Wiles’ Dolce Vita opens on lower Westheimer. Seemingly using Mario Batali’s Otto in Manhattan as a template, Wiles goes far beyond that with his Italian-style pizzas fired in a wood-burning oven using a range of toppings inspired throughout the peninsula. It is easily the best pizzeria in Houston and encounters no serious contenders for years, if ever, before closing.
 
2006 – In Damian Mandola founds Mandola Family Winery south of Austin focusing on Italian varietals like Vermentino, Dolcetto and Montepulciano. TABC issues arising because of his ownership in dining or retail establishments – or a fallout with his partners according to another source – cause him to sell out to his partners. He still owns the attractive Trattoria Lisina dishing out pleasing Italian-American fare next door.
 
2006 – Gourmet Sardinia, an outlet for high quality Sardinian food products, is launched by Arcodoro’s owners Efisio and Lori Farris. The online shop offers artisanal products from Farris’ homeland that are quite different than those found in the typical Italian-American pantry. Bottarga, bitter honey and saba are a few of the high-end items that also include wine and olive oils.
 
2006 – The October edition of Gourmet listed Da Marco at number 29 among their list of top 50 restaurants in the country. Only three other Italians are placed higher – Babbo in New York, Vetri in Philadelphia, and Bartolotta di Mare in Las Vegas – not bad company, at all.
 
2007 – Sweet Myrtle & Bitter Honey: The Mediterranean Flavors of Sardinia from Efisio Farris of Arcodoro is published. It is likely the first Sardinian cookbook published in English. The New York Times listed it among “25 noteworthy cookbooks published in 2007.’’
 
2007 – Late in the year Ristorante Cavour opens in developer Giorgio Borlenghi’s posh Hotel Granduca. The executive chef is a Frenchman, David Denis, of the well-regarded Le Mistral on the west side. He infuses the flavors similar to his native Provence and Liguria to create a broadly northern Italian array of very well-crafted dishes. He proves that the French culinary tradition of stock-making marries well with Milanese-style risotto. For those that don’t know much about Italian history, the restaurant takes its moniker from Baron Cavour, one of the principal architects of Italian unification in 1861; the conquest of the Kingdom of Two Sicilies and its incorporation into the Turin-based Kingdom of Sardinia.
 
2008 – In an article entitled “The Best U.S. Italian Restaurants” in the April issue of Forbes Traveler, John Mariani names Tony’s among the top dozen or so Italian eateries in the country. He writes, “in its new location, Tony's plays to a younger crowd that comes for rigorously authentic Italian regional cuisine and great wines.”
 
2008 – Also in April, Andrea Pintus, the longtime chef at lower Heights-area Patrenalla’s, and a native of Sardinia, opens his own restaurant with business partner, Luigi Campioni, on Westheimer and Dairy Ashford. Called Andrea’s is serves approachable Italian and Italian-American dishes that are a very good value. Unfortunately, Pintus dies as the result of an accident in early 2011 at the age of 55.
 
2008 – In the heat of the summer, Russo’s Coal-Fired Pizzeria from the folks at the local New York Pizzeria chain opens in northwest Houston. Houstonians can get a taste of more pizzas cooked in the more traditional early New York and New Haven fashion. These are better than regular Russo's pies, but don't resonate that much with local pizza-lovers and eventually contract to one area location in Missouri City.
 
2009 – Sicilian Village located in Friendswood begins distributing packaged olives from Sicily. These are available initially at Spec’s, Amazon.com and now HEB and elsewhere along with at SicilianVillage.com.
 
2009 – Marco Wiles opens his third truly Italian restaurant along a short stretch of Westheimer, Poscol, in March. It takes its name from the term in dialect used for a main thoroughfare (Via Poscolle) in the northeastern Italian city of Udine, the hometown of Wiles’ family. Featuring small plates and inspiration largely from Veneto and Friuli, it sports another well-chosen all-Italian wine list.
 
2009 – In September Houston hosts its first Italian Expo produced to highlight products from Italy. It is a boon to wine lovers, maybe too much so. Chicago is the only other city to host a similar event.
 
2009 – Lynette Hawkins, who ran the beloved La Mora, gets back into the game in September with her Tuscan- and  Venetian-inspired small plate spot Giacomo’s on Westheimer west of Kirby. From the start, it features a very well-chosen and well-priced all-Italian wine list that seems to cover every corner of that country. It evolves to become one of the city's most reliable and best-value dining destinations, regardless of cuisine.
 
2009 – Legendary restaurateur Piero Selvaggio – whose Santa Monica eatery Valentino was long regarded as the best Italian restaurant in the country – opens his third branch in Houston’s modern Hotel Derek near the Galleria. The restaurant is a new concept for Houston, an Italian ambition and credibility previously found elsewhere in this country just in New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Las Vegas and one spot in Philadelphia. A veteran of Valentino’s Las Vegas operation, the talented Cunninghame West heads the kitchen here, doing an excellent job with an approachable version of Selvaggio’s inspired takes on pan-Italian alta cucina. James Beard Award-winning chef Luciano Pellegrini occasionally comes to town from Sin City to aid with special dinners for some added culinary power. Texas Monthly names it and Poscol on its list of best restaurants to open in the state that year.
 
