Houston Restaurant Openings: 9 Tables to Book Now

Start with Jantra if you want the hardest-working dinner reservation: eight seats, Beard-winning chef Benchawan Jabthong Painter (Chef G), and a tasting format that is not trying to be another Thai restaurant. After that, make Bar Daphne your Heights cocktail stop and keep Captain Mc's Seafood in your pocket for a sub-$20 Gulf seafood lunch. The decision comes down to format: an eight-seat tasting counter, a 50-seat hotel bar, binchotan yakitori, breakfast tacos on Fulton, and two Westheimer projects built for different nights.

Houston has plenty of new restaurants, but these are the ones that actually help you plan. Some are easy weekday moves. Others work better when you know exactly why you are going: tasting-menu scarcity, hotel-bar polish, charcoal skewers, value seafood, or a one-stop dinner-and-cocktails night.

Cochinita & Co. (Northside)

Go to Cochinita & Co. for breakfast or lunch, not a long dinner. Chef Victoria Elizondo, a two-time James Beard semifinalist, opened this second location on Fulton after a four-month pop-up in the same space gave Northside regulars a reason to want her back permanently.

What works here is that Elizondo did not overbuild the expansion. The morning menu covers build-your-own breakfast tacos, chilaquiles, and tamales. Lunch shifts to cochinita pibil, tostaditas, and quesadillas. That is exactly the right lane: focused enough to protect the original’s identity, broad enough to make the new address useful more than once a week.

Do not overthink the plan. If you are choosing between this and a heavier lunch, Cochinita & Co. wins when you want a Mexican daytime meal with a serious chef behind it and no dinner commitment. The BYOB detail helps for a casual group lunch, but timing is the real constraint. It is open until 3 p.m., so treat it as a morning or lunch move.

For Northside diners, the second location matters because it brings Elizondo’s breakfast tacos, tamales, and cochinita pibil closer without sending every craving back to the original East End restaurant.

Details:

• Hours: Open until 3 p.m.

Kirkwood (Energy Corridor)

Kirkwood is the Energy Corridor pick when you need a polished, full-service room instead of another forgettable office-tower meal. It opened May 11 inside Energy Tower II, with chef Stephen Chiang leading an upscale American menu after time at Per Se, the NoMad, UB Preserv, and The Blind Goat.

The room works because it has a real Houston hook. Most locals know Mac Haik through car dealerships, but his family’s restaurant group built Kirkwood around a deeper local story: Haik helped shape the Energy Corridor, played for the Houston Oilers, and caught the first touchdown pass ever thrown in the Astrodome. Gin Design Group turns those references into an Astrodome replica at the door and Oilers-era details throughout the space.

Order like you came for comfort with polish. The menu points to truffle Parmesan ravioli, steaks, the Club, and an Oiler 86 cocktail, Kirkwood’s riff on a French 75 and a nod to Haik’s old jersey number. That makes it a better fit for diners who want recognizable American cooking in a Houston-specific room than for anyone chasing an experimental tasting counter.

Choose Kirkwood over Jantra when flexibility matters more than scarcity. Jantra is eight seats and a tasting format. Kirkwood gives Energy Corridor regulars, client meals, and local dinners a broader American menu in a room with an actual point of view.

Details:

• Location: Inside Energy Tower II

Captain Mc's Seafood (Third Ward)

For a tight menu, Gulf catch, and a price point that still behaves like lunch, Captain Mc's Seafood is the seafood stop to prioritize. Frederick McBride, known as Captain Fred, opened the fast-casual seafood spot in Third Ward on May 7 after years as a commercial fisherman supplying fresh-caught Gulf Coast seafood to well-known Houston restaurants.

The backstory matters because it explains why the menu feels so direct. McBride is a former orchestra director turned fisherman, and the restaurant starts with the catch rather than a sprawling seafood-house template. The focus includes black drum and blue crab from Galveston Bay, with plates built around fried fish, fried popcorn shrimp, fried crab fingers, po’boys, and crab cake sandwiches.

Price is what makes the call easy. Each plate comes with two sides and a drink for under $20, which puts Captain Mc's Seafood in a different lane from Houston’s more involved seafood rooms. Go when you want Gulf seafood without turning the meal into a reservation, parking, and wine-list project.

