It didn’t take long for the text messages to start rolling in after the Houston Chronicle published its list of Houston’s top 100 restaurants for 2024.
“Going to do a list of 10 that aren’t on there at all and 10 in the top 25 and you get to choose one list,” one friend snarked.
“Nobie’s not in the top 25 I will never understand. For me, it’s one of the best restaurants in Houston,” opined another.
For those unfamiliar with the process, every fall the Houston Chronicle assembles a list of Houston’s top 100 restaurants. The top 25 are ranked in order, and No. 26-100 are presented alphabetically. Alison Cook, the Chronicle’s venerable food critic, leads the effort with assistance from the paper’s other food writers and a couple of freelance contributors.
This year’s top 10 is as follows:
1. Tatemó
2. Katami
3. March
4. Neo
5. Theodore Rex
6. Little’s Oyster Bar
7. Coltivare
8. Truth BBQ
9. Street to Kitchen
10. MF Lobster & Seafood
Reacting to the list was once an annual tradition around these parts. I used to get mad about the list’s construction and its tendencies to get some of the details wrong. I probably crossed a line in 2017 when I accused Chronicle critic Alison Cook of being bored by the process of putting the list together.
I’ve mellowed a bit in my old age. Fundamentally, list making is a subjective process, which Cook readily acknowledges. The Chronicle offers scant insight into the criteria it uses to guide its picks.
“What we prize is food quality that makes our hearts beat faster, delivered on a consistent basis, with hospitality and settings that make us glad to be alive,” Cooks writes in the list’s introduction. “A Top 100 restaurant is one that can prompt us to wake up thinking helplessly, ‘I gotta go there.’ They are not restaurants for which we settle. They compel us. They are essential facets of our lives as Houstonians.”
No single list is ever going to make everyone happy, and we shouldn’t expect it to. One person’s "essential" is another’s person’s ho-hum. One person might turn their nose at a dish that quickens someone else's pulse.
Besides, the all-powerful food critic who can make or break a restaurant’s prospects only exists in Ratatouille. Houstonians are just as likely to get restaurant suggestions from the Hangry Houstonian or Shawn the Food Sheep as they are from anyone working for a publication full time.
Even if I can’t summon the same vitriol from the old days, a few things about the list struck me as worth noting. In the spirit of my monthly Instagram posts of favorite things I ate, here are seven observations about the Chronicle’s top 100 list, presented in no particular order.
1. The Top 10 has undergone a bit of a shuffle.
Tatemó, last year’s No. 2, takes the top spot, building on the momentum that chef Emmanuel Chavez has developed as a two-time James Beard Award finalist, a Food & Wine Best New Chef recipient, and the winner of Restaurant of the Year in this year’s CultureMap Tastemaker Awards. It deserves all the praise it receives.
Four of last year’s top 10 — Hamsa, Jun, MF Sushi, and Tim Ho Wan — fall a bit to make way for this year’s newcomers — Katami and MF Lobster — as well as two that moved up from 2023 in Neo (No. 15 in 2023) and Coltivare (unranked in 2023).
2. It is unclear, at best, what caused some restaurants to fall off the list entirely from 2023 to 2024.
I count 23 restaurants, including seafood restaurant Golfstrommen that closed earlier this year, that made last year's list but aren't present in this edition.
“We revisited every restaurant on our list — and a lot of contenders besides. If there was more than a minor bobble or two, we left them out,” Cook writes by way of explanation. Which, fair enough. A restaurant should have to maintain its standards to remain on the list.
But it’s hard to imagine what sort of “bobbles” the paper’s writers experienced at restaurants like Caracol, Eunice, Goode Co. Seafood, or Tony’s to cause them not to make the cut in 2024. After all, they wouldn’t have made the list in 2023 — or been open for many years — if they couldn’t demonstrate a high level of consistency.
Surely, there has to be a place for a quirky sandwich shop and cocktail bar like Winnie’s or a plucky underdog like Mexican seafood restaurant La Cruderia, both of which also dropped off.
What happened to cause Burger Bodega, the city’s leading smash burger slinger, to fall off the list?
3. The Chronicle does not seemed concerned about whether its picks are in line with recent James Beard Award nominations or the impending arrival of the Michelin Guide.
Nine of this year’s 11 James Beard Award semifinalists make the cut, but the two that are excluded — Bludorn (nominated for Outstanding Hospitality) and ChòpnBlọk (nominated for Emerging Chef) — are considered by many to be two of Houston’s most consistently excellent restaurants.