2009 – Stella Sola by one of the city’s top toques, Bryan Caswell, along with partner Bill Floyd opens in the Heights in November 2009. Influenced by the meaty robustness of some northern Italian cooking, its name translates to “Lone Star” (or “Lonely Star”) in English. One of Caswell’s early cooking stints was at Damian’s. He later cooked with the talented Rocco DiSpirito well before DiSpirito’s televised Italian-American restaurant nightmare, “The Restaurant” in 2003.
 
2010 – In January, Sardinian Nico Chessa, the former chef at Arcodoro, is named executive chef of Valentino’s flagship Santa Monica location after heading one of its Las Vegas restaurants for several years. This provides some confirmation about the quality of the kitchen at Arcodoro over the years.
 
2010 – In April, Tuscan Renato De Pirro, an alumnus of Pierro Selvaggio’s Las Vegas restaurants and previously the executive chef at Osteria del Circo, the Maccioni’s family refined and well-regarded trattoria in the Bellagio Hotel and Casino, takes over the kitchen at Ristorante Cavour, bringing a more properly Italian taste to the menu at this upscale establishment.
 
2010 – Ciao Bello, another Vallone enterprise that had opened a year earlier in a space once occupied by La Strada on San Felipe, is named among “11 More Restaurants You Don't Want to Miss” by Esquire in 2010. It will become known for its zesty flavors among Roman-style thin-crust pizzas, pastas, Gulf-oriented seafood and meaty Italian-American-inflected preparations in an attractively casual and comfortable but very stylish setting that has long been a Vallone signature. Also in 2010, Vallone’s Caffe Bello takes over the original address of La Strada in Montrose, but struggles for traction in an evolving neighborhood.
 
2010 – Maurizio Ferrarese moves from a Four Seasons property in Florence to head the kitchen at Quattro, which had become less interesting after Tim Keating’s departure in 2005. The restaurant will reach new heights under Ferrarese.
 
2010 – In December Amici in Sugar Land closes. It seems competition from a recently opened Olive Garden nearby might have played a factor. This does not reflect well on Fort Bend residents.

2011 – Pizaro's opens in a strip center on Memorial in west Houston serving Neapolitan style pizza, the most truly Neapolitan that Houston has thus seen. Proprietor Bill Hutchinson puts his “Verace Pizza Napoletana” certification as a pizzaiolo to good use, and the bare-bones spots draws customers from around the area including a number of Italian ex-pats.
 
2011 – In an area deficient in quality fresh Italian sausage, you can purchase it at the two Carrabba's owned by the family, though you will likely have to call ahead. The piquant, flavorful sausage is made by Johnny Carrabba, Sr., and unusual for Italian sausage elsewhere, but consistent with Texas, it contains a fair portion of beef.
 
2012 – Valentino, likely the best Italian restaurant that ever was in Houston, cannot overcome the very difficult location in the Hotel Derek that is a curse on restaurants and shutters. A shame, as proprietor Piero Selvaggio never got to do all he wanted to with the restaurant including becoming more adventurous with the offerings and expanding its wine list to at least a substantial of his Santa Monica original that has one of top handful of wine lists in the country
 
2014 – Inspired by the Italian heritage of executive chef Ryan Pera, Coltivare opens in January on White Oak in the Heights offering seasonal American-Italian fare including distinctively bready pizzas along with pastas and larger preparations in a casual, no reservations setting that seduces most local food critics.
 
2014 – Giancarlo Ferrara, the executive chef at Arcodoro for over a decade, opens Amalfi on Westheimer west of the Galleria in the same strip center as The Palm. Highlighting the dishes and flavors of his native Salerno, down the coast from Naples, that should be familiar to most American diners along with some items and techniques from his stops in the Veneto and at a French restaurant bearing two Michelin stars, the restaurant quickly becomes one of the top Italians in the city.
 
2015 – Now sporting the descriptive phrase, “Naples Influenced. Milan Inspired. Houston Cherished,” Tony’s celebrates its fiftieth year in business.
 
2015 – Pizaro's opens a second location on Montrose and West Gray. It later expands its menu to include New York style and Detroit style pizzas. The latter, a version of the Sicilian pan pizza created in Detroit soon after the Second World War, has been trendy addition to pizza joint menus across the country.

2016 – Lira Rossa, a dairy in Moulton, about two hours due west of Houston, is founded, producing excellent Italian-style cow's milk cheeses in the style of those from Friuli where principal Andrea Cudin is from and elsewhere like mozzarella. Sold at the big Urban Farmers Market on Saturdays, the cheeses find a home at many of the city's best restaurants.

2017 – Across the street from the ballpark, Astros owner opens Potente, an upscale, expensive Italian-themed restaurant that eventually gets the skilled Danny Trace who was the executive chef at Brennan’s, and at the estimable Commander's Palace in New Orleans before that. The 'Stros also win their first World Series title in the fall, coincidentally.
 
2017 – Chef Mark Cox of Mark's fame begins consulting at Fratelli's, an Italian-American restaurant in Spring Branch that began as a franchised offshoot of the original Fratelli's on 290. His work improves the food and the restaurant's profile, which becomes a favorite of an older set of west Houston customers.

2017 – After 36 years in business, Carmelo’s closes after Christmas brunch. Owner Carmelo Mauro, a steadfast member of the Houston restaurant community was both the former president of both the Texas Restaurant Association and the Greater Houston Restaurant Association.
 
