Houston’s Most Anticipated Restaurant Openings, Fall 2025

Does it ever feel like fall in Houston? No. Not much. But that doesn’t mean we don’t have a stable of great bars and restaurants to look forward to during slightly less harsh summer. From a few extremely hype spots that were also on our summer list to a jazz club in a historic theatre to the newest bar from a Houston cocktail scene architect, these are the spots we’re most excited about visiting this fall.

Augustine’s

Location: Riverside Terrace / Third Ward
Key player: Chef Dominick Lee, Hotel King David
Projected opening date: Late fall 2025

New Orleans–born chef Dominick Lee, formerly Poitín’s executive chef, is at the helm of another restaurant we expected earlier in the year, but that’s now slated for late fall: Augustine’s. The restaurant will serve “progressive Creole,” a nod to the home he was displaced from after Hurricane Katrina. Nestled inside the restored, Black-owned Hotel King David in Riverside Terrace, Augustine’s aims to perfect and add new elements to Creole classics like gumbo and jambalaya. Lee, who spent time in Europe studying the Creole’s European, African, and Indigenous roots, brings that perspective to a menu driven by exploring creolization — the concept of blending cultures. The restaurant’s name is said to reference the surname of what’s considered the first Creole family, tracing a path from France to Louisiana to Texas. 

Doc’s Texas Jazz Club

Location: Montrose
Key player: Doc Watkins
Projected Opening: Fall 2025

In a prior life, the Tower Theatre was a Hollywood Video. Later, it housed El Real Tex-Mex Café. When it opened in 1936, the historic spot played movies, and at another point, it was a music venue. The building is clearly making use of each of its nine lives, and this fall it’s set to return as Doc’s Texas Jazz Club, a supper-club-style restaurant from Doc Watkins, the owner and founder of San Antonio’s premier jazz club, Jazz, TX. Expect Gulf seafood towers, steaks,  cocktails, and nightly jazz in a big space built for partying like it’s 1939 in Montrose. 

Oru

Location: Heights
Key players: Comma Hospitality; Samee Ahmed, Saber Ahmed
Projected Opening: Early September 

After earning a spot on our anticipated summer restaurants list, Oru didn’t make its debut during those months, but it’s still been squarely on our radar. Comma Hospitality, the crew behind Neo and Kira, is back with a 24-seat hinoki counter — the wood closely associated with prestigious sushi restaurants in Japan —  in the Heights. Early dishes include sea bream sashimi with recado negro vinaigrette and purslane, silky nasu eggplant, and five spice–cured duck breast sliced paper-thin and poached tableside. 

Donna’s

Location: Montrose
Key players: Bobby Heugel, Jacki Schromm, Thorough Fare
Projected opening date: Fall 2025

We don’t have many details yet, but the little we do know has us excited. Anvil’s Bobby Heugel is teaming up with Jacki Schromm (currently the general manager at downtown whiskey destination Reserve 101) to open Donna’s this fall in the former Ready Room space on White Oak Drive. Named after Schromm’s grandmother, who she calls “a woman of remarkable strength, kindness, and quiet power,” the Heights cocktail bar is the latest project from Thorough Fare, the hospitality group Heugel runs with chef-owner Justin Yu. Schromm, who previously worked with Heugel at Anvil, will now step into a spotlight of her own as an owner of Donna’s. Thorough Fare also operates Squable, Theodore Rex, Better Luck Tomorrow, Refuge, Catbirds, and the Blue Lagoon Club.

Hypsi

Location: Heights
Key player: Terrence Gallivan, Bunkhouse
Projected opening date: November 2025

Austin-based Bunkhouse Hotels, which planted a flag in Houston earlier this year with Hotel Saint Augustine (and Hyatt acquired last year), is bringing its newest property to the Heights. Hotel Daphne won’t start booking rooms until January, but its restaurant and lounge, Hypsi, will open in November. Chef Terrence Gallivan — a James Beard Award nominee who previously ran The Pass & Provisions and Elro — will head the kitchen, focusing on Italian-inspired dishes and aperitivo-driven cocktails.