Similarly, both BCN and Le Jardinier are widely expected to receive Michelin stars at the ceremony that will be held in Houston next month. Neither makes the ranked portion of the list. Hidden Omakase, the exact sort of sushi restaurant that usually attracts attention from Michelin, fell off the list entirely after making the alphabetical section in 2023.
4. Restaurants that opened in 2024 didn’t fare very well.
Only three — MF Lobster & Seafood, Baso (13), and Ema (17) make the top 25. Three more — Bar Bludorn, Ishtia, and Pizzana — make the unranked section. The picture improves slightly by expanding the criteria to include restaurants that opened too late in 2023 to make last year’s last, because it adds in Katami, Belly of the Beast, Coastline Pizzeria, Josephine’s Gulf Coast Tradition, and Rumi’s Kitchen.
While an August 1 cut off excludes buzzy newcomers such as Kira, Credence, and Milton’s, it indicates that promising additions such as Prime 131, Maximo, The Marigold Club, Okto, and Turner’s Cut either didn’t get evaluated or were found not to be worthy of inclusion.
5. Eleven barbecue restaurants is too many.
Yes, barbecue is unquestionably at the heart of Texas’ culinary identity, and Houston has a barbecue scene that can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with any other city in the state. But in a city as diverse as Houston and with only 100 slots to allocate, tough choices need to be made. Instead, the list added three barbecue restaurants compared to 2023 with Bar-A-BBQ, Pinkerton’s Barbecue, and The Pit Room. What must it say about the Chronicle’s opinion of EaDo’s J-Bar-M Barbecue that it’s the only barbecue restaurant that made the list in 2023 but didn’t make the cut in 2024?
6. Where’s the pizza?
Houston’s going through a pizza renaissance, but only four pizzerias — Coastline, ElRo Pizza & Crudo, Pizzana, and Tiny Champions — make the list. Make it five if you count Coltivare.
While the Chronicle’s affection for the Neapolitan-style pies served at three of those four is, again, their subjective right, it leaves out other styles that people really enjoy. Start with Nonno’s Family Pizza Tavern, which caught Esquire’s eye with its crispy, tavern-style pies and Gen X retro charm. What about Gold Tooth Tony’s, the Detroit-style pizzeria from favorite Houston pizzaiolo Anthony Calleo, or Pizaro’s Pizza, where siblings Matt Hutchinson and Nicole Bean serve compelling takes on three pizza styles: Detroit, New York, and Neapolitan?
If they want to champion Neapolitan above all else, then Ostia, chef Travis McShane’s Italian restaurant in Montrose, is turning out some of the best wood-fired pies in Houston. It deserves to be recognized.
7. Additional restaurants that I would have included.
Outside of parsing the differences between No. 11 and No. 14, deciding what restaurant to include and leave off is the most subjective part of the process. Still, a few omissions stand out.
Not to repeat myself, but Bludorn is an essential Houston restaurant. It sets high standards for food quality, consistency, and service, as evidenced by its CultureMap Tastemaker Award wins for both Restaurant of the Year and Chef of the Year. Recent additions to the menu like dry-aged duck demonstrate that chef-owner Aaron Bludorn and chef de cuisine Chase Voelz still have some tricks up their sleeves.
Consider Fung’s Kitchen. Known for its dim sum cart service and live seafood tanks, the Chinese restaurant in Southwest Houston parlayed its viral “lobster mountain” dish into an enthusiastic 9.1 rating from The Infatuation Houston. (Go here for Chris Shepherd’s wine suggestions for Fung’s.) Dim Sum Box, the Fung family’s Katy restaurant, would also be a worthy replacement for Tim Ho Wan’s spot on the list.
Similarly, Hai Cang has been a favorite among Houston chefs for its Chinese seafood, including live seafood tanks, affordable prices, and BYOB policy.
Candente, the live fire Tex-Mex restaurant in Montrose, earned a shout out from celebrity chef David Chang during his visit to Houston, but it has never made the Chronicle’s list.
Corporate siblings il Bracco and Balboa Surf Club serve consistently well prepared food that’s reasonably priced (especially by today’s standards). Best of all, they’re open for lunch and dinner seven days a week, which is a welcome level of accessibility at a time when many of Houston’s best restaurants are only open for dinner or closed on certain days of the week.
Among Houston’s Vietnamese restaurants, Thiên Thanh stands out for its exceptional take on banh cuon. If we’re going to salute restaurants for their barbecue ribs or burgers, let’s find a spot for a superb example of an iconic dish from one of Houston’s favorite cuisines.