2018 – Arcodoro, the upscale Sardinian restaurant in the Galleria that drew loyal patronage from ex-pat Italians and other Europeans closes in February after nearly two decades in business.
 
2018 – In a strip center along lowest Westheimer, La Sicilia opens in March from a pastry chef originally from Sciacca on Sicily’s southwestern coast serving beautiful pastries including cannoli, of course, and also afternoon savories like sandwiches on cornettos and focaccias.
 
2018 – In April, after a very brief visit here, the Italian wine and food publication Gambero Rosso names Amalfi as the best fine dining Italian restaurant in Houston, Sud Italia, with Maurizio Ferrarese in the kitchen, as tops for traditional cuisine, the Dallas-based chain Cane Rosso for pizza (quite surprisingly, and maybe a bit grudgingly according to the person I spoke with at Gambero Rosso), and Poscol for having the best wine program among local Italian restaurants.
 
2018 – In July, J.J. Watt asked his 5 million-plus followers on Twitter for the best Italian restaurant in Houston. The clear favorite of the 2,000 or so respondents was, very oddly and depressingly, Olive Garden, of which there are over twenty locations in the Houston area, which is also depressing to learn.
 
2018 – Tanglewood’s neighborhood Italian restaurant from Tony Vallone, Ciao Bello, closes rather suddenly in August, a couple of weeks after sibling steakhouse Vallone’s does so in Spring Branch.
 
2018 – In November, chef Maurizio Ferrarese, a native of Vercelli, the rice-growing area in Piedmont, veteran of kitchens throughout Italy, and who won deserved plaudits at Quattro and Sud Italia, is hired to take over the kitchen at Ristorante Cavour.

2019 – Rosie Cannonball, the second of five planned concepts, four serving food, to open in a very smart and neat complex in the heart of Westheimer’s restaurant row directly across the street from the estimable UB Preserv, it is essentially an Italian restaurant with a more than a few nods to the Iberian peninsula on the initially short menu, which includes probably the smallest plates of pasta ever seen locally outside of a child’s menu. The crowd-pleasing dishes done well and stylish space made it an attractive stop for the ladies who lunch and a busy spot at night. In November 2022, it is the seen of a reportedly raucous early morning party celebrating the Astros victory in the World Series after the clinching Game 6 for Justin Verlander and his wife Kate Upton, who are regular diners and friends of the owners.

2020 – Patrenella's near Waugh north of Memorial, closed after nearly three decades in business. Set partially in the house where owner Sammy Patrenella grew up, this was a favorite of many, including those who get there quickly from downtown for lunch, for its approachable, comforting Italian-American dishes, even after the departure of Chef Andrea Pintus.

2020 – In the first summer of the pandemic, Fiori opens on Montrose near Richmond in the two-floor space once occupied by Brasserie Max & Julie, Artisans and several others. Meaning “flowers” in Italian, this is also, oddly, a floral boutique. With owners from Rome, the menu features the trio of classic Roman pastas plus a number of other popular dishes throughout from local chef Marcos Salazar. The saucing of pastas, significant, plays to the American expectations, though annoying patrons from Italy.

2020 – Vincent Mandola of Nino’s, Vincent’s and Pronto, and the Mandola clan of local restaurateurs, passes away at age 77. His restaurants remain open and family-run.
 
2020 – In an effort to negotiate the adverse business dynamics of the pandemic, Roma, the former Sud Italia at the edge of the Rice Village, began to host virtual wine dinners over Zoom on a weekly basis with a three-course dinner cooked by its chef from the Marche region in central Italy and paired with three wines, typically from a single Italian winery, all picked up at the restaurant just before the event. Featuring representatives from the wineries who are located in Italy but speaking English and moderated by Jeremy Parzen, a local who is also one of the region’s leading Italian wine experts, these became quite popular, with attendance regularly exceeding seventy participants.
 
2020 – Tony Vallone dies in September at the age of 75. The city’s most famous restaurateur and proprietor of Tony’s, along with Anthony’s, Caffé Bello, Ciao Bello, Grotto, La Griglia, Vallone’s, and Los Tonyos over the years, Vallone’s restaurants, especially Tony’s, garnered national acclaim and continued attention across the decades, and greatly raised the quality of dining in Houston and Italian-themed fare, in particular. His restaurants exhibited a well-known cosseting of customers and terrific sense of design style in addition to its culinary highlights. Tony’s, opened since 1965 in three locations, carries on with his widow Donna Vallone.
 
2020 – In the fall, Marco Wiles finally closed his acclaimed pizzeria Dolce Vita on lower Westheimer. Not due to the pandemic, Wiles announced he wanted to focus on his other two restaurants down the street, Poscol and Da Marco as he passed his sixtieth birthday.
 
2020 – Chef Travis McShane returned home to Houston after about a decade working for acclaimed New York chef and restaurateur – and an originator of California cuisine in the early 1980s – Jonathon Waxman that included stints at the Italian-esque Barbuto and then as the corporate chef, with Ostia in a long-empty space on Dunlavy in Montrose, opening finally in October. Featuring recognizably Mediterranean ingredients and preparations, most of the menu is Italian-inspired with bold notes, including very well-done pizzas from a wood-burning oven, seemingly well-suited for the city from a very experienced hand.
 
