a good start

7 hot takes on Houston's 30 restaurants in the Texas Michelin Guide

Houston has done well in the inaugural Texas edition of the Michelin Guide. The global dining review network included 31 Houston-area establishments, good for second-place statewide.

They are as follows:

Recommended - For quality restaurants that don’t qualify for either a Bib Gourmand or a Michelin star

Baso
Bludorn
Brisket & Rice
Candente
Hidden Omakase
Late August
Pappas Bros. Steakhouse

Bib Gourmand - Awarded to “restaurants that offer good quality food for a good value”

Belly of the Beast (Spring)
Blood Bros. BBQ (Bellaire)
Ema
Kau Ba (currently closed)
Killen’s
Killen’s Barbecue
Mala Sichuan Bistro
Nam Giao
Nancy’s Hustle
Nobie’s
Pinkerton’s Barbecue
The Pit Room
Rosemeyer Bar-B-Q
Rosie Cannonball
Street to Kitchen
Tejas Chocolate + Barbecue (Tomball)
Theodore Rex
Truth BBQ

One Star awarded to “establishments serving exceptional cuisine that’s rich in flavor, remarkably executed, and infused with the personality of a talented chef.”

BCN Taste & Tradition
Corkscrew BBQ (Spring)
Le Jardinier
March
Musaafer
Tatemó

Austin led the way with 47 selections, followed by Houston (31), Dallas (22), San Antonio (13), and Fort Worth (three). Austin restaurants also earned the most one-star designations (seven) and the only two green stars, which are awarded for restaurants committed to sustainability.

Here are seven first impressions based on the results.

1. It was a good night for Texas barbecue. Of the state’s 117 total selections, 26 are barbecue joints — including nine in greater Houston. Michelin’s decision to award one star status to four barbecue restaurants — the first ever for American-style barbecue, the guide notes — indicates that it considers smoked meat to be Texas’ biggest contribution to world gastronomy.

2. Theodore Rex being included in the Bib Gourmand rather than either of the other two designations may be the night’s single biggest surprise. Even a carefully chosen meal at the fine dining restaurant could easily cost more than $100 per person, which makes it a strange fit among the considerably more affordable spots included among the Bibs.

3. The guide showed its willingness to extend beyond the Houston city limits. Spring restaurants earned three spots, including a star for CorkScrew BBQ. Tomball, Bellaire, and Pearland also earned spots.

4. Still, with only two Chinatown selections and none from the South Asian restaurants on Hillcroft, it’s clear that Michelin still has more exploring to do. We’ll hope for a major update to both the Recommended and Bib Gourmand categories in 2025 that show more depth in both categories.

5. While most people think of Michelin as predominantly interested in fine dining, some of the Bib Gourmand and recommended choices are extremely casual. Brisket & Rice occupies a gas station in Southwest Houston, while Rosemeyer Bar-B-Q is a trailer on the Grand Parkway feeder road. Let’s all be delighted by the idea of Michelin inspectors feasting on slow smoked brisket at one of Rosemeyer’s picnic tables.

6. Houston’s other signature cuisines didn’t fare nearly as well. The guide only included one Indian restaurant and only two Vietnamese restaurants (one of which is currently closed. Candente is the city’s only Tex-Mex restaurant, even though Superica earned a Bib for its original location in Atlanta. None of our Cajun or Creole establishments made the list.

Hidden Omakase is the city’s only Japanese restaurant, which excludes big names such as Neo, MF Sushi, and Uchi. Many chefs in town consider Manabu Horiuchi of Katami and Kata Robata to be one of the city’s most talented culinarians, making his omission particularly perplexing.

7. It was a rough night for old school institutions. Fans of restaurants like Tony’s, Da Marco, Brennan’s of Houston, or any of Hugo Ortega’s establishments will be scouring the list wondering about their omissions.

Quibbles aside, the crowd that gathered at Houston’s 713 Music Hall for the awards had an unmistakable buzz around it. Most of the chefs who took the stage to accept their awards did so with other members of their team, whether they be managers, sous chefs, or business partners. While the chefs donned special jackets to honor their achievements, the presence of so many others on stage demonstrated that restaurants are truly a team effort.

Photo by Julie Soefer

The bar at March.

For Tatemó chef Emmanuel Chavez, who got his start selling tortillas at the Urban Harvest farmers market, earning a star tonight served as the next step in a career that also includes a Food & Wine Best New Chef award and two James Beard Award finalist nominations.

“I’m good with one,” he tells CultureMap. “We don’t need more stress. This is stressful as it is.”

Belly of the Beast owner Thomas Bille had a similar reaction to be included in the Bib Gourmand list. “This was never anything I ever wanted to chase, but once it was announced, we said, let’s do the best we can. Let’s stay true to ourselves,” he tells CultureMap.

Don’t expect the restaurant to change in ways that might elevate it to one-star status. “We’ll keep doing what we do. There’s always room for improvement, but I don’t want to change what we’re doing,” he says.

