17 Best Restaurants in Greater Houston, Houston and Galveston

Come to this loud, silicone-and-Rolex-filled place with a big appetite and a taste for a great selection of Texas and world-wide wines. This local favorite packs in young movers and shakers every night with upscale comfort food, including Lobster Thermadelphia—a twist on a Philly cheesesteak, with lobster, tequila, lime, and jalapeño cheddar cheese on a baguette, and the Texas Haute Dog, an all-beef hot dog with pickled jalapeño, Texas venison chili, cotija cheese, and crispy fried onion rings. Pair them up with an awesome selection of wines, many available by the glass, but much better priced as bottles. It's open until 2 am Thursday, Friday, and Saturday

A colorful mosaic-tiled, multistoried room delivers outstanding New World cuisine that includes roasted pork filet mignon with grilled shrimp and lump crabmeat and the crowd-favorite Encamisado, a chicken breast crusted with plantains and Chontaleno cheese over black-bean sauce. The executive lunch, available weekdays, is just $15.95 and includes a signature entrée and dessert, plus your choice of soup or salad.

With executive chefs hailing from Sardinia, Italy, Arcodoro is the place to go for authentic Sardinian cuisine. The various pasta dishes, such as artichoke-filled ravioli and gnochetti (teardrop pasta) with wild-boar ragu (stew), are very popular, as are the chicken dishes and osso buco, and the rib-eye steak is succulent. Alfresco dining is available year-round, but only truly enjoyable in the cooler months and when you're sitting far enough away from the parking lot to be out of exhaust range. Check out the online store for authentic Sardinian products.

An excellent choice for vegetarian cuisine, this eclectic bungalow in the Montrose neighborhood serves an avocado-and-mushroom-topped veggie burger plate that has been popular since 1975. Named after a Slavic witch, Baba Yega offers an award-winning weekend brunch, and full bar as well. Enjoy people-watching out front under the shade of a century-old oak tree, or dine on the covered patio before a waterfall and herb garden.

For fresh gourmet pizzas and interesting starters, head directly to buzzing Dolce Vita on lower Westheimer's restaurant row. Extremely casual, with gracious dining areas scattered throughout a restored older house, the restaurant has unexpected appetizers like marinated mussels tossed with capers, parsley, and potatoes, and calamari with mint, orange, and olives. Smoky Neapolitan pies are baked in the 800-degree wood-fired oven and include the crowd-pleasing margarita, with tomato, basil, and buffalo mozzarella and the salsiccia e friarelli, with sausage, rapini, and pecorino. Sit outside in good weather and bad—the patio's covered.

Wildly popular and wildly good, El Tiempo on Washington (there are other locations on Richmond and Montrose) is the go-to Mexican restaurant for socialites, families, singles (check out the swinging bar scene), and serious eaters. The place gets raves for its margaritas, fajitas, guacamole, green sauce, and the whopping, table-filling mixed grill, with beef and chicken fajitas, jumbo shrimp, quail, baby-back ribs, carnitas (spicy roasted pork), and jalapeño sausage. It's open for breakfast on weekends.

Gutsy, sometimes playful cuisine prepared by Chef Charles Clark is served in a bustling Midtown dining room as seductive as its namesake island off the coast of Spain. Generous portions of seasonal dishes intermingle with delectable Spanish tapas and hearty entrées such as braised lamb shank with mint oil. Oenophiles appreciate Ibiza's ever-changing wine list of rare tastes at fair prices. Don't miss the outdoor patio on pretty days or the homemade sangria chock-full of fresh fruit. Insider tip: cotton candy is available as a lunch dessert; just ask! An adjacent lounge, Ibiza Lounge Next Door, packs in a young, good-looking, and chic crowd in a cozy dark room with lots of low seating.

You could forget you're in the city at the grand hacienda of Las Alamedas, which overlooks a peaceful wooded ravine in Memorial. The menu is upscale Mexican (not Tex-Mex!) cuisine, and the kitchen is sometimes uneven, but generally very good. Two splendid entrées are tacos de cochinita pibil (chunks of pork simmered in achiote sauce) and huachinango à la azteca (red snapper stuffed with corn mushrooms in poblano sauce). There's a kids' menu.

Don't let the strip-center location or the dreary brown-and-grey interior fool you: this may be the best Thai restaurant in Houston. From the moment you walk in, you're greeted warmly and served attentively. Menu standouts include pad Thai in all its rich peanuty goodness, along with a top-of-its-class chicken satay served with a zesty cucumber relish. Warning: if the server asks you if you'd like your dish "Thai hot," you might as well bring along a fire extinguisher. The wine list is kind of disappointing, but you're here for the food.