2020 – The folks behind the terrific contemporary bistro Nancy’s Hustle opened Tiny Champions after Thanksgiving, also in EaDo and also with an odd name. Focusing on Italian-inspired but distinctive pizzas and house-made fresh pastas, the team of Sean Jensen and baking-loving chef Jason Vaughan have introduced a much-needed top-notch new pizzeria to a pizza-deficient city.

2021 – With an emphasis on the cooking of the beautiful region of the Marche, from where the owners and chefs hail, Concura in Highland Village joins the handful of truly Italian restaurants in Houston. Small inside with a décor that blends contemporary and rustic notes in plenty of black and dark gray and a distinct Eurotrash feel, but with an attractive open kitchen that feels like a newer restaurant in Italy, as does its outdoor seating along a sidewalk. It repurposes to Dante’s in 2023 with new ownership and a new chef becoming somewhat less Italian and much less interesting but with a brighter, more inviting setting.

2021 – In September, Fresco! in a strip center on the Southwest Freeway near Kirby and its chef Roberto Crescini, originally from near Lake Garda, are featured on an episode of Guy Fieri's Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives where he makes fresh pasta, guanciale, and spaghetti alla carbona and taglietelle with lamb. Another good choice from Fieri for Houston, where he has rarely made a misstep in selections for his show. Fresco!, however, closes early the next year.

2021 – Alba, the new concept at the Hotel Granduca replacing Ristorante Cavour features an updated rich, plush, green-hued setting, but thankfully has the old chef, Maurizio Ferrarese, who might be the top Italian toque in Texas and some ways beyond. Terrific with fresh pastas and gnocchi, there is certainly no area chef that does a better job with risotto that’s on the menu a couple of times, befitting one from Vercelli that's not terribly far from the town of Alba and is the European capital of rice production.

2021 – Before the close of the year, husband and wife, Christina and Alfredo Mojica, veterans of Da Marco, open up Amore in the sliver of a space on Shepherd Drive that housed Maine-ly Sandwiches. Even with the never-ending roadway construction in front, the restaurant quickly draws patrons of nearby Da Marco for cooking that is very familiar. Well-done pizzas from a golden-tiled oven complement the usually hearty Italian preparations that ignore the seasons, except for those of truffles.

2022 - An outlet of the acclaimed Brooklyn pizza joint, Roberta's, opens in the food court that is the dining section of the Post Market in the northwest corner of downtown, finally in the spring. Joining several other cities in this now mini-chain, the Neapolitan-influenced, minimalist thin-crust pies live up to the hype and are what quality pizzeria-deficient Houston needs. Unfortunately, it closes suddenly in July 2023.

2022 - Chef Roberto Crescini is nicely not away very long as his essentially reprises Fresco! in a better location and a much nicer setting as Davanti near Greenway Plaza, if now costing a few more lire. Still counter-service, the menu is about the same as are the pastas made also with hard durum wheat for a more toothsome texture and the ability to be extruded. It also continues the American consumer-friendly mix and match of pasta shapes and sauces, and its tasty take on the Roman pizza al taglio. House-made sausages and occasional salumi reflect his training, too, as a norcino.

2022 – At the end of July, the family of Vincent Mandola close the rest of the restaurants in the compound on W. Dallas street where service began forty-five years earlier following the family's sale of the two-and-a-half acres of property where the restaurants sat. Nino's, Vincent's, Grappino di Nino and the little kiosk for gelato shutter. All of the casual, counter-service Pronto locations had closed earlier. Long-popular bastions for familiar Italian-American fare studded with Italy-inspired items like osso buco and fettuccine Alfredo along the way plus the not-so-Italian rotisserie chicken at Vincent's.
 
2022 – A couple Italian restaurants created with considerable expensive open in the Galleria area and on West Gray near River Oaks, Il Bracco and Zanti, from out of town restaurant concerns. From the Dallas area and Mexico, respectively, these are pricy, pretty and dull, and don’t enthrall too many discerning diners. Both are part of a trend of non-chef-driven multi-unit Italian concepts – margins are amazing on cacio e pepe, after all. Il Bracco is what you would expect from an Italian-themed restaurant birthed in the Park Cities of Dallas.
 
2023 – VinSanto, a smart wine bar and bottle shop with a strong Italian accent and sensibility, opens in west Houston on Memorial west of Gessner in January from Riccardo Guerrieri and Giorgio Caflisch, two local wine pros. Guerrieri, from Umbria, ran the similar Vinology on Bissonnet and Caflisch teaches Italian wine at the Texas Wine School. The casual menu, necessarily well-suited for the wines, includes oval-shaped pinsas, a Roman flatbread.
 
2023 – In May in the upscale River Oaks District center, Bari opens with the experienced Renato De Pirro heading the kitchen. The beautiful, brass-hued interior features tall ceilings and a long space for 150 that is large but surprisingly intimate plus seating for an additional hundred on the patio. Quickly popular with a noticeably expensively-attired and -coiffed crowd, the serious kitchen highlights popular, attractively plated pan-Italian trattoria fare, along with pizza, made very well and mostly with excellent foodstuffs imported from Italy. This is the best Italian restaurant to open in Houston since Alba and quickly one of the city's top Italians.
 
