The biggest dining news of 2024 was the Michelin Guide’s restaurant recommendations for the first time for the state, the company drawn by subsidies from local and state tourist boards. Its inspector(s) was, were, reportedly based in Austin, which is why the state’s capital in laughably ludicrous fashion had both more stars and many more recommended restaurants overall – 44 to 26 – than did the fourth largest and one of the very best dining cities in the country. There were quite a number of glaring omissions for Houston. And the French seemingly had their first taste of our excellent Texas brisket and were utterly thrown off kilter for the guide, producing wildly uneven results. Just about a quarter of all its recommended restaurants in the state were barbecue joints and also a quarter of its stars. But it is a start and a positive that Michelin is here.
 
Maybe not as exciting as last year with highlights that don’t quite reach Katami or Little’s Oyster Bar, this year saw a number of enticing new eateries. I had good luck with most of the anticipated newcomers, if with a handful of significant exceptions. Nicely, long punching under its weight, Houston’s pizza landscape improved some more with the openings of Pizzana, Karbach Brewing’s Pizza & Pints, and Magdalena’s, that last which dished pizzas like the old Dolce Vita, if somewhat inconsistently. That scene is taking a hit with the closure of Elro – excellent for pizza and a good deal more – at the end of the year. Hopefully, chef Terrence Gallivan’s hiatus will on local dining scene with be brief.
 
If there was any theme this year among several of the top new places it might be comfort. Steaks had prominent places in several of the top newcomers, and there were more new upscale steakhouses to be found, of course. And Berg Hospitality again opened some additional concepts, all with expensive, attractive build-outs. One just too late for this year is Barbacana, featuring the former chef de cuisine at March and a well-pedigreed team. It limited service just before Christmas, fully so early next year for what might be an exciting new stop downtown.
 
Here are the ten best restaurants in Houston this year, listed alphabetically.
 
Bar Bludorn – New American – Entrées: $19 to $75, $49 average – Bringing its signature level of service and attention to detail to west Houston, this is the third restaurant from the group that incudes the Bludorn and the terrific Navy Blue. Along with the name, the mid-century modern-inspired décor helps give a more casual feel, and the welcoming and proficient bar upon entrance reinforces that. There are Atlantic oysters to start that can be baked and fried, too, for the more squeamish. Fries also work at the bar, but could be crispier and accompanying aioli more assertive. The dining room menu highlight steaks along with a roasted duck and a fried chicken with a peanut butter gravy, both of which have drawn critical praise. The handful of pastas can be primo-sized or a full portion, and there should be plenty more from which to choose for nearly any diner, with familiar items done somewhat creatively. Fun desserts like the Foie Gras Candy Bar provide some very tempting calories before you are out the door. The wine list has a French accent and is nicely chosen, as expected, with Burgundies, more red than white. These can satiate both the well-heeled Memorial Villages burghers and those planning to spend a under $100. There are more than enough enticing options on the list that won’t break the bank.  Memorial
 
Baso – New American – Plates: $16 to $200, $80 average order – Easy to miss, though directly across 19th Street from the outstanding Squable, this another destination spot in the Heights. Inspired by the live-fire cooking at the lauded restaurants of the Basque region, a hearth greets diners at the start of the lengthy open kitchen of this earnest establishment with a from-the-bootstraps design that includes a neat kitchen bar that should attract curious diners. The menu is even much more inscrutable than most, but the attentive staff will ably describe the night’s offerings and help offer a course through the visit. Dishes are mostly small, composed and imaginative, and all meant for sharing. Subtle spiciness is common aspect in many, welcome for Houston. Among the handful of larger preparations is a grilled pork chop topped with “jowl condiment” that results in a juicy, delicious slab, certainly one of the best porcine creations in town. But watching one of the beefsteaks near the glowing embers might be an even more tempting treat. You’ll need a few plates, and prices quickly add up. With wine, plan on at least $200 per person. More if you are an enthusiastic diner. Prices skew high on the short list with some temptations: there is not much desirable in two-digits among the reds, for example. But the wines by the glass are well-chosen and mostly under a dollars under $20, not a given at many nicer spots these days. The seemingly oddly constructed cocktails can be a very good place to start, too.  Heights
 