This granddaddy of Houston restaurants was one of the first to bring fine, reasonably priced Italian cooking to the city. Nino's appetizers and entrées can go head to head with those at trendier and tonier places in town. Owner Vincent Mandola continually updates the menu but retains the classics that put him on the map. Start with antipasto misto (mixed) of marinated and roasted vegetables, then enjoy wood-fired rotisserie lemon-garlic chicken with mashed potatoes for inspired comfort food.

The operative word at this popular steakhouse is "prime": prime beef, a prime setting, and a clientele primed for coddling, conversation, and cholesterol. The Steakhouse, poshest of the Pappas restaurant dynasty, gains a clubby look from dark wood, cushy booths, and phones at the tables. Thumbs-up to a beefsteak-tomato-and-Roquefort salad (big enough to share) and to the fork-tender New York strip steak with peppercorn sauce. Creamy mashed potatoes and giant fried onion rings provide delicious accompaniments to fillets. Expect a wait, even with reservations.

Since 1989 this Houston standby has dished up reliable meals of salads, pastas, seafood, and chops for smartly dressed businesspeople and the monied Tanglewood and Memorial crowds. The patrons come in for escargots Bourguignonnes with Provençal herb sauce, as well as barbecue chicken quesadillas with roasted-corn-and-black-bean salsa. The handily adjacent Oak Club serves up live music Tuesday through Saturday nights.

Houston's first family of restaurateurs, the Mandolas, have put their stamp on this casual eatery (they also own Nino's) that offers classic Italian dishes in a warm, vibrant atmosphere. The affordable offerings include a fantastic spinach salad with pancetta, chopped eggs, and goat cheese, plus the house specialty: wood-roasted lemon-garlic chicken, served with garlic mashed potatoes and Italian-style green beans. There's also a great selection of pasta dishes, and a decent wine list. Sit outside when the weather's nice, or order ahead to-go—they'll bring it right out to your car.

Chef Bryan Caswell, late of Bank at the Hotel Icon, re-emerges at Midtown's bustling Reef, a loud, showy seafood house packed to the gills with movers and shakers and their friends. Although the food is often a mixed bag, when it's good, it's great. Shrimp wrapped with bacon and stuffed with avocado; crispy-skin Gulf Coast snapper; and the jumbo crab cake served with taqueria-style pickled vegetables are good choices. Fish not regularly seen on conventional menus, from amberjack to wahoo, make a splash here as well. For a seafood joint, Reef has a mean "naked" rib eye, served with brown-butter gnocchi. Check out the glass-enclosed wine wall, filled to the ceiling with remarkably well-priced, unusual selections.

With Texana to the max, this expansive place is as much about pride as prime beef. The entry looks like a sprawling ranch house and the lobby invites long evenings spent on the front porch. So relax, as you and your fellow carnivores will likely wait a while for your table. Famous for its steaks, the kitchen also whips up chicken, lobster, and grilled shrimp. Taste of Texas also has an online store selling steaks, gourmet gift boxes with steaks and grilling supplies, and restaurant-themed merchandise.

This adult playground is the place where deals get done, life celebrations are marked, and people keep an eagle eye out for the next boldfaced type (as in boldface type in the social columns) to walk through the water-wall-surrounded front doors. Oh right, the Euro-Italian food is excellent, too, and the über-elegant surroundings, complete with contemporary artworks by Jesus Moroles, Robert Rauschenberg, and Donald Sultan, are sensory overload. Tony Vallone and his trained staff take excellent care of each and every customer. Watch for him and wife Donna moving around the room at lunch and dinner, personally greeting diners. Call ahead to order the towering molten white-chocolate soufflé, a local favorite. The cellar holds more than 1,000 labels, and is particularly strong in wines of France, Italy, and California. Lunch is a prix-fixe steal.

Sure it's trendy, and maybe more stylish than substantive, but if you're looking for the decadent sushi experience, it's hard to beat the pricey and delicious Uptown Sushi. With its ethereal, white-on-white and Lucite-and-low-light decor, this Galleria-area hot spot offers fresh, interesting takes on sushi and sashimi. The Seven-and-a-Half Roll (tuna, salmon, yellowtail, masago, and avocado, all tempura fried) is not to be missed, nor is the Ribeye Roll (slices of beef wrapped around avocados and sweet Japanese yams). Try to snag a mezzanine-level table so you can see all the glamour go down. While waiting for said table, cool your designer heels at the raucous, pick-up-line-laden bar, with great, expensive wines and strong mixed drinks.