2023 – Elro, a slightly odd but terrific “pizzeria and crudo bar,” from Terrance Gallivan, who was one of the principals at the acclaimed Pass & Provisions, opens in June. In a big city with a deficit of quality pizzerias, the admirable individually sized pizzas are a start and a draw for many. Before arriving in Houston a decade earlier, Gallivan worked kitchens at acclaimed Italian restaurants in Manhattan that had three stars (out of four) from The New York Times, Fiamma and Alto, the last where he was executive chef. There’s noticeable Italian subtext throughout, Italian done well. The succinct, nicely chosen wine list is nearly entirely Italian, too.
 
2023 – In the summer, Nonno’s from Martin and Sara Stayer of well-regarded Nobie’s nearby is a new pizzeria offering its take on Chicago’s tavern-style pizza, Chicago’s original style, one that Houstonians might be familiar with from long-standing Kenneally’s. Thin-crust and cut into squares, its even easier to raise a drink while eating than the typical slice of pizza. Though the pizzas soon after opening aren’t at the level of Kenneally’s its heyday, Nonno’s enticing, Italian-laden wine list is much better as are its fun cocktails.



I’ve got to add that through a coincidence of fate, I was born in the Italian North Beach neighborhood of San Francisco and afterwards belonged to the same parish in Bergen County, New Jersey as the mother of Frank Sinatra, whom I was told reliably purchased kegs for church functions. A very long-time Houstonian, I was the local editor for the Zagat Survey for several years until Google did away with those positions and, possibly more pertinently, is the author of the ebook From the Antipasto to the Zabaglione: The Story of Italian Restaurants in America that is available on Amazon.

An enticing pasta preparation at the new Bari

I arrived uncharacteristically fifteen minutes early for dinner yesterday with my family at Palinuro, an Italian restaurant my brother and sister-in-law like near their house in Cinco Ranch, and so had ample time to peruse the short, simple wine list. Looking for a glass then I thought a bottle of white wine to start, as it was hot outside and we were six adults, I did a double-take when I saw Pieropan La Rocca for just $65 in the two-page booklet that was filled with mostly uninteresting choices. This Soave is a terrific wine and consistently one of Italy’s most acclaimed whites.
 
Made with entirely with Garganega grown in a single vineyard with clay and limestone soils, fermented in wood and aged for around fifteen months in 500-liter tonneaux, La Rocca offers a different, more deeply flavored expression of Soave. These are serious wines.
 
Though not indicated on the list, it turned out to be the 2021 vintage, which James Suckling gave 95 points. It was delicious. A bit of fruit on the nose and a taste that was easy and savory and very long-lasting, with a mouth-filling body. The wine worked well before dinner and throughout, especially with my very enjoyable, sturdy house-made ravioli filled with lobster and served in a light tomato, cream and crab sauce. We went through three bottles of La Rocca by the end of the meal.
 
Certainly a surprise to find it on Palinuro’s list – I keep my eye out for Pieropan having visited its dramatic new winery last summer – what was also unexpected was its price. You can find La Rocca at Total Wine for $38 now, which is almost ten dollars cheaper than elsewhere. Using the rule of thumb of a 200% to 300% markup over retail, most restaurants would price this from between $90 to $150, and it would certainly be fair.
 
I’ll wager that you won’t find a wine as good at any Houston restaurant as Pieropan La Rocca at Palinuro.

“Elro is a neighborhood pizzeria and crudo bar located in a bungalow house at the confluence of the Montrose and Midtown neighborhoods” proclaims its website, quite accurately. One might think at the outset that a “pizzeria and crudo bar” is an odd thing, but unpretentious Elro makes terrific sense, and it’s been a wonderful addition to the local dining scene since opening in June and that’s even before the fairly prominent patio can be of a full use during this even-more-brutal-than-usual summer.
 
This is largely because its headed Terrance Gallivan, who was one of the principals at the acclaimed Pass & Provisions once nearby – in the space now housing Bludorn – that turned out some good pizzas among its many adept preparations. The pizzas here are different than what I remember from Provisions, but superb. Better, in fact. It begins with the crust, of course, the platform for each of the individually sized pizzas. These are puffy, with a slightly raised crown at its edges and a bottom that is nicely charred even though cooked in a gas oven. The crusts are light and flavorful throughout, with a welcome fresh taste that is delicious to the last bite, something that’s not true for most pizzas. These have had the nimbleness and similar quality to a number of top-notch pizzas I had in Italy last summer, if in a different style from those.
 
The pizzas come in a choice among a half-dozen intelligent and enticing topping combinations. The minimalist Mozzarella, also with tomato sauce and basil leaves, is its version of the classic margherita that’s an easy order. The Guanciale featuring thin slices of that cured pork jowl complemented by plenty of caramelized red onions and black pepper is another star. Another one is the seemingly popular Chorizo that’s a bit of a taste of Spain, with the Spanish sausage, Mahon cheese and piquillo peppers all under a bed of bitter arugula. There’s one centered around smoked mushrooms, and another with tomatoes both sliced and sauced with Calabrian chiles. It’s tough to go wrong with any of the six options, though the Mortadella, with vinegared onions and a pistachio pesto, mozzarella and tomato sauce was wetter than it should have been on a recent visit, though still very enjoyable.
 
