• Home
  • popular
  • EVENTS
  • submit-new-event
  • CHARITY GUIDE
  • Children
  • Education
  • Health
  • Veterans
  • Social Services
  • Arts + Culture
  • Animals
  • LGBTQ
  • New Charity
  • TRENDING NEWS
  • News
  • City Life
  • Entertainment
  • Sports
  • Home + Design
  • Travel
  • Real Estate
  • Restaurants + Bars
  • Arts
  • Society
  • Innovation
  • Fashion + Beauty
  • subscribe
  • about
  • series
  • Embracing Your Inner Cowboy
  • Green Living
  • Summer Fun
  • Real Estate Confidential
  • RX In the City
  • State of the Arts
  • Fall For Fashion
  • Cai's Odyssey
  • Comforts of Home
  • Good Eats
  • Holiday Gift Guide 2010
  • Holiday Gift Guide 2
  • Good Eats 2
  • HMNS Pirates
  • The Future of Houston
  • We Heart Hou 2
  • Music Inspires
  • True Grit
  • Hoops City
  • Green Living 2011
  • Cruizin for a Cure
  • Summer Fun 2011
  • Just Beat It
  • Real Estate 2011
  • Shelby on the Seine
  • Rx in the City 2011
  • Entrepreneur Video Series
  • Going Wild Zoo
  • State of the Arts 2011
  • Fall for Fashion 2011
  • Elaine Turner 2011
  • Comforts of Home 2011
  • King Tut
  • Chevy Girls
  • Good Eats 2011
  • Ready to Jingle
  • Houston at 175
  • The Love Month
  • Clifford on The Catwalk Htx
  • Let's Go Rodeo 2012
  • King's Harbor
  • FotoFest 2012
  • City Centre
  • Hidden Houston
  • Green Living 2012
  • Summer Fun 2012
  • Bookmark
  • 1987: The year that changed Houston
  • Best of Everything 2012
  • Real Estate 2012
  • Rx in the City 2012
  • Lost Pines Road Trip Houston
  • London Dreams
  • State of the Arts 2012
  • HTX Fall For Fashion 2012
  • HTX Good Eats 2012
  • HTX Contemporary Arts 2012
  • HCC 2012
  • Dine to Donate
  • Tasting Room
  • HTX Comforts of Home 2012
  • Charming Charlie
  • Asia Society
  • HTX Ready to Jingle 2012
  • HTX Mistletoe on the go
  • HTX Sun and Ski
  • HTX Cars in Lifestyle
  • HTX New Beginnings
  • HTX Wonderful Weddings
  • HTX Clifford on the Catwalk 2013
  • Zadok Sparkle into Spring
  • HTX Let's Go Rodeo 2013
  • HCC Passion for Fashion
  • BCAF 2013
  • HTX Best of 2013
  • HTX City Centre 2013
  • HTX Real Estate 2013
  • HTX France 2013
  • Driving in Style
  • HTX Island Time
  • HTX Super Season 2013
  • HTX Music Scene 2013
  • HTX Clifford on the Catwalk 2013 2
  • HTX Baker Institute
  • HTX Comforts of Home 2013
  • Mothers Day Gift Guide 2021 Houston
  • Staying Ahead of the Game
  • Wrangler Houston
  • First-time Homebuyers Guide Houston 2021
  • Visit Frisco Houston
  • promoted
  • eventdetail
  • Greystar Novel River Oaks
  • Thirdhome Go Houston
  • Dogfish Head Houston
  • LovBe Houston
  • Claire St Amant podcast Houston
  • The Listing Firm Houston
  • South Padre Houston
  • NextGen Real Estate Houston
  • Pioneer Houston
  • Collaborative for Children
  • Decorum
  • Bold Rock Cider
  • Nasher Houston
  • Houston Tastemaker Awards 2021
  • CityNorth
  • Urban Office
  • Villa Cotton
  • Luck Springs Houston
  • EightyTwo
  • Rectanglo.com
  • Silver Eagle Karbach
  • Mirador Group
  • Nirmanz
  • Bandera Houston
  • Milan Laser
  • Lafayette Travel
  • Highland Park Village Houston
  • Proximo Spirits
  • Douglas Elliman Harris Benson
  • Original ChopShop
  • Bordeaux Houston
  • Strike Marketing
  • Rice Village Gift Guide 2021
  • Downtown District
  • Broadstone Memorial Park
  • Gift Guide
  • Music Lane
  • Blue Circle Foods
  • Houston Tastemaker Awards 2022
  • True Rest
  • Lone Star Sports
  • Silver Eagle Hard Soda
  • Modelo recipes
  • Modelo Fighting Spirit
  • Athletic Brewing
  • Rodeo Houston
  • Silver Eagle Bud Light Next
  • Waco CVB
  • EnerGenie
  • HLSR Wine Committee
  • All Hands
  • El Paso
  • Avenida Houston
  • Visit Lubbock Houston
  • JW Marriott San Antonio
  • Silver Eagle Tupps
  • Space Center Houston
  • Central Market Houston
  • Boulevard Realty
  • Travel Texas Houston
  • Alliantgroup
  • Golf Live
  • DC Partners
  • Under the Influencer
  • Blossom Hotel
  • San Marcos Houston
  • Photo Essay: Holiday Gift Guide 2009
  • We Heart Hou
  • Walker House
  • HTX Good Eats 2013
  • HTX Ready to Jingle 2013
  • HTX Culture Motive
  • HTX Auto Awards
  • HTX Ski Magic
  • HTX Wonderful Weddings 2014
  • HTX Texas Traveler
  • HTX Cifford on the Catwalk 2014
  • HTX United Way 2014
  • HTX Up to Speed
  • HTX Rodeo 2014
  • HTX City Centre 2014
  • HTX Dos Equis
  • HTX Tastemakers 2014
  • HTX Reliant
  • HTX Houston Symphony
  • HTX Trailblazers
  • HTX_RealEstateConfidential_2014
  • HTX_IW_Marks_FashionSeries
  • HTX_Green_Street
  • Dating 101
  • HTX_Clifford_on_the_Catwalk_2014
  • FIVE CultureMap 5th Birthday Bash
  • HTX Clifford on the Catwalk 2014 TEST
  • HTX Texans
  • Bergner and Johnson
  • HTX Good Eats 2014
  • United Way 2014-15_Single Promoted Articles
  • Holiday Pop Up Shop Houston
  • Where to Eat Houston
  • Copious Row Single Promoted Articles
  • HTX Ready to Jingle 2014
  • htx woodford reserve manhattans
  • Zadok Swiss Watches
  • HTX Wonderful Weddings 2015
  • HTX Charity Challenge 2015
  • United Way Helpline Promoted Article
  • Boulevard Realty
  • Fusion Academy Promoted Article
  • Clifford on the Catwalk Fall 2015
  • United Way Book Power Promoted Article
  • Jameson HTX
  • Primavera 2015
  • Promenade Place
  • Hotel Galvez
  • Tremont House
  • HTX Tastemakers 2015
  • HTX Digital Graffiti/Alys Beach
  • MD Anderson Breast Cancer Promoted Article
  • HTX RealEstateConfidential 2015
  • HTX Vargos on the Lake
  • Omni Hotel HTX
  • Undies for Everyone
  • Reliant Bright Ideas Houston
  • 2015 Houston Stylemaker
  • HTX Renewable You
  • Urban Flats Builder
  • Urban Flats Builder
  • HTX New York Fashion Week spring 2016
  • Kyrie Massage
  • Red Bull Flying Bach
  • Hotze Health and Wellness
  • ReadFest 2015
  • Alzheimer's Promoted Article
  • Formula 1 Giveaway
  • Professional Skin Treatments by NuMe Express

