Introducing the 2024 Eater Houston Award Winners
The Best New Restaurant, the Best Live-Fire Experience, the Best Comeback, and the Most Beautiful Restaurant of the year
There’s never a dull year of dining in Houston; the city’s chefs constantly think of ways to bring something new and impactful to the scene. And so the Eater Awards are back, a moment when Eater Houston honors five restaurants whose dishes and dining experiences left us wanting more. This year’s awards recognize a new tasting menu restaurant that gives an innovative snapshot of the breadth and influence of Indigenous foodways, a tavern-style restaurant where we became quick regulars, a stunning addition to Montrose, a fiery restaurant heating up the Heights, and a Mexican American restaurant that has made a much-needed return. Please join us in celebrating this year’s winners, who will each receive a traditional Eater tomato can trophy for their deliciously deliberate efforts.
Ishtia: Best New Restaurant
Presented by SevenRooms
Widely considered a “Willy Wonka of food,” Choctaw chef David Skinner built a reputation on fantastical presentations of molecular gastronomy at his former restaurant, Eculent. At his new restaurant, Ishtia, whose name means “to begin,” dishes dig a little deeper. In 20 or more courses, the Indigenous tasting menu restaurant gifts diners with a rare look at Native cuisine in a way that hasn’t been done before. Skinner mindfully leads diners with a poetic reading about the Trail of Tears, and then into bowls of Tanchi Labona, a Choctaw soup made up of nixtamalized corn and pork, and tender rabbit assembled atop silky mole — a long-simmering combination of chiles, chocolates, and spices. He has in no way lost his magician-like touch, though: Staff members clear the air with a tableside burning of white sage paired with a smudge stick salad; an iconic rendition of Three Sisters — smoked scallop served on its shell with squash and rich corn butter — involves a dramatic burst of smoked seaweed steam. Corn cake tres leches soaked in corn milk is crowned with fluffy corn husk-infused meringue and served with a scoop of chicha morada sorbet, delivering the significant message that Indigenous foodways are interwoven with some of our favorite memories.
709 Harris Avenue, Kemah, Texas, 77565
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Dylan McEwan
Baso: Best Live-Fire Experience
Live fire had a moment in Houston this year, with several restaurants outside the realm of barbecue touting food cooked over an open flame. Few, however, let diners into the experience as intimately as Baso. The Heights restaurant, which opened in March, offers front-row seats to its fiery preparations, where Basque techniques prevail and sparks fly — literally. Chefs fan flames and turn blazing coals at the in-house grill before roasting shrimp, searing steaks, and bruleeing honey-covered peaches to create a sweet and sticky coating that pairs with a tantalizing combination of goat and cow cheeses and horseradish. But it’s more than a show: Baso provides an experience where fire is the central ingredient. Diners can smell the fire even before they step inside the restaurant, hear the crackling of the coals, feel the heat from the counter seats (the best spot in the house), and then taste the delicate char in dishes like the grilled fish or tarte de queso. It’s a kindling of all the senses.
633 W 19th Street, Suite A, the Heights, 77008.
Andi Valentine
Bar Bludorn: Place Where We Want to Be a Regular
Houston is home to thousands of restaurants, meaning it’s possible to visit a new restaurant every day without repeats. Still, some favorites call for a return — restaurants and bars where the food and drinks are consistently good, and the atmosphere makes diners feel like they belong, beckoning them to come back. Bar Bludorn is one of these. Opened by Aaron Bludorn and his team — wife Victoria Pappas Bludorn and hospitality guru Chefi Mbodji, the tavern-style restaurant has quickly become a fixture in the Memorial neighborhood, which speaks volumes. It’s a restaurant that feels like it’s been here before: The warm staff and hand-drawn character portraits of the team that line the bar wall are a charming complement to a menu of finely composed comfort dishes. Executive chef Alexandra Peña, who worked her way up the ranks from Bludorn, Aaron’s seminal restaurant, and Navy Blue, helps harness and merge Gulf Coast cuisine into a more modern interpretation of Southern comfort classics. She also incorporates her Mexican heritage in subtle ways: Fried chicken served with a peanut butter gravy features a chili condiment fused with matcha salsa. Juicy pork chops are served with mole. Pillowy gnocchi finds its base from masa, and Wednesday nights are marked by slow-cooked and smoked cabrito. The experience speaks for itself.
9061 Gaylord Drive, Memorial, 77024.
Bethany Ochs
The Marigold Club: Most Beautiful Restaurant
At Goodnight Hospitality’s restaurants, which include the Michelin-starred Mediterranean tasting menu restaurant March, it’s all about the details, and with its newest restaurant — the swanky Marigold Club — diners will find the same calculated greatness. The feminine, floral-themed decor plays on the restaurant’s name, with green velvet ceilings, plush banquettes, tables dressed with bouquets of flowers and miniature lamps, and a self-playing Steinway baby grand piano that evokes a supper club vibe. Walls filled with Pauline de Roussy de Sales’s hand-drawn illustrations showcase figures that appear as diverse and eclectic as Houston itself. The Murano chandeliers and sconces, hand-blown by Vetreria Venier, feature elegant appendages shaped like blossoming buds, making it an eye-catching backdrop for enjoying dishes like duck Wellington and expertly made drinks. Even the restrooms, wrapped in metallic floral wallpaper, exude beauty, rendering it a worthy pitstop if only for a martini, oysters, and views alone.
2531 Kuester Street, Montrose, 77006.
Arturo Olmos
Belly of the Beast: Best Comeback of the Year
With infusions from Mexico City and parts of Oaxaca, Houston’s Mexican food scene continues to level up. Chef Thomas Bille is undoubtedly a great contributor: The California native moved to Houston in 2018, and just months before the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, Bille and his wife Elizabeth transformed a home in Old Town Spring into their first rendition of Belly of the Beast. There, Bille quickly built a reputation for what he defines as New American cuisine “through the eyes of a first-generation Mexican American.”
Following a disagreement with their landlord, the Billes closed the restaurant roughly a year and a half later. Bille worked a year-long stint at the now-closed Mexican restaurant Chivos before deciding to venture out on his own again. Belly of the Beast reopened in an unassuming strip mall in November 2023. Once again, Bille is free to write what he calls a love letter to diners and his past. There are odes to his Mexican American upbringing, Baja cuisine, and his eldest daughter’s Persian-Armenian heritage; delightful summery street corn agnolotti that combines the comfort of homemade pasta and elote; birria tacos with cheesy, laced edges and salsa rojo; a yam dish with tortillas that feels like Mexican Thanksgiving on a plate; and potato empanadas that entrance with a silky mashed potato-comte cheese filling. Recently honored with a Bib Gourmand by the Michelin Guide, Belly of the Beast boasts a menu that artfully captures the essence of home cooking with unbridled creativity. We’re so glad it’s back.
5200 Farm to Market 2920, Suite #180, Spring, Texas, 77388.
Thuy An Photography