In a big city with a deficit of quality pizzerias, the terrific pizzas are a start and a draw for many, but this, a smart, comfy place will appeal to frequent diners even when not in the mood for pizza. The cooling crudos are mostly seafood including East Coast oysters on the half-shell and four appealing and unique combinations: tuna with pistachio and ‘nduja spice; smoked kampachi with pumpkin seeds and a Japanese flavors; snapper with pickled mangos, olives and chile peppers; and the Italian mint nepitella-cured salmon with apples and hazelnut. And also a take on steak tartare, a dish that has become more commonly seen here again.
 
The third section of the succinct main menu, Starters, have proven to be useful complements to the pizzas on many tables, a gorgeous Caesar salad, spicy cucumbers, arancini, and sausage done saltimbocca-style with prosciutto and sage. It also has the one sandwich, The Hoagie, a New York-inspired sub with the Philly name, charmingly arrives wrapped in paper, cut in half and served on a small plate. It’s mortadella, spicy hot coppa, slices of provolone and pickled vegetables, with the liquid seeping into the fresh and terrific house-made bun that’s densely topped with sesame seeds. It’s the best sandwich I’ve had in the while, and making for a near-perfect lunch the other weekday. There’s also a trio of desserts, if you’ve got room, takes on tiramisu and panna cotta along with a very fun, chocolate-shelled soft serve.
 
Near where Montrose blends into Midtown and just a block or so from Cuchara and where Fairview’s lane widen and then double in number and turn into Tuam – be careful when crossing the street from its parking lot – the small L-shaped interior with banquettes, small tables and a bar area is filled with tight spaces, but the vibe is definitely comfortable, but more. There’s a greenish hue to the place and amusing wallpaper festooned with silhouettes of jumping rabbits, swallows, turtles and butterflies amidst dangling vines. Quaint and attractive.
 
You can enjoy yourself here without even partaking in the output of its serious kitchen. There’s a full bar and an earnest cocktail program led by a slew of house creations all bearing the name of a Springsteen song. The wine program is Italian-heavy and very food friendly. Of the almost thirty wines, two dozen are Italian including a half-dozen from Piedmont, four Nebbiolos and a Sauvignon from the Collio There is even the current vintage of the usually good, Ampeleia Unlitro, a tart, Grenache-heavy blend from the Tuscan coast that pleasingly comes with a third more wine than the typical bottling. Most bottles are priced in the $50 to $60 range with nothing reaching three digits, something welcome these days. There’s also some choices of amaro if you’ve happened to eat too many slices of pizza.
 
There’s noticeable Italian subtext throughout, Italian done well. In addition to the pizzas and pastas Gallivan once created at Pass & Provisions, he worked kitchens at acclaimed Italian restaurants in Manhattan that had three stars (out of four) from The New York Times, Fiamma and Alto, following in the shoes of top chefs Scott Conant and then Michael White in heading the kitchen of the latter. The New York roots are evident, too. If you look hard, you can spot a small figurine of Don Mattingly that’s mounted in a place of honor in a case at the end of the bar.
 
Elro is an easy place to like, especially if you like good pizza, that’s bound to be even more likeable once food and drink can comfortably be consumed in its outside.
 
Elro
2405 Genesee (at Fairview), 77006
elrohtx.com

The Guanciale pizza at Elro

As someone with a keen interest in the history of Italian restaurants in this country – and history, generally – I happened to be curious yesterday about how demographics likely affected the location, density or paucity of Italian restaurants around the country after the Second World War, when dining out became more popular with a growing and more prosperous population.
 
I was quickly able to find what I was looking for with the 1950 census in a report about those who were born abroad or who had at least one parent who was foreign born. Then, there were 4.6 million American residents who listed as from Italy, then second highest country of origin, just behind Germany’s 4.7 million with the most people of “foreign white stock,” as the Bureau of Census phrased it back then.
 
Italian restaurants midcentury were where the Italians were, both those born in Italy and their offspring. These were the people then running Italian restaurants. The twenty cities with the most Italians in 1950 were:
 

• New York – 684,865
• Chicago – 116,595
• Philadelphia – 115,205
• Boston – 53,335
• Newark – 49,275
• Detroit – 43,580
• Buffalo – 36,615
• Rochester, NY – 34,555
• Providence – 34,370
• San Francisco – 32,960
• Cleveland – 32,340
• Pittsburgh – 31,635
• Los Angeles – 31,185
• Jersey City – 27,950
• New Haven – 26,290
• Baltimore – 16,795
• Waterbury, CT – 16,090
• Syracuse – 15,650
• New Orleans – 15,340
• Hartford, CT – 14,570

 
This might not be too surprising, but I found it interesting. These are the cities that have among the deepest Italian-rooted dining traditions.