    Houston's Best Fine Dining

    Houston's best fine dining restaurants: The 10 top spots for a special night out

    Jodie Eisenhardt
    Aug 28, 2013 | 12:53 pm

    Think “fine dining” and what comes to mind? For me, it was something to ponder.

    I’ve become so accustomed to discovering and enjoying fantastic cuisine at casual eateries, food trucks or taco stands, I don’t consider the category as often as I once did. I realize the term itself sounds snooty and off-putting to some. But the more I thought about it, the more I enjoyed the contemplation of what creates an actual fine dining experience and what separates that from a meal at any number of “fine” restaurants in Houston?

    These are places you can look towards for a night on the town — you know, in your grown-up clothes.

    To make my best fine dining in Houston list, a restaurant has to provide a level of attention to detail in everything from the valet and initial greeting to the complete dining experience. It goes well beyond providing cuisine of superior quality to also include a high level of service, a top-notch wine program and the kind of atmosphere conducive to the overall experience.

    These are places you can look towards for a night on the town — you know, in your grown-up clothes.

    It might be for a special occasion or it might be just to remind you of the value of the total experience, beyond “just” great food, which is in no short supply in this great food town.

    Here are my picks:

    Tony’s

    The venerable Tony’s is an obvious choice for the list, but new James Beard-nominated chef Grant Gordon is the key element within a “full team” approach emphasizing balance in every dish. With a tasting menu that changes almost constantly, I’m reminded that this is not the Tony’s of yesteryear.

