where to drink on Derby Day

These Houston restaurants and bars are going all out for Derby Day 2026

Bust out the big hats, iron that seersucker, and flaunt those florals, because the Kentucky Derby takes place this Saturday, May 2. Since many Houstonians enjoy any excuse to dress up and celebrate the Southern side of our city’s cultural gumbo, the popularity of these parties seems to increase every year.

This roundup includes both all-out, adults-only affairs and a couple of family-friendly options. With the mint juleps flowing and parking tight at most of these places, we strongly encourage catching a ride instead of driving.

Read on for our picks for Houston’s best Derby Day celebrations.

Brasserie 19
The River Oaks restaurant’s annual Derby Day party is a see-and-be-seen affair that’s known for its fiercely-contested best hat competition, as well as its brunch atmosphere and free-flowing mint juleps. 11 am.

Chapman & Kirby
The EaDo venue’s 10th annual Talk Derby To Me party is a brunch-based affair that begins at 2 pm. Attendees are encouraged to dress in their Derby finest, including statement hats, bold floral looks, and polished menswear. 2 pm (Free admission until 4 pm with RSVP).

Credence
For the second year in a row, chef and restaurateur Levi Goode is hosting his lavish “Hats & Horses” Derby party with an array of small bites, Maker’s Mart cocktails, a raw bar with oysters, and the race on a giant screen. Attendees can win prizes for best hat, best dressed, and more. Tickets start at $100 for general admission, with enhanced options such as VIP tickets ($250) and reserved tables also available. A portion of proceeds will benefit Dress for Success Houston. 4 pm.

Eight Row Flint
The Heights location of the whiskey-and-agave-focused patio bar is celebrating Derby Day with photo backdrops, a hat contest, and cocktail specials such as a frozen watermelon mint julep, classic julep, Kentucky smash, and Kentucky buck. In addition, four horses will be tied to different cocktails; if that horse wins the race, the person gets a drink ticket or the opportunity to win prizes in a raffle.

Guard & Grace
The downtown steakhouse’s Run for the Rosé Derby Party will feature tastings of rosé, white, orange, and sparkling wines from more than 15 vendors, paired with bites from the restaurant and a live viewing of the Kentucky Derby. Proceeds from a raffle will benefit Women of Wine Charities. 4 pm.

Heights Bier Garten
Winner of Bar of the Year in the 2021 CultureMap Tastemaker Awards, the bar’s 10th annual "Run for the Roses" party will feature best hat and best dressed prizes, along with Southern-inspired drink specials, giveaways, a photo booth, a DJ, and more. Reservations are encouraged. 11 am.

Julep
Alba Huerta’s James Beard Award-winning cocktail bar goes all out for Derby Day with a tented outdoor celebration that includes three cocktails bar. In addition, CultureMap Tastemaker Awards Best New Restaurant winner Aiko and cult-favorite Mexican restaurant Karanchos will serve bites, photo-worthy floral displays will abound, and Clutch City Band will perform. Festive Derby attire is strongly encouraged. 1 pm.

King Steak
The Uptown restaurant’s Derby party will feature a festive atmosphere, complete with prizes for “Best Dressed” and “Boldest Hat.” Sip on $10 mint juleps and champagne specials with nibbling on complimentary passed hors d’oeuvres. 3 pm.

Long Weekend
The recently-opened family friendly restaurant will celebrate its first Derby Day with a special menu of race-inspired bites, a special drink menu, and a $100 gift card for the winner of the best hat contest.

Permission Whiskey & Service Co.
Kentucky native and Permission owner Peter Nolan always goes all out for Derby Day with a bluegrass band, trumpet performance, ice sculptures, and a live horse. The winner of the best dressed contest will win a custom gift. Tickets, $25, are available via the link above. 1 pm.