Charles Ruggiero, clerk in a grocery store in New York's Italian section, wishes the handful of spaghetti he is breaking were Mussolini's neck. July 1942; Library of Congress

Since today, August 21, would have been the 71st birthday of Joe Strummer, the legendary frontman for The Clash, I thought it would be appropriate to post a passage from the terrific, infectious "Bhindi Bhagee" by Strummer and his band the Mescaleros from 2001, about eating in London’s eclectic, ethnic neighborhoods, which is easily relatable to our at-least-as-diverse and also very vibrant dining landscape:
 
Well, I was walking down the highroad,
And this guy stops me,
He’d just got in from New Zealand,
And he was looking for mushy peas
I said, “no, we hadn’t really got them ‘round here
I said, but we do got…
Balti, Bhindi, strictly Hindi,
Dal, halal, and I’m walking down the road,
We got rocksoul, okra, Bombay duck-ra,
Shrimp bean sprout, comes with or without,
Bagels soft, or simply harder,
Exotic avocado or toxic empanada,
We got ackee, lassi, Somali waccy baccy,
I’m sure back home you know what tikka’s all about…
Welcome stranger…to the humble neighborhoods,
You can get inspiration on the highroad,
Hommus, cous cous, in the jus of octopus,
Pastrami and salami and lasagne on the go,
Welcome stranger, there’s no danger
Welcome to this humble neighborhood…”
 
Not that we have any highroads in Houston, nor hills, much less too many pedestrians or mushy peas on menus, though there are some New Zealanders (and an Humble).  As fun as it is to dine globally and (somewhat) affordably in and around London, I believe that we have it better here in Houston, at least for my palate; good Mexican and Tex-Mex food is a little more prevalent, for starters.
 
The lyrics are reprinted courtesy of the band’s label, Epitaph Europe, or at least it gave me permission a number of years ago when I asked to use it for the last edition of my Houston Dining on the Cheap.

As someone who dines out very frequently, maybe too frequently, and having a desire to try new places or revisit ones that I haven’t been in a while, I often have to check if a particular restaurant is open during those times when many might be closed: Saturday for lunch; Sunday for dinner; Monday lunch and Monday dinner.  So, I put together a list of Houston restaurants – notable and not – about 750 different locations in all, highlighting whether or not each is open during those times.
 
It might be useful.
 
The restaurants are listed alphabetical within each letter.
 
# – 100% Taquito,  51Fifteen
 
A – a'Bouzy,  Acme Oyster House,  Aga's,  Aiko,  Al Aseel,  Aladdin (both locations),  Alice Blue,  Al's Quick Stop (both locations),  Ambrosia,  Amore,  Andes Café (Post Market),  Andiron,  Armandos,  Artisans,  Avesta Persian Grill,  Azuma
 
B – B&B Butchers,  B.B. Lemon,  B.B. Italia,  Baguette and Tea (Montrose),  Banana Leaf,  Bari,  Barnaby's (Fountainview),  Barnaby's (Heights),  Barnaby's (Midtown),  Barnaby's (Montrose),  Barnaby's (Museum District),  Barnaby's (River Oaks),  Barnaby's (Spring Branch),  Bayou City Seafood & Pasta,  BB's (all locations),  BCN,  Becks Prime (all locations but Downtown),  Benny Chows,  Better Luck Tomorrow,  Bijan,  Birraporetti's (both locations),  Bistro Le Cep,  Black Walnut Café (all locations),  Blind Goat,   Bloom & Bee,  Bludorn,  Blue Nile,  Blue Onyx,   Boheme,  Bori,  Bosscat,  Brasil,  Brasserie 19,  Brasserie du Parc,  Brenner's (both locations),
 
C –  Cadillac Bar,  Café Express (all locations),  Café Lili,  Café Piquet,  Cali,  Candente,  Cantina Barba,  Capital Grille (both locations),  Carrabba's (Kirby),  Carrabba's (Voss),  Chama Gaucha,  Chavez,  ChopnBlok (Post Market),  Christian's Tailgate (all locations),  Churrascos (all locations),  Chuy's (all locations)  Ciro's,  Coltivare,  Common Bond (19th Street),  Common Bond (Dunlavy),  Cooking Girl (all locations),  Coppa,  Craft Pita (both locations),  Crawfish & Noodles (Chinatown),  Crisp,  Cultivated
 
D – Da Gama,  Dak & Bop,   D'Amico's,  Darband Shihkabob,  Davanti,  Del Frisco's,  Diana Grill,   Dimassi's Mediterranean Buffet,  Dish Society (Heights),  Dish Society (Katy),  Dish Society (Memorial),  Doris Metropolitan,  Duck N Bao (both locations)
 
E – East Side King (Post Market),  Eddie V's (both locations),  Eight Row Flint (both locations),  El Big Bad,  El Charro Bar & Grill,  El Meson,  El Patio,  El Rey (all locations),  El Tiempo (all locations),  Eloise Nichols,  Ember & Greens,  Empire Café,  Empire Turkish Grill,  Escalante's (all locations),  Etoile,  Eugene's,  Eunice
 
F – Fadi's (all locations),  Fat Bao,  Federal Grill (all locations),  Fields & Tides,  Figo Sugo (Bravery Chef Hall),  Fiore,  Fleming's (all locations),  Flora,  FM Kitchen,  Fogo de Chau,  Fratelli's,  Fuad's,  Fufu Café
 
G – Gen Korean BBQ (both locations),  Georgia James,  Golfstrømmen (Post Market),  Good Dog,  Goode Co. BBQ (all locations),  Goode Co. Cantina (all locations),  Goode Co. Seafood (both locations),  Goode Co. Taqueria,  Gorditas Aguascalientes (both locations),  Govinda's,  Grace's,  Graffiti Raw,  Grimaldi's (all locations),  Grotto (both locations),  Guadalajara (all locations),  Gus's Famous Fried Chicken (both locations)
 