Late August – New American – Entrées: $17 to $60, $35 average –  Set on the first floor of the multi-use ION at the edge of Midtown, not too far from Chris Williams’s Lucille’s, here Williams teams with chef Sergio Hidalgo to offer a menu that ranges widely and should resonate with most local diners. About half of the creatively turned and nicely plated dishes feature Mexican ingredients and preparations while also going to neighboring Louisiana, Jamaica, Africa, east, west and south, and the Middle East for ideas, with all the fruits and vegetables coming from their farm near Sugar Land that also supplies Lucille’s. There are shrimp meatballs, pea hummus with chorizo and chapulines, green macaroni and cheese with pureed greens and coconut cream, Louisiana barbecue seafood – more than just the shrimp – and Navajo fry bread to sop up the sauce. One highlight is the Crispy Octopus with an well-integrated, typically wide mix of components: yucca, romesco sauce, corn, avocado cream, and something called shrimp chorizo. The contemporary space is handsomely done and inviting. With wines by the glass and cocktails to a lesser extent a little more lightly priced than most nice restaurants, the bar can be even more so.  Midtown
 
Leo’s River Oaks – American – Entrées: $40 to $150, $76 average – The menu is far from exciting, the expensively wrought interior might seem to many dark and gloomy rather than romantic, bar service a bit clunky with uninspiring creations, and the California-heavy wine list is much better suited for the suburbs than the heart of the city. But the main reason to visit is that Tim Reading is heading the kitchen and you can be assured that the mostly familiar fare will be executed very well. Reading was last at Georgia James Tavern, as Underbelly Hospitality was in the early days of its implosion after it parted ways with Chris Shepherd, and before that executive chef at Caracol and then his really nicely done counter-service Mexican spot in Bravery Chef Hall, Ixim. One of the several steaks here will drive up the bill if not as much as the necessary caviar service. The menu veers Italian at times, with risotto, carpaccio, burrata with beets, a side of broccolini, agnolotti and veal Milanese done properly with a bone-in veal chop. The gnocchi are French, though, but lightly done and quite tasteful, even if the portions are truly side size. There is plenty of which to choose for most diners and it can be an easy visit before a movie, with the newly renovated River Oaks Theatre adjacent. If not, it services the theater, too.  Heights
 
Marigold Club – American – Entrées: $21 to $92, $58 average – Though this upscale spot references London’s Mayfair on the menu and a name that might evoke a gentry-rich men’s club there, this is might be best described as American with some French touches, or mid-century wealthy American updated for present-day Houston; intelligently and even slyly updated, as you might expect from the folks at Goodnight Hospitality (March, Rosie Cannonball). Steak tartare, a seafood tower, pâté with a cherry chutney, Dover sole with the tomato-y vierge sauce, and the Duck Wellington with green peppercorns, highlight an approachable and playful-at-times menu. There are black truffles that can be shaved on, and caviar service, of course, if not the beluga of the Russian oligarchs who once widely owned in Mayfair. Though possibly stuffy on first glance, it can be fun, when noticing the wall treatments of jubilant well-to-do diners of possibly Houston today and then the sundae cart on the menu that prowls the dining room. As expected from the group, the wine list is excellent, and bar service is exemplary.  Montrose
 
Maximo – Mexican – Entrées: $16 to $30, $22 average – Tucked well into West University Place, occupying a long-standing restaurant space in retail strip, this almost-too-cute-to-be-this-good spot was the best Mexican restaurant to open here in this year. From the Local Foods Group, which had another new winner with Milton’s, this dishes up a focused menu of casual, sometimes heathy, always interesting Mexican preparations that not dumbed down in any way for the address. The smaller sized portions are usually executed quite well with presentations more artful than usual. There are tacos anchored by flavorful house-made tortillas in a half-dozen ways – no trompo so pass on the invariably slightly dry pastor – soups and salads, smaller plates and some bigger items from the plancha like a butterflied whole red snapper, fajitas and bowls and burritos with a choice of meats.  West U
 
