The Best Places to Eat and Drink in Museum District

A 1920s white stucco bungalow off Richmond Avenue, hung with Picasso owl jugs from the owner's private collection, is doing some of the more serious Spanish cooking in Houston. This is fine dining, so dress accordingly. The chef handles both seafood and roasted meats with the kind of confidence that makes everything feel inevitable rather than effortful. An all-Spanish wine list and a dedicated gin and tonic section round out the room. It holds a Michelin star.

1. AAA Four Diamonds
2. Michelin Guide 1 Star
3. Eater The 38 Essential Houston Restaurants

Sitting inside the Museum of Fine Arts, this French fine dining room earns its Michelin star on the strength of produce-driven cooking where the sauces do the heavy lifting and the plating looks borrowed from the galleries next door. The Cullen Sculpture Garden frames the windows after dark. The tasting menu shifts with the seasons, and the pommes dauphine with truffle aioli have no business being a side dish.

1. Michelin Guide 1 Star
2. Houstonia Houston’s Best Restaurants
3. Eater The 38 Essential Houston Restaurants

The flour tortillas at this Montrose smokehouse are made with smoked brisket fat, which tells you what kind of place The Pit Room is. It holds a Michelin Bib Gourmand and earns it on the basics: prime brisket, beef ribs, and sides that actually have opinions, like charred beans with real heat. Breakfast tacos run until mid-morning. In a city where great barbecue often requires a calendar, the fact that the line moves and seating exists feels almost radical.

1. Michelin Guide Bib Gourmand
2. Houstonia The Best Barbecue Restaurants in Houston
3. Eater The Best Restaurants in Montrose

The fajitas arrive on a sizzling cast-iron skillet, prime Niman Ranch beef with charred onions and tortillas made from brisket trimmings, which tells you everything about how this Tex-Mex restaurant operates. From the team behind the Pit Room next door, Candente is enormous, patio and all, and the kitchen swings for the scale. Weekend brunch turns into a full production. The Michelin Guide has it listed among their selected Houston picks.

1. Michelin Guide Selected Restaurant
2. The Infatuation The 14 Best Tex-Mex Restaurants in Houston
3. Houstonia The Best Mexican Restaurants in Houston

Grand Prize is a two-story dive where the interior is blacked out so thoroughly that the neon is mostly there to help you read the drink menu. Happy hour offers a "Happy Meal," which is a beer and a shot, and the pool tables are good for losing to a stranger. The kitchen rotates through bar food, birria tacos one week and chili-cheese dogs the next, and the terrace is where you go to confirm the sun still exists.

1. The Infatuation The Best Bars In Houston
2. Houstonia The Official 50 Hottest Bars in Houston

1. Houston Chronicle Houston’s Top 100 Restaurants
2. James Beard Awards 2023 · Semifinalist · Outstanding Restaurateur · Chris Williams - Lucille's Hospitality Group

1. AAA Three Diamonds

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