H – Hai Cang Harbor,  Handie's Douzo (both locations),  Hando,  Harold's in the Heights,  Hawker Street Food (Post Market),  Hearsay (all locations),  Hem,  Henderson & Kane,  Hillstone,  Hobbit Café,  Home Slice Pizza,  Hughie's (both locations),  Hu's Cooking,  Huynh
 
I – India's,  Irma's Southwest
 
J – Jasmine,  Joey Uptown,  Jonathan's The Rub (both locations,  Josephine's,  Jun
 
K – Karbach Brewing and Restaurant,  Karne,  Kasra,  Kata Robata,  Katz's (all locations),  Kenny & Ziggy's,  Killen's STQ,  Kim Son (all locations),  Kokoro (Bravery Chef Hall),  Kuu
 
L – La Calle (both locations),  La Fisheria,  La Griglia,  La Hacienda (both locations),  La Lucha,  La Mexicana,  Lao Sze Chuan (both locations),  Laurenzo's,  Le Colonial,  Le Jardinier,  Lea Jane's Hot Chicken (Post Market),  Lee's Sandwiches,  Liberty Kitchen (both locations),  Local Foods (all locations),  Loch Bar,  Lopez (both locations),  Loro,  Lost & Found,  Low Tide,  Lulu's,  Luna Pizza (all locations),  Lupe Tortilla (all locations),  Lynn's Steakhouse
 
M – MAD,  Maderas,  Maine-ly Sandwiches,  Mai's,  Mala Sichuan (all locations),  Mama's Kitchen,  argaux's Oyster Bar (Bravery Chef Hall),  Marmo,  Mary'z (both locations),  Masraff's,  Mastro's,  McCormick & Schmick's (all locations),  McGonigel's Mucky Duck,  Melange Creperie,  Mia's Table (all locations),  Molina's (all locations),  Money Cat,  Morton's (both locations),  Mucho Mexico,  Musafeer
 
N – Navy Blue,  Niko Niko's (all locations),  Ninfa's (both locations),  Nirvana,  Nobu,  North Italia
 
O – Oceanaire,  Oheya,  Oishii,  On the Kirb (all locations),  Oporto,  Osso & Kristalla,  Ouisie's Table
 
P – Palazzo's (both locations),  Pappa Geno's (all locations),  Pappadeaux (all locations),  Pappas Bros. Steakhouse (both locations),  Pappas Burgers,  Pappasito's (all locations),  Pastore,  Peaky Grinders,  Peking Cuisine,  Peking Impression,  Pepper Twins (all locations),  Perry's (all locations),  Phat Eatery,  Pho Binh (Galleria),  Pho Binh (Heights),  Pho Diem,  Piola (both locations),  Pizzitola's,  Ploughman's Deli & Café,  Pondicheri,  Porta'Vino (Washington),  Post Oak Grill (Galleria),  Potente,  Prego
 
R – RA Sushi (both locations),  Ragin' Cajun (both locations),  Ramen Tatsu-ya,  Red Lion,  Relish,  Reza Persian Grill,  Riel,  Rim Tanon,  Roma,  Romano's Pizza,  Roost,  Roostar (all locations),  Rosalie, Rudyard's,  Ruggles Black,  Ruth's Chris
 
S – Saint Arnold Beer Garden & Restaurant, Sal y Pimienta, Saldivia's, Saltillo, Sao Lao Thai Café, Seco's Latin Cuisine,  Segari's,  Seoul Garden,  Shake Shack (all locations),  Shandy's,  Shawarma King,  Sinh Sinh,  Soma,  Songkran,  Soto,  Soto's Cantina (both locations),  Southern Yankee Crafthouse,  Southwell's (all locations),  Spanish Flowers (all locations),  State Fare,  State of Grace,  Steak 48,  Street to Kitchen Thai,  Superica,  Sushi by Hidden,  Sylvia's Enchilada Kitchen (both locations)
 
T – Taco Fuego (all locations),  Tacodeli,  Tacos A Go Go (all locations but Downtown),  Tacos del Julio (both locations),  Tan Tan,  Taqueria Arandas (all locations),  Taqueria Cancun,  Taste of Nigeria,  Taste of Texas,  Thai Kun (Post Market),  The Annie,  The Burger Joint (all locations),  The Grove,  The Halal Guys (all locations),  The Lemon Tree,  The Nash,  The Palm,  The Pit Room,  The Rice Box (all but Greenway Plaza),  The Taco Stand,  The Union Kitchen (all but Garden Oaks),  The Warwick,  Theodore Rex,  Thirteen,  Tim Ho Wan,  Tonight & Tomorrow,  Torchy's Tacos (all locations),  Toro Toro,  Toulouse,  Trattoria Sofia,  Traveler's Table,  Tres Tacos,  Trill Burgers,  Truluck's
 
U – Uberrito (all locations),  Uchi,  Uchiko,  Urbe
 
V – Velvet Taco (all locations),   Verde Garden,  Vic & Anthony's,  Vieng Thai,  Vietopia
 
W – Wanna Bao,  Willie G's,  Winnie's
 
Y – Yi Peng
 
Z – Zanti,  Zutro

A dramatic dish at BCN