MF Lobster & Seafood – Seafood – Entrées: $18 to $60, $36 average – Set in a striking, stand-alone circular structure, if reminiscent the Monitor’s turret fitted with a brimmed hat, and joining Auden and other restaurant concepts in the usually idyllic and sometimes bustling Autry Court, sushi star Chris Kinjo and his lieutenant Miguel Alvarez have created a enticing menu that includes New England seafood items along with Mexican, Japanese and Italian-American preparations. In lesser hands, it might seem unfocused, but here, knowing the level of sourcing and execution, it can be tougher to decide what to order than at most places. There is silky and substantial clam chowder, delicate crudos and ceviches, shrimp tacos, lobster rolls, seafood pastas, and cioppino. The interior is attractive, with floor-to-ceiling windows providing nice vistas and there is a bar made for lingering. The wine is a weak link here, though there are bottles displayed for sale throughout the dining room, somewhat distractedly.  River Oaks
 
Milton’s – Italian-American – Entrées: $23 to $68, $33 average – One tipoff that the restaurant is worthy is at the start, the bread service. It is terrific and tough to resist: excellent, unique breadsticks, soft mouth-watering rolls, and a white country bread that is the best of the three. The quite obscure tigelle on the menu – a bread type from Emilia-Romagna – is also quite tasty. In the space that the really creditable Eau Tour occupied last comes an easier sell than French here, Italian-American. Described as an “American trattoria,” a phrase that doesn’t make a lot of sense, this serves chef-y touches to Italian-American fare with some contemporary Italian-from-Italy items in an approachable neighborhood setting fitting for the pricey zip codes nearby. If jazzed up, there are the expected-today octopus, arancini, burrata, branzino and n’duja but also sweetbreads, honest-to-goodness veal Parmesan, and Shrimp de Jonghe, Chicago’s gift to seafood cookery. For nearly ten different hearty preparations, the pastas are made in house guided by Seth Siegel-Gardner, the culinary director at the parent Local Foods Group, formerly the one half of the Pass & Provisions duo. The chicken liver survives from its predecessor, while and the Italian-heavy wine selections are a big improvement from the very odd ones offered before.  Rice Village
 
Okto – Mediterranean – Entrées: $30 to $62, $48 average – In the multi-used Monrose Collective, this is an engagingly created space, from the patio to lively dining room and immediately upon entering, the quite expansive, impressive horseshoe-shaped bar. This is an inviting stop for a drink and small plate from a short menu that is well-suited to noshing and sharing. The sharing might be the best option here. With dishes inspired mostly by the Levant, Greece, North Africa, the usually meaningless Mediterranean description actually fits here, and these choices are mostly easy to eat with others. Seafood carpaccio and tartare, olives, feta, plenty of vegetables, a grill, lamb, of course, and a couple of steaks including an old school Tournedos Rossini, and with foie gras. Monte Carlo is on the Med, after all. It can be thought of as a more attractively set version of its sibling Hamsa – but with the similarly tough parking situation. Valet. Decent short wine list, though there are hardly any red wines for under $100 a bottle, rather annoyingly. And if the dullest gin and tonic imaginable is an indication, don’t bother with the house cocktails. The bar is still an attraction, though.  Montrose
 