There are real chef signals behind the sauces and crab cakes, too. Chris Williams of Lucille’s helped craft the crab cake recipe. James Beard Award-winning Chris Shepherd gave guidance on the remoulade. Chef Joe Cervantez worked on the tartar sauce. That is more chef backup than most fast-casual fried seafood counters get.

Details:

• Price: Under $20 with two sides and a drink

Bar Daphne (Heights)

Make Bar Daphne your Heights cocktail move when you want hotel-bar design without needing a room key. It opened May 4 inside Hotel Daphne as a 50-seat cocktail bar from Austin-based Bunkhouse Hotels, with its own dedicated entrance on the corner of Ashland and 20th Street. No hotel stay required.

Hotel bars can feel like lobby spillover. Bar Daphne avoids that: its own street entrance lets it work as a real room, which makes it easier to use as a neighborhood bar with better design discipline.

The room has the right kind of polish: dark green walls, walnut millwork, and a Murano chandelier. The cocktail menu pulls names from the hotel’s art collection, including the Somewhere to Light, made with tequila, sotol, lemongrass, honey, and yuzu. If you want food with the drink, order the salt-and-vinegar chips with caramelized onion dip and smoked trout roe.

This is best for two people, a small pre-dinner group, or a controlled nightcap. With 50 seats, it is not the place to show up with a sprawling crew and expect the room to bend around you.

Details:

• Location: Inside Hotel Daphne, with a dedicated entrance on the corner of Ashland and 20th Street

Toga (River Oaks)

For River Oaks, aim at Toga when skewers and charcoal are the point of the night. Comma Hospitality, the group behind Neo and Kira, opened the yakitori and izakaya spot on April 21 next door to Kira, making it the group’s fourth concept in two years.

Everything here runs through the grill. Toga is rooted in binchotan charcoal cooking and whole chickens butchered in-house, with skewers using cuts such as oyster, neck, and tail. That tells you how to order: do not treat this as a generic Japanese snack bar. Build the meal around the grill first, then add dishes around it.

The non-skewer side gives the table range. The menu includes Comté-stuffed menchi katsu curry, Laotian jerky, a Wagyu burger, and udon carbonara. That makes Toga easier for mixed appetites than a stricter skewer-only counter.

The placement next to Kira helps with planning. Kira is the darker vinyl listening bar in Comma’s orbit; Toga is described as lighter and airier. If you want an Arrive River Oaks progression, start with yakitori and let Kira handle the darker second stop. If you are choosing only one, pick Toga when food matters more than the after-dinner mood.

Jantra (East End)

Prioritize Jantra when you want the most intimate format in this group of openings. Chef Benchawan Jabthong Painter, known as Chef G, and Graham Painter opened the eight-seat tasting concept next door to Street to Kitchen, and Chef G brings the credential that matters: the 2023 James Beard Award for Best Chef: Texas.

Street to Kitchen built its following on Thai cooking with spice levels Chef G will not soften for anyone, Madonna included. Jantra is not another Thai restaurant. Chef G plates dishes untethered from one cuisine, geography, or expectation, while Graham Painter’s beverage pairings follow flavor, contrast, memory, and storytelling rather than conventional wine service.

The seat count should drive your decision. Eight seats means Jantra is not a casual add-on after you decide where to go at the last minute. Book it when you want the tasting format itself, not when your table needs menu flexibility, a wide range of prices, or a low-commitment night.

Details:

• Format: Eight-seat tasting concept next door to Street to Kitchen

1111 (Westheimer)

Use 1111 when dinner, cocktails, and design need to happen in one place. Army Sadeghi and Brandon Duliakas, the team behind Clarkwood and Melrose, opened the project at 1111 Westheimer on May 4 after drawing inspiration from time spent in Mexico City.

The practical read: go with people who care about the bar as much as the food. The goal is to make food, cocktails, and design feel like one thing rather than three separate reasons to visit. That makes 1111 useful for birthdays, late dinners, and Westheimer nights where the cocktail program is part of the decision.