The Union Kitchen - Kingwood
The popular neighborhood restaurant will celebrate Derby Day with themed cocktails made with Old Forester and Woodford Reserve bourbons, starters such as horseradish deviled eggs and smoked pimento cheese crostini, and entrees such as a Kentucky hot brown sandwich, grilled short ribs, and honey-bourbon grilled chicken. In addition, mini ponies will be available for photo ops and one person will win a best dressed competition. Reservations are encouraged. 12 pm.

William Price Distilling
Located in Garden Oaks, the event will include traditional cocktails such as the mint julep and Old Fashioned, along with the race on a big screen, giveaways, and a prize for best hat. Free to attend, but RSVP is required. 2 pm.

Courtesy of Permission Whiskey & Service Co.

Permission Whiskey goes all out with a bluegrass band and a live horse.

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Cream of the Crop

Michelin-starred Houston restaurant collabs with acclaimed Austin eatery

Photo courtesy of Tatemó

Tatemó is kicking off this summer's collaborative dinners at Hestia.

A returning dinner series is bringing together Michelin-recognized restaurants from across Texas in a unique sustained effort. Hestia, the most formal of Emmer & Rye Hospitality Group's Austin restaurants, will host three collaborative dinners in its Lone Star Dinner Series this summer: one each with restaurants from Austin, Houston, and newly, Dallas.

This is the second year for the series, which started with all-Austin collaborations, sold out, and later extended to work with March, a restaurant from Houston. Although it is not new for the Michelin-praised crowd to work together, this summer's efforts expand the series into something much harder to find, an ongoing project to connect the growing class of fine dining honorees across the state.

The three dinners on deck are:

June 16: Hestia and Tatemó from Houston
July 21: Hestia and Mamani from Dallas
August 25: Hestia and InterStellar BBQ from Austin

“The Lonestar Series allows us to tighten our relationship with other Michelin-starred restaurants in Texas,” said Hestia chef de cuisine Paul Wensel in a press release. “It is great to share experiences and different techniques across other incredible restaurants. Additionally, it's just fun to bring other chefs into our space for one night and do a different style of service; our team loves it, and it makes the summertime more interesting.”

Menus are not yet available for any of the dinners, but it is easy to guess that Tatemó's will heavily feature masa, the cornerstone ingredient that led to the restaurant's formation and still informs nearly everything it does. It's even in Tatemó's mission statement: "Our mission is to restore the cultural value of maíz, and its nutritional value in Houston, Texas by showcasing the diversity of heirloom corn, from different landscapes and purveyors of Mexico via masa products like tortillas."

“The passion behind why they do so much with masa and trying to teach people the importance of it all is something that I really look forward to learning more about,” said Wensel.

The next two dinners with Mamani and InterStellar will focus on French cuisine and barbecue, respectively.

Mamani, led by Parisian chef Christophe De Lellis, combines the culinary influences of Paris and the French and Italian Rivieras. Its Michelin Star was awarded just 60 days after it opened in 2025 (and it won Restaurant of the Year at the CultureMap Dallas Tastemaker Awards this spring).

Most Texans who follow barbecue at all know InterStellar, which is known for mostly traditional barbecue with some unexpected culinary twists like peach tea glazed pork belly, lamb tacos, and brown butter mac and cheese. That makes it well-suited to the collaborative format, where it can once again run with ideas that hardly cross paths with barbecue.

"They do a lot of cool interpretations of classic BBQ dishes," said Wensel. "It's going to be really interesting to see what they create in a tasting menu format."

Appropriately for this diverse set of culinary perspectives, Hestia is more attached to a technique — live-fire cooking — than to any one place or ingredient. Executive chef Kevin Fink and partner Tavel Bristol-Joseph have developed a tasting menu that responds to the seasons and utilizes Texas ingredients above all.

Reservations for each dinner are available on OpenTable, with seatings ranging from 5:30-10 pm. Each menu costs $225 per person, with optional wine pairings for $125 per person. Hestia is located at 607 W. 3rd St.

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