Pizzana – Pizza – Entrées: $16 to $27, $22 average – Los Angeles-bred, celebrity-backed, this is the real deal for Neapolitan-inspired pizzas, immediately becoming one of the best pizzerias in town when it opened early in the year. You can’t have a good pizza without a good crust and these “neo-Neapolitan” creations sit on a sturdy, crispy, airy and very tasty platforms created with a dough kneaded by hand and fermented for a couple of days. Rather than the traditional soft Neapolitan pizza dough, it is actually modeled on the bread dough from the bakery of chef Daniele Uditi’s aunt in Caserta near Naples. It works extremely well. Available in a variety of combinations with a number of high quality toppings used judiciously. There are classic Neapolitan, American, along with some occasionally fanciful like its signature Cacio e Peppe, and a seasonal Carnitas with sliced Mexican-spiced porchetta, two salsas, parsley-cilantro and roasted tomato chipotle, imported cow’s milk mozzarella, fresh cilantro, and sliced raw serranos that nicely played to the Houston palate. Antipasti, pastas, and salads, too, but the pizza pies are the reason, and not the atmosphere, you should visit this perfunctorily designed spot.  River Oaks
 
A couple of honorable mentions for nicely utilitarian, affordable counter-service options that work well for lunch (and breakfast): Casetta’s Cucina for its Tuscan-inspired sandwiches on house-made bread in Spring Branch, and The Little Taco Shop for tacos, quesadillas and more that dishes similar items better than can be expected from this small storefront in the Upper Kirby District.

One of the enticements at Late August

It seems for a while now that supermarkets and big liquor stores have aggressively featured panettone: palettes of them in at least a dozen different brands and a number of sizes. Panettone is the Italian tall, dome-shaped cake that makes its appearance before Christmas. Originally from Milan, it is popular throughout much of Italy during the Christmas season, at least the lands north of Rome. Somewhat like an Italian version of fruitcake, if much tastier even in industrialized form, it is big business now, and makes for a pleasant dessert or a semi-sweet accompaniment to coffee or something stronger.
 
Panettone is actually a little more versatile than you might expect. This is good to know if you end up with plenty of it left after Christmas and tired of eating it with coffee or a liqueur, tempted to toss out the remainder of the often substantially sized box. At an Italian Expo event here some years ago, a chef who had worked in Milan served an amazingly simple sandwich from his restaurant’s booth. It was mascarpone slathered between a couple of slices from a panettone. It was very good, and extremely easy to replicate at home, and affordable. An inexpensive one kilo (two-pound-plus) panettone can be had for $10 or so. I picked up one at Kroger the other for just $6.99. Even better with the slices of panettone are toasted.
 
Another use was suggested to me by famed restaurateur Piero Selvaggio of Valentino a while back, especially for somewhat past-prime panettone. It makes the base for terrific French toast. Something I’ve done a number of times. Or, more accurately, that might be Milanese toast.

Italian restaurants, which I consider too often…. Though Italian restaurants, or a fair number, generally became more truly Italian over the years, several widespread aspects of the Italian restaurants in America were not found in Italy. These included a small bowl or cruet of olive oil set on the table along with a basket of bread for dipping into the oil. This seems to have begun in the 1980s. It might have been one of the innovations of ground-breaking New York restaurateur Pino Luongo, whose Tuscan-inspired restaurants included Coco Pazzo that once had a location in Houston. Though the concept of dipping raw vegetables into oil, pinzimonio, is found in parts of Italy, the similar use of bread is not, at least the way it is done in this country. Olive oil for the bread on the table was a crowd-pleaser and quickly spread, becoming expected by most diners, even if it was an additional freebie for the owner and a way for customers to waste a lot of decent olive oil. It became emblematic of Italian restaurants here – as much as soft, overcooked pasta served with a lot of sauce – and was resisted only by those able to adhere more closely to the Italian model.
 
If presented in a bowl or plate, the olive oil was often studded with herbs, garlic and sometimes industrial balsamic vinegar. The use of the sweet vinegar became another hallmark of American Italian dining. Balsamic vinegar in its truest, most artisanal form, was nearly unknown outside of its home in and around the north-central city of Modena in Emilia-Romagna until it began to be imported into the U.S. by Williams Sonoma in the late 1970s and then used at the most discerning restaurants a few years later. As it took years to make small amounts, it was expensive, but its concentrated flavor went a long way as a condiment. As the original aged versions gained traction with Americans and the American press, commercial vinegars bearing the name “balsamic vinegar,” tasting vaguely similar and far less pricey, began to be produced. It was with these that most American diners grew to enjoy, both with bread and more so mixed with salads.
 
