best new tacos

4 Houston spots make Texas Monthly's 25 best new taquerias list

Maximo is one of four Houston restaurants on the list.

Photo by Julie Soefer

Texas Monthly taco editor José Ralat has released his list of The 25 Best New(ish) Texas Taquerias in 2026. Published Monday, May 18, the list serves as an mid-cycle update to the James Beard Award-winning writer’s 2024 list of the 50 Best Tacos in Texas, which is published every four years.

Houston and San Antonio take the lead with four spots on the list. The Bayou City’s representatives are:

Alturas Mexican Cafe, a family-owned restaurant near the Heights
Bar Xolo, a Mexico City-inspired dining bar in Montrose
Huncho’s Tacos, a halal taqueria in Southwest Houston
Maximo, an upscale Mexican restaurant in West University Place

At Alturas, Ralat praises the house made flour tortillas and shredded chicken mole enmoladas. At Bar Xolo, he recommends the Tacos Oscar, which are made with potato, house made cheese, and caviar. The ribeye taco is must-order at Huncho’s, while Maximo earns its spot for a $45, five-course tasting menu that includes a “wild mushroom taco with white-capped bunapi, a crunchy lilliputian fungus that eats like popcorn with a woodsy flavor.”

Zaranda, the California-inspired restaurant from James Beard Award-winning chef Hugo Ortega, earns an honorable mention.

Elsewhere in Texas, the Dallas area, including suburbs such as Arlington and Plano, has four representatives on the list. Austin restaurants take two spots, and Fort Worth gets one.

Austin and San Antonio receive one honorable mention each. Dallas and its Farmers Branch suburb are also recognized with honorable mentions.

Ralat writes that he visited almost 200 taquerias to assemble the list, which is made up of restaurants that “opened, reopened, or expanded their menus between August 2024 and this past March.”

While Ralat finds that restaurateurs have faced challenges that include rising prices and aggressive immigration enforcement efforts, the overall states of tacos in Texas is strong.

“But nothing gets in the way of ganas — guts, desire, determination, and hard work. The 25 best new taquerias — revealed in alphabetical order by location (alongside ten honorable mentions) — all have that quality,” he writes.

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WHATANEWS

Whataburger revives classic A-frame with retro-modern new design

Rendering courtesy of Whataburger

Whataburger's "Legacy" restaurant design brings back the iconic A-frame.

Aiming for a modern-yet-retro look, Whataburger is reviving its iconic A-frame. Sort of.

The San Antonio-based hamburger chain is introducing two new prototype store designs, each of which is “grounded in the brand’s heritage but built for how [customers] experience Whataburger today,” the company says.The designs will be incorporated into newly built locations.

One of the prototypes, called The Legacy, reintroduces the classic A-frame shape, but with a modern twist, on the exterior of a 3,000-square-foot store and enlarges the dining room, the company says. The new A-frame treatment maintains “the unmistakable Whataburger look with bold architectural updates,” says the burger chain, but it takes up far less space than the original version.

The other prototype, called The Essential, leans into the iconic orange-and-white striped scheme on the exterior of a 2,000-square-foot restaurant.

Whataburger Essential restaurant design Not every new build will have the A-frame.Rendering courtesy of Whataburger

CultureMap reported in 2020 that Whataburger had debuted its first refreshed store in South San Antonio, de-emphasizing the familiar A-frame, adding more glass around the front of the building, updating the décor, and retooling the kitchen. (Austin's first new-look store debuted in 2021.) In the six years since, most of Whataburger’s original A-frame-adorned “flying W” stores have switched to new formats, and all newly built locations have incorporated modern designs.

Among other changes coming to new Whataburger restaurants are:

Warmer spaces featuring natural wood tones, more glass, and modern materials to “create a more open, welcoming environment.”
Updated layouts with flexible seating and dedicated areas for mobile orders and third-party order pickups.

“The result is a space that feels like Whataburger from the moment you pull in, with a few thoughtful updates to make every visit even better. It’s all about honoring the brand’s roots while making room for what’s next,” the company says.

The new prototypes will debut in Texas and then be rolled out in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, and South Carolina. Construction is set to start later this year, and store openings are expected in early 2027.

Whataburger, founded in 1950 in Corpus Christi, operates more than 1,100 restaurants in 17 states, with the bulk of them in Texas.

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