Here Are Eater’s Michelin Star Predictions for Houston

Tasting menu restaurants that dive into Indigenous, Mexican, and French cuisine, a stunning Indian restaurant, and a wildcard barbecue contender that could make the cut

The Michelin Guide announced on Tuesday, July 16, that it’s taking its stars to the Lone Star State, recognizing outstanding restaurants in five major cities, including Houston. Conversation about Michelin’s entry into Texas erupted, with questions surfaced about what the guide’s arrival might mean for the city, and, saliently, which Houston restaurants would be recognized.

Most local diners may agree this city brims with restaurants that offer diverse cuisines, spanning barbecue, Tex-Mex, West African, Vietnamese, and beyond. We know our food here is good, but how does Michelin define good? The question is complicated. The Michelin Guide, known to skew toward tasting menus deeply rooted in European and Japanese cuisine, has yet to grant a star to an American barbecue restaurant, which, in itself, may sound suspicious to any Texan. Still, the guide does award Bib Gourmand designations to restaurants that serve superlative food at more affordable price points.

Despite it being bent toward high-end restaurants, the guide says food — the quality of ingredients, the harmony of flavors, the chef’s conveyed personality, voice, mastery of cooking techniques, and consistency — are its only criteria. Not decor and ambiance, presentation, or service — just food. With that in mind, Eater Houston has some thoughts about which Space City restaurants may make the cut. Who knows? Maybe Michelin’s experience in Texas will mark a new era for the guide entirely. Here are our predictions:

Le Jardinier

This Houston fine dining restaurant, located within the Museum of Fine Arts, technically already has a Michelin star but at its locations in New York and Miami. Chef de cuisine Felipe Botero Sanchez says the Bastion Collection hospitality group has kept the same standard at each restaurant, including Le Jardinier in Houston, where the restaurant delivers seasonal vegetables, fruits, herbs, and carefully sourced proteins in presentations worthy of the museum it resides in. Adhering to the theme of its namesake, the menu features dishes like citrus-cured sea bass with buttermilk, cucumber, mango, and Fresno chiles, as well as squash carpaccio served with romesco, almonds, and caper berries. The drinks menu touches on earthy, herbaceous flavors. This should be a turnkey addition.

Alex Montoya

March

Goodnight Hospitality’s tasting menu restaurant takes diners through a new region of the Mediterranean each season. Chef Felipe Riccio and his team’s menu involves micro-attention to detail and weeks of research — so much so that they shut down the restaurant for the summer and travel to regions in France, Spain, Italy, and Greece, among others, to source inspiration for the next round. After months of experimentation, diners are introduced to a refined six- to nine-course meal, starting with sips and small morsels at its bar before they’re ushered into a pristine dining room. Dishes have recently included paella valenciana, a combination of lamb chorizo, sweetbreads, fava beans, and saffron socarrat, and March’s take on Escudella de Hortalissa. June Rodil, the master sommelier (one in 25 women in the country to earn such a distinction), takes great care with the wine pairings to ensure that this restaurant fires on all cylinders.

Annie Mulligan

Musaafer

Executive chef Mayank Istwal uses nearly two years of his travels around 49 states in India to hone a seasonal menu that also incorporates his Ayurvedic studies. The restaurant tells a story with its multi-course summer tasting menu, which features a delicate lychee ceviche with yuzu coconut sauce and a creamy sea bass moilee. The drinks menu is as thoughtful, with seasonal chai and its Beekeeper series that uses honey sourced from neighborhoods within seven miles of the restaurant. Ambiance and decor are not technically a part of Michelin’s criteria, but this is also one of the most stunning restaurants in Houston.

Julie Soefer Photography

Tatemó

Award-winning chef Emmanuel Chavez leads this tasting menu restaurant, which emphasizes its use of thoughtfully sourced masa and seasonal ingredients. Diners are invited to slow down and savor Mexican dishes in a well-paced seven-course experience. A recent visit to Tatemó, named Eater Houston’s Best Tasting Menu Restaurant in 2023, featured a plantain tortilla used to sweep up a combination of masa-tempura-fried sweet potato and spicy mole negro; a taco stuffed with smoked shallot, wagyu beef, and cherry salsa; and a tostada draped in a sliver of bluefin tuna. Tatemo’s signature quesadilla, stuffed with Oaxacan cheese, huitlacoche, or corn smut, and epazote, is a staple dish. (Doesn’t hurt that it’s served with caviar-topped guacamole fresca, either.) If it’s about the food for Michelin, Tatemo certainly delivers — and completes its mission to bring more awareness to the breadth and possibilities of maize and Mexican cuisine.

Brittany Britto Garley

Ishtia

A master of molecular gastronomy, Choctaw chef David Skinner has earned a reputation as the “Willy Wonka of food” thanks to the head-turning creations at his former restaurant Eculent, which he closed in March 2024. But after seeing diners’ growing interest in Th Prsrv, a Thai and Indigenous tasting menu restaurant he shares with James Beard Award-winning chef Benchawan Jabthong Painter, Skinner shifted gears. In June, he opened Ishtia, a tasting menu restaurant that showcases Native American cuisine using live-fire cooking techniques. Diners will find dishes that are deftly curated, imaginative, and informed by interesting and complex histories. Whether it’s Th Prsrv or Ishtia — both of which are the only Indigenous-owned Native American tasting menu restaurants in the Lone Star State, it’s hard to imagine Skinner not getting Michelin recognition.

JIA Media

Truth BBQ

Texas barbecue is by no means a fine dining experience. Ribs are devoured using bare hands; fingertips are often covered in some combination of spices and barbecue sauce. But if Michelin is serious about its food-only criteria and considers barbecue, as its announcement press release intimated, then Truth is a worthy — and game-changing — contender. The barbecue restaurant, which first got its start in Brenham, has captivated Texas residents and tourists alike, earning top spots and laudatory reviews from various publications. Pitmaster Leonard Botello IV’s brisket is tender and well-seasoned. The ribs have just enough bite, while the sides, which include an unconventional tater tot casserole (or hotdish, as it’s known in the Midwest), keep things interesting.

Robert Jacob Lerma

Bludorn

Chef Aaron Bludorn says he was happy to escape the pressure of the Michelin gaze once he left New York after a decade of working at Cafe Boulud, but we’re not letting him off that easy. Bludorn’s restaurants, which include Bludorn, Navy Blue, and Bar Bludorn, have each become Houston mainstays for offering satisfying new American dishes that finely incorporate elements of Gulf Coast cuisine. We could see this chef being awarded a star.

Lauren Holub

Bib Gourmands

• Street to Kitchen: James Beard Award-winning chef Benchawan Jabthong Painter has already been recognized for her “unapologetically” Thai cuisine. And with her annual visits to Bangkok, where she and her husband Graham often keep tabs on the Michelin-starred scene, it’d be hard to see her not getting some sort of recognition.
• Nancy’s Hustle is often a go-to for travelers and locals alike, even just for the iconic pillowy Nancy Cakes served with cultured butter and trout roe.

Which restaurant do you think deserves Michelin recognition, and who do you think will actually earn a star? Write us at houston@eater.com.