The best kolaches in Houston (and Texas)
Featuring slightly sweet, slightly yeasty dough and traditionally topped with fruit preserves or cream cheese, though now the pigs in a blanket, technically called klobasniky in the plural in Czech, and scrambled egg-filled versions and others also lay claim to the moniker – much to the chagrin of only the editors of Texas Monthly – this breakfast pastry with roots in Czechoslovakia has been a much-loved Texas staple for years. Most versions are rather lacking here and throughout the state, to be honest. Don’t bother stopping at any of the five or six kolache shops that draw travelers on I-35 en masse in West, Texas, just north of Waco, for example. A recent whirlwind tour of the five then open confirmed previous visits. My mother who was with me, and who grew up with kolaches from her Slovak grandmother, might have been even more disappointed.
Mediocre kolaches like those can actually have a function, though. Mediocre kolaches for breakfast on the weekends, cheap calories gotten via a drive-thru when possibly hungover, have been a guilty pleasure for me over the years. Several of the convenient Kolache Factory locations. Don’t go there if you don’t have to.
Thankfully, and in start contrast, Houston is also home to what I believe is the very best purveyor in the entire state and this really is only place to regularly get kolaches in the area. And here are three locations now. Monica Pope’s Sparrow stand at the farmers market on Saturday mornings at St. John’s School also does a great job with kolaches, too, including sometimes one filled with a Filipino pork stew that is a delicious multi-cultural mash-up. Unfortunately, her kolaches are often not available, but it pays swing by every time, just in case or for something else.
The Best and Only Recommendable
Kolache Shoppe – Originally opened in 1970, the kolaches in common parlance are the best of breed here across all versions: the traditional Old World-derived fruit-or-cheese-filled pastries, those sausage-centric pigs-in-a-blanket, the nicely caloric breakfast ones often with Tex-Mex fillings along with the newer styles featuring beef brisket or boudin inside. The quality begins with the dough, just slightly sweet, not overly yeasty, airy, fresh-tasting, and flavorful, unfailingly complementing whatever filling it surrounds. It’s the best kolache dough I’ve found.
Then those fillings are usually terrific, too. All the numerous versions here are excellent. You really can’t go wrong, even the one topped with prunes, though that requires a special order. Breakfast sausage, egg, pickled jalapeño and cheddar cheese; excellent Pinkerton’s brisket, egg, cheddar cheese and pickled jalapeño; Kiolbassa brand sausage link and cheddar cheese; Prasek’s venison and pork sausage with cheddar cheese and jalapeño; blueberry, and strawberry and lemon cream, the last three topped with a judicious amount of sugar, are several of the ones I’ve really enjoyed in recently. The only real competition to Kolache Shoppe that I’ve encountered in the entire state is Weikel’s in La Grange, which is worth a stop when driving to from Austin on Highway 71. Nicely, there is a drive-thru at Kolache Shoppe’s spiffy Heights location where the wait can be pushing thirty minutes on weekend mornings. You won’t mind when you finally get the kolaches, though. Greenway Plaza, Heights, Kingwood
Mediocre kolaches like those can actually have a function, though. Mediocre kolaches for breakfast on the weekends, cheap calories gotten via a drive-thru when possibly hungover, have been a guilty pleasure for me over the years. Several of the convenient Kolache Factory locations. Don’t go there if you don’t have to.
Thankfully, and in start contrast, Houston is also home to what I believe is the very best purveyor in the entire state and this really is only place to regularly get kolaches in the area. And here are three locations now. Monica Pope’s Sparrow stand at the farmers market on Saturday mornings at St. John’s School also does a great job with kolaches, too, including sometimes one filled with a Filipino pork stew that is a delicious multi-cultural mash-up. Unfortunately, her kolaches are often not available, but it pays swing by every time, just in case or for something else.
The Best and Only Recommendable
Kolache Shoppe – Originally opened in 1970, the kolaches in common parlance are the best of breed here across all versions: the traditional Old World-derived fruit-or-cheese-filled pastries, those sausage-centric pigs-in-a-blanket, the nicely caloric breakfast ones often with Tex-Mex fillings along with the newer styles featuring beef brisket or boudin inside. The quality begins with the dough, just slightly sweet, not overly yeasty, airy, fresh-tasting, and flavorful, unfailingly complementing whatever filling it surrounds. It’s the best kolache dough I’ve found.
Then those fillings are usually terrific, too. All the numerous versions here are excellent. You really can’t go wrong, even the one topped with prunes, though that requires a special order. Breakfast sausage, egg, pickled jalapeño and cheddar cheese; excellent Pinkerton’s brisket, egg, cheddar cheese and pickled jalapeño; Kiolbassa brand sausage link and cheddar cheese; Prasek’s venison and pork sausage with cheddar cheese and jalapeño; blueberry, and strawberry and lemon cream, the last three topped with a judicious amount of sugar, are several of the ones I’ve really enjoyed in recently. The only real competition to Kolache Shoppe that I’ve encountered in the entire state is Weikel’s in La Grange, which is worth a stop when driving to from Austin on Highway 71. Nicely, there is a drive-thru at Kolache Shoppe’s spiffy Heights location where the wait can be pushing thirty minutes on weekend mornings. You won’t mind when you finally get the kolaches, though. Greenway Plaza, Heights, Kingwood