Predating both the table presentation of olive oil and the familiarity with this uniquely Italian-esque vinegar was the Italian steakhouse, at least in America. There are no steakhouses in Italy. Outside of the Florentines and later other Tuscans, there has been no steak tradition in Italy. In fact, the bistecca in the famous bistecca alla fiorentina comes from the English “beefsteak” because there was no suitable Italian name for the dish. “Being American is to eat a lot of beef steak,” as Kurt Vonnegut rightly observed, and Italian-Americans found it both profitable and enjoyable to serve steak. The first might have been The Palm in Manhattan that opened in the 1920s – very unfortunately, subsequently Landry-ized in recent years – even if it did not consciously start out as primarily a steakhouse. It was later joined, especially after 1990, by numerous others primarily in the northeast and Midwest. These served similar preparations and steaks as the typical grand American steakhouses. What made them “Italian” was that the menu was filled out with a number of rote Italian-American dishes, and usually the restaurant’s full name included the phrase, “Italian Steakhouse.” They could sell to customers wanting two different popular cuisines.

Frank Sinatra was a reportedly a big fan of one of the longtime Italian steakhouses, Gene & Georgetti’s in Chicago, which is still around and quite adept, with old school charm and a hearty menu updated with the times. Sinatra was reportedly a big fan of countless Italian-themed eateries. In fact, “Frank Sinatra ate here” might only be rivaled by “George Washington slept here” in the northeast. According to the dedicated road food warriors, Jane and Michael Stern, who would know better than anyone, “there are countless places between Philly and Boston (not to mention some in Vegas and Palm Springs) where, if you judged by the pictures on the wall, you'd have to say that Frank was the management's best friend.”   A tree of decades-old Italian-American eateries in the Los Angeles area can trace their heritage back to Sinatra beginning with Hollywood’s Villa Capri. Though Sinatra was, by all regards, a terrific customer known for his extremely generous tipping, he also brought a tremendous amount of star power and glamour. He was, after all, one of the most famous Americans since the time he burst on the scene in the early 1940s until his death in the late 1990s. The advertisement of a restaurant’s connection to Sinatra was and continues to be a recognizable feature of the Italian restaurant here, just as it once was with previous Italian-American heroes, Joe DiMaggio and Enrico Caruso.
 
Sinatra’s fixture is more permanent, because Sinatra’s music – and in some sense his persona – has become intertwined with Italian-American food and joyous carousing. Sinatra might be as much a part of the American Italian restaurant as red sauce. His songs and those of the other popular Italian-American singers interpreting the Great American Songbook after the Second World War have become a requisite part of the soundtrack of Italian-themed restaurants. Sinatra was just the best and has been the most played, but he is often joined by Dean Martin, Tony Bennett, Louis Prima, Bobby Darin, Jerry Vale, Jimmy Rosselli, Mario Lanza, Perry Como, Frankie Laine, and Vic Damone as part of the ambiance when out at an Italian restaurant.
 
Though American-bred singers seemed natural complements to the restaurants serving the food, what might be surprising is the disdain that the vast majority of Italians have to Italian food with any American concessions. Most Italians absolutely cannot stand Italian-American food, or at least they say so. This seems to stem largely from the fact that Italians have possibly the narrowest palates in the world, or at least they did in decades past. That and their intense local pride fostered by history and geography. They might complain bitterly about the preparations of dish a town over in Italy if it is slightly different than their own. Of course, they are typically quick to criticize restaurants here.
 
No matter. Italian restaurants in America need to be in business not necessarily to be that Italian.  

From an Italian steakhouse chain in the Midwest; a steak with some seemingly Italian-American touches