    Consider the “Bistecca” — prime New York strip with rhubarb, bresaola and aged balsamic — or the Cappelletti — mussel-stuffed pasta, saffron shellfish veloute and crispy chicken skin. Service is impeccable and the atmosphere is just what you’d expect in terms of lighting and every other detail.

    Owner Tony Vallone teaches a course on fine dining at the University of Houston's Conrad N. Hilton College of Hotel & Restaurant Management. He says, that in short, fine dining is a combination of product, technique and delivery with the common denominator being quality.

    “You can’t have fine dining with without an ownership team in action, on location,” Vallone says.

    Cinq

    CIA-trained chef German Mosquera caused a stir at Roots Bistro when it first opened (well before its unfortunate demise). The historic Fondren mansion built in 1923 that became the boutique hotel La Colombe d’Or provides a decidedly more dramatic backdrop for Mosquera to fulfill his potential.

    Dishes like fresh chorizo stuffed dates with three cucumber salad, crème fraiche and black garlic or braised goat (from nearby Black Hill Ranch) served with squash blossoms, baby arugula and a “garlic butter froth” have diners abuzz. Plus, the daily tasting menu, with Mosquera's inspired and often bold choices, make Cinq worth checking out.

    RDG + Bar Annie

    Chef Robert Del Grande is a Houston legend as is his former restaurant Cafe Annie, where he became known as one of the godfathers of southwestern cuisine. Del Grande’s evolution is now housed in dramatic fashion in a gleaming structure on Post Oak Boulevard, complete with an outside terrace.

    With wife Mimi helping mind the front of the house, RDG lives up its hertiage with dishes like Colorado lamb chops and braised lamb shank in a banana leaf served with corona beans and a pasilla chile sauce, and sea scallops served with a clever green mole sauce, toasted pumpkin seeds and caramelized yucca.

    Kiran’s

    I’ve been a fan of chef Kiran Verma’s Indian cuisine since her more casual Ashiana days. She designed this upscale Highland Village dining room with the highest level of service and attention in mind.

    Verma is obsessed with using high-quality ingredients and there are plenty of farm-to-table “American” dishes on her menu, but her effort to provide a fresh, authentic and innovative take on true Indian cuisine is where her talents shine brightest. The tandoori dishes (meat, fish and poultry items marinated in a spicy yogurt mixture cooked in a clay oven at high heat) are inspired as are the many vegetarian options.

    Her effort to provide a fresh, authentic and innovative take on true Indian cuisine is where her talents shine brightest.

    There’s also high-tea service Saturday afternoons.

    Philippe Restaurant + Lounge

    The perfectly lovely dining room on Post Oak is just the right setting for chef Philippe Schmidt’s inspired execution of French cuisine with a Texas twist. Schmidt holds the designation of “Master Chef of France” — one of the most sought-after awards given to chefs dedicated to French cuisine — but he is just as proud of his French Cowboy nickname.

    Dishes like the Long Island “duo of duck” (crispy magret with Texas grapefruit sauce, duck leg confit bread pudding served with yellow baby beets, red beet puree with ginger) or the roasted brook trout lightly “hay-smoked” and served with creamy lentils and a Houston-brewed Karbach beer sauce are standouts.

    Da Marco

    Marco Wiles' dining room is still one of the most moving places to eat in Houston and for me, the closest thing to I’ll get to Italy anytime soon. The dining room isn’t especially grand or over the top, rather it feels like the kind of understated, cozy spot you might find in New York City or Chicago.

    Sans daily specials the menu doesn’t seem to change and that’s fine with me. The pappardelle with rabbit is a favorite and the roasted Texas quail served with braised favas is perfect this time of year.

    The Pass

    Seth Siegel Gardner and Terrence Gallivan have received plenty of press for their efforts to take their globe-trotting careers and create a unique respite in Houston. The building on Taft is the original location of Antone’s Deli (and later Gravitas) but on the “fancier” side of this new dual restaurant, guests can look to experience “the essence of the kitchen” via multi-course tasting menus.

    The constantly evolving menu and item descriptions are intriguing, but they rarely do justice to the wonder that actually appears at the table. These are visually astonishing dishes.

    Brennan's

    For more than 43 years, Brennan’s has been a mainstay of special meals in Houston and it was particularly heartwarming to see the iconic restaurant return after the destruction of the Hurricane Ike fire in 2008. Executive chef Danny Trace continues a tradition of fine talent at the helm of a kitchen that still serves the traditional Creole favorites everyone expects along with many interesting daily specials that offer more of a glimpse into the chef’s own distinctive style.

    Consider the Texas watermelon salad with Pure Luck feta, red radishes, cayenne-spiced sunflower seeds, Vidalia onions and a honey/wine buttermilk dressing or the Creole mustard-crusted Colorado lamb chops served with jalapeno cornbread pudding, roasted garlic lamb sausage, asparagus and mint julep chimichurri sauce. These are no ordinary dishes.