Aaron Bludorn says he’s relieved by receiving a Recommended designation for Bludorn, his Montrose-area, French-inspired fine dining restaurant. Having had the responsibility of holding a star as the executive chef of New York’s Cafe Boulud, he’s content with his current status.

“We’re happy to be recommended. It’s exactly where we want to be,” he says.

michelin guide awards news-you-can-eat

6 questions with Mark Black

Terry Black's co-founder dishes on Houston opening and future hotel plans

Courtesy of Terry Black's Barbecue

Diners walk past the restaurant's six smokers.

Houston barbecue fans are buzzing about the arrival of Terry Black’s Barbecue, which opens in the Heights (1329 N. Shepherd) this Tuesday, August 18.

Touted by Texas Monthly as “the most impressive barbecue chain in Texas,” the restaurant is known for serving its full menu seven days a week for lunch and dinner. Six, 1,000-gallon offset smokers — the first thing diners see once they walk in from the parking lot — help ensure that diners will never have to pass on brisket, beef ribs, pork ribs, turkey, and two kinds of house made sausage. They’re paired with sides, desserts, and the restaurant’s signature black frozen margarita.

Houston comes in the middle of a growth spurt for Terry Black’s and its parent company, Black Family Hospitality. It’s already preparing to open a Terry Black’s in New Braunfels. By years end, the company will add a San Antonio location that will also include a boutique hotel and a bathhouse that may be called The Depths.

Eventually, Black Family Hospitality will add a hotel, bathhouse, and steakhouse to its Houston property. Eager to learn more about the company’s perspective on Houston and its future plans, CultureMap spoke to Terry Black's co-founder Mark Black. Read on for details about the other Houston neighborhood he and his brother Mike considered for Terry Black’s, a few details on the hotel (coming in 2028), and what he recommends first time visitors order.

CultureMap: How did you decide on the Heights as the right location for Terry Black’s?
Mark Black: We looked all over Houston for the perfect location. I really liked a lot of things about EaDo, but unfortunately they were doing a big highway expansion project. So we found this property in the Heights and we just kind of fell in love with it, fell in love with the area, too.

CM: Houston has a well-established barbecue scene. How do you see Terry Black’s fitting in?
MB: When we opened in Austin, there was a ton of good barbecue restaurant. Same thing with Dallas, Fort Worth, even the smaller areas. My hometown of Lockhart is known as the barbecue capital of Texas.

I think we can be very successful here. And of course, there's a ton of other successful barbecue restaurants and really, really good barbecue in Houston. So we're excited to come join the market.

CM: Tell me about Terry Black’s commitment to being open for lunch and dinner every day, because I think of that as a big part of your identity.
MB: Absolutely. It's definitely part of our brand identity. Being open seven days a week for lunch and dinner. When we first went into Austin, everyone was kind of following that Franklin's model. And what I refer to as the Franklin model was, I'm going to be open limited days for lunch. I'm gonna sell out and we're gonna shut down for the day.

We said, we've got to do something different. We want to separate ourselves. Not only that, there's two of us. So we're young, we're hungry, we're gonna grind. My brother and I would split shifts. The first year, year-and-a-half we were open, we worked about 400 days straight. We're putting anywhere from 12 to 16 hour days and we would split shifts.

We would just grind it out, and there was 2 of us, and we could do that. We knew we needed to separate ourselves and be different than some of the other barbecue restaurants there. That's how we would find our nature. It worked out really well for us.

CM: For people who've heard about Terry Black’s but haven’t tried it yet, what do you have to get on your first visit?
MB: When you come to Terry Black’s, it's traditional Central Texas barbecue. You've got to get the Texas trinity — brisket, pork ribs, and sausage. With that being said, what we've started to become known for is what we refer to as the Cadillac of barbecue, the beef ribs.

Personally, my favorite side, shockingly enough, is green beans. It's our second biggest seller. It's a fresh green bean that we actually go direct to the farm. It's a high quality green bean as opposed to something that may come out of a can

CM: We're focused on the restaurant, but I've read that there's a hotel component. Can you tell me anything about that?
MB: There is gonna be a boutique hotel here. It'll have 14 rooms, give or take, and it'll have a steakhouse that we've already branded. Can't release that quite yet, but it has been branded. And there's other elements. We'll have a members aspect of it. We’ll have a bathhouse, a gym, things of that nature. That's still in the in the planning stages.

CM: What's it been like kind of diversifying Black Family Hospitality beyond barbecue?
MB: Growing Black Family Hospitality has been fun. The barbecue's something that we've done all of our lives. So when we jumped into Opal's Oysters [in Waco] and the bowling alley and Glory Roll Sushi [in Lockhart], it was a challenge, but they've been fun and I really enjoy those now at this stage of our career.

The project that most excites me is the bathhouse. We're at a point where we want to do fun concepts that we enjoy going to. Of course, we enjoy going to the barbecue restaurants and the other restaurants that we have, but more experiential type stuff like the bathhouse and jumping into the hotels and things of that nature are what I'm really excited about. It's going to be a challenge, but we've got a really good team.

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This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Courtesy of Terry Black's Barbecue

Diners walk past the restaurant's six smokers.

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