The cocktail program has the biggest outside signal: it was developed with mixologists from Handshake Speakeasy, named the world’s no. 1 bar in 2024. Michelin-starred chef Emmanuel Chavez handles the menu, with tuna tostadas and empanadas on the snackier end and a whole grilled sea bass with house-ground corn tortillas and a salsa trio for something more substantial.

Order across the table instead of treating it like a rigid three-course dinner. The format suits sharing better than solo dining, especially if you want to make the sea bass the centerpiece and use the smaller dishes around it.

Details:

• Address: 1111 Westheimer, Houston

Anthony’s New York Italian (Westheimer)

When the table wants Italian-American comfort with a real operator behind it, Anthony’s New York Italian is the Westheimer choice. Anthony Russo opened the restaurant in early May in the former Pie Tap space on Westheimer, and the point here is not another pizza-chain extension, even though Russo built Russo’s New York Pizzeria into a 50-plus-location chain.

The menu pulls from his family history: his father grew up in Naples, his mother in Sicily, and his parents ran an Italian restaurant in Galveston for nearly two decades. That background shows up in lobster fra diavolo, bone-in veal Parmesan, a 24-ounce prime porterhouse, frutti di mare over pappardelle, and pizza baked in imported Italian ovens with house-made dough and imported mozzarella.

Do not book this for novelty alone. Choose it when you need a Westheimer restaurant with familiar anchors: pasta, veal Parmesan, seafood over pappardelle, steak, and pizza. The important detail is that all pasta, sauces, and sausage are made in-house, which keeps it from reading like a generic Italian-American template.

Use it for mixed-age tables, family dinners, and groups where one person wants pizza while another wants lobster fra diavolo. If you are chasing the sharpest new-format opening in Houston, Jantra and Toga feel more current. If you need a safer dinner with range, Anthony’s is the practical choice.

Exilio Latin Flair (Montrose)

Exilio Latin Flair is the broad-menu play in Montrose. Bari Hospitality Group, the team behind Bari Ristorante and Georgia James, opened the restaurant May 5 with a menu drawing from across the Latin world, coastal Spain, and European technique.

The ordering map is clear: Peruvian ceviches and crudos, Argentine beef, Yucatán octopus, and coastal Spanish seafood. That combination helps a table that wants seafood and meat without committing to a single national frame. Two people can eat lightly; four people can build a bigger dinner around crudos, octopus, beef, and seafood.

The main caution is focus. When a kitchen pulls from across regions, the risk is that the menu tries to do too much. The reason to consider Exilio is the operator signal: Bari Hospitality Group already has Bari Ristorante and Georgia James in its portfolio, so this is not an anonymous newcomer stretching on day one.

Book it when your group wants range, not purity. For a more specific format, pick Jantra for a tiny tasting counter, Captain Mc's Seafood for Gulf seafood, or Toga for charcoal skewers. Exilio is better for a table that wants crudo, beef, octopus, and Spanish-leaning seafood in one sitting.

What’s Next for Houston restaurant openings

The next decisions are already lining up. Uptown Sporting Club is planned for late May in the former Duchess space at Uptown Park from Daniel Chang and Roveen Abante, the duo behind Uptown Sushi and Sushi Rebel. The format shifts throughout the day: upscale sports bar at happy hour, nightclub energy later, with DJs, bottle service, and LED lighting. The food leans global, with brisket nachos, Korean Buffalo chicken tenders, a wagyu smash burger, and steak frites.

Mack Allen's is the bigger occasion-dining project to watch. Rouxpour owner Mack McDonald is preparing a 16,000-square-foot steakhouse set to open in July inside the 5POP office tower on Post Oak. Executive chef Carlos Andrade, a Brennan’s of Houston veteran, is leading a menu of prime beef, raw and chargrilled oysters, sushi, seafood, caviar, and truffles. Three private dining rooms, including a 60-seat Estate Room with its own bar, make it the more obvious pick for private gatherings.

For now, match the booking to the format. Jantra is the intimate tasting counter. Bar Daphne is the Heights cocktail room. Captain Mc's Seafood is the value Gulf seafood lunch. Toga is the yakitori play. Cochinita & Co. is the daytime Mexican move. 1111 is the Westheimer dinner-and-cocktails plan. Houston is not short on openings; the smart move is knowing which one solves the night you actually have.