    Mockingbird Bistro

    Chef John Sheely’s cozy space on Welch may not be the newest or most buzzed-about restaurant, but its “country French meets American market” cuisine is consistently delicious — and there's impeccable service. Seasonal menu changes are inspired by the freshest ingredients with current menu highlights including the ruby red trout with new potato confit, almond haricot verts, and a “royal red shrimp beurre noisette” (a clarified brown butter sauce) as well as a seared breast and roasted leg of duck served with creamy wild rice, broccolini and a Texas orange gastrique.

    Sheely is in the process of opening Osteria Mazzantini on Post Oak with executive chef Paul Lewis at the helm in the kitchen. The new eatery will pay homage to Sheely’s Italian roots.

    Pappas Bros Steakhouse

    Often times, “special occasion/fine dining” means steak. With its huge, high dollar wine list and over the top prime, dry-aged in house steaks like the 32-ounce bone-in New York strip, the 40-ounce porterhouse, along with live Maine lobster and fresh oysters, Pappas brings the wows.

    The dining room also provides the essential full-on VIP, see and be seen vibe.

    Fine dining at The Pass

    The Pass & Provisions Houston restaurant interior dining room crowd
      
    The Pass & Provisions Facebook
    Fine dining at The Pass
    unspecified
    news/restaurants-bars

    most read posts

    Intimate Houston cocktail lounge adds European-inspired outdoor patio

    Award-winning Houston cocktail bar diverts to new home in Montrose

    Innovative Houston chef is the city's newest James Beard Award winner

    Drop it like it's hot

    Houston farmers market adds new indoor pickleball court with food and cocktails

    Brianna Griff
    Jun 18, 2025 | 1:00 pm
    Drop Shots HTX indoor pickleball courts
    Photo by Abante Photography
    Drop Shots HTX celebrates its grand opening this Saturday, June 21.

    Pickleball isn’t going anywhere — the racquet sport continues to score with Houstonians. The newest player on the city’s crowded court, Drop Shots HTX, stands out for one big reason: it’s entirely indoors.

    Drop Shots HTX indoor pickleball courts
      

    Photo by Abante Photography

    Drop Shots HTX celebrates its grand opening this Saturday, June 21.

    Opening June 21, Drop Shots HTX is the brainchild of hospitality veterans Roveen Abante (Conservatory Galleria, Duchess), Chase Lovullo (Conservatory Galleria), and Shawn Outlaw.

    “We didn’t just want to open a bar,” co-founder Roveen Abante said in a statement. “We built a space where people connect, whether they’re playing or not. There’s something for everyone here.”

    Drop Shots HTX is marking its grand opening on June 21 from 12-11 pm, offering all-day open play for $5 along with $5 food and drink specials. Live DJs and giveaways will add to the experience.

    Patrons can soak up the A/C while slapping balls across one of the six professional-grade indoor courts. Off the court, guests can engage in friendly competitions of skee-ball, ping pong, arcade basketball, and cornhole in the second-floor lounge. Nine screens make up one wall in the mezzanine, ideal for catching the latest game, or can be expanded into one 195-inch television.

    Clutch City Kitchen will keep the players' appetite at bay with pizzas, sandwiches, and acai bowls. For hydration, an indoor/outdoor full bar will have 10 signature pickleball-themed cocktails, mocktails, and fresh juices crafted from local fruits and veggies.

    “Some venues lean into serious competition, we lean into fun,” added co-founder Shawn Outlaw. “We’re the only indoor pickleball facility inside the Loop with a full bar, kitchen, lounge, and patio. But more than that, we’re the only one that feels like your new favorite neighborhood hangout, even if you never touch a paddle.”

    Events like Glow-in-the-Dark Fridays, Tacos and Tequila Saturdays, and Pancakes and Pickball mornings add a twist to the typical pickleball match. Bring the kids—the venue is family-friendly until 10pm.

    “We created Drop Shots HTX because we fell in love with a game that brings generations together,” Outlaw said. “From our 10-year-olds to our 65-year-old parents, pickleball is for everyone. And so is this space.”

    Drop Shots HTX is located at 2520 Airline Drive, Building A, Suite 100. It’s open Monday through Thursday from 12-11pm, Friday from 12 pm-12 am, and Saturday and Sunday from 11 am-11 pm.

    nightlifeopeningspickleballdrop shots htxthe-heights
    news/restaurants-bars

    most read posts

    Intimate Houston cocktail lounge adds European-inspired outdoor patio

    Award-winning Houston cocktail bar diverts to new home in Montrose

    Innovative Houston chef is the city's newest James Beard Award winner

    Loading...