• Source: Cuisine of Houston

      • This article discusses the various cuisines in Houston, Texas.


      History


      In 1899, there were about 48 restaurants in Houston, with over 33% serving a cuisine other than Anglo-American.
      Houstonians began to dine out for pleasure more commonly in the 1950s.
      In 1998, USA Today referred to Houston as "the dining-out capital of the United States." Houstonians ate out at restaurants more often than residents of other American cities, and Houston restaurants have the second lowest average prices of restaurants of major cities. Tory Gattis, who published op-eds in the Houston Chronicle, said in 2005 that Houston has "a great restaurant scene." Gattis said that one factor contributing to the status is Houston's ethnic diversity, related to Houston's role as a major city of the energy industry, Houston's role as a port city, and Houston's proximity to Latin America and the Cajun areas of adjacent Louisiana. Gattis cited Houston's lack of zoning, which makes it easy for a business owner to start a restaurant as land is less expensive and there are fewer regulations and permitting rules. Gattis also cited Houston's freeway network, which, according to Gattis, puts restaurants within a 15-20 minute drive within the residences of most Houstonians during non-rush hour times. Gattis explained that the size of Greater Houston's population allows the city to support niche ethnic restaurants and provides a large customer base for area restaurants. Also he stated that the competition in Houston's restaurant industry forces restaurants of lower quality to go out of business, leaving high quality restaurants open. The journalist explained that Houston's relatively low cost of living reduces labor costs for restaurants and allows its residents more leftover income that could be spent at restaurants. Jobs in Houston have relatively high salaries, Gattis explains that the wages help support Houston's restaurant market.
      As of 2010, many food truck vendors are frequently forced to close by city regulations, and Katharine Shilcutt of the Houston Press stated that food truck vendors have difficulties obtaining licenses. A nonprofit organization called "Save Our Food Trucks" started to assist food truck vendors in navigating the municipal bureaucracy.
      By 2019, food halls became prominent in Houston, though Greg Morago of the Houston Chronicle stated that year that this was not the first time the concept existed in the city.
      In 2022, the oldest still operating restaurant in Houston was Christie's Seafood and Steaks, established by an ethnic Greek man who originated from Istanbul.


      Ethnic enclaves reflecting national cuisines



      Bissonnet - Filipino, Nigerian, Ethiopian, African American
      Briar Meadow - Iranian, Lebanese, Arab
      Chinatown - Chinese, Vietnamese
      Denver Harbor - Mexican
      East Downtown - Chinese (Old Chinatown)
      Gulfton - Salvadoran, Honduran, Mexican
      Little Saigon - Vietnamese
      Second Ward - Mexican
      Spring Branch - Korean, Salvadorian, Mexican
      Little India/Mahatma Gandhi District - Indian, Pakistani
      Meyerland - Jewish
      Midtown - Vietnamese
      NRG Park/Texas Medical Center area - Filipino
      Third Ward - African-American, Louisiana Creole, West Indian, West African
      Ethnic enclaves in Greater Houston outside the city limits

      Galveston - Italian
      Katy - Venezuelan
      Sugar Land - Indian, Chinese
      Missouri City - Filipino


      Tex-Mex cuisine



      Tex-Mex cuisine is very popular in Houston. Many Mexican cuisine restaurants in Houston have aspects that originate from Texas culture. In his book Ethnicity in the Sunbelt: A History of Mexican Americans in Houston, Arnoldo De León said that the recent immigrants from Mexico to Houston add foods that are popular with immigrants to menus of Mexican restaurants in Houston. Robb Walsh of the Houston Press said "You might say that the immigrant flow is what keeps the "Mex" in Tex-Mex." In Houston, as in other places in Texas, the existing Chicano community influences the cooking methods used by recent immigrants.


      Louisiana Creole cuisine



      The Louisiana Creole people who settled Houston around the 1920s brought their cuisine with them and often sold the food. The cuisine style spread in Houston in the post-World War II era. Because of the post-World War II increase, various chains in the Houston area sell Creole food, including Frenchy's Chicken, Pappadeaux, and Popeyes. Creole food items include boudin, black rice and shrimp creole, crawfish, gumbo, and jambalaya. Bernadette Pruitt, author of The Other Great Migration: The Movement of Rural African Americans to Houston, 1900-1941, wrote that Creole cooking became "an important cultural bridge" in the city and in its African-American community, and that "As cooks, Creole housewives transformed Houston's typical southern cuisine."


      Vietnamese cuisine and Vietnamese-operated restaurants



      The presence of Vietnamese immigrants lead to the development of Vietnamese restaurants throughout Houston. Some establishments from Vietnamese restaurateurs offer Vietnamese-style crawfish, a mixture of Louisiana cuisine and Vietnamese cuisine. This combination of Vietnamese seasoned and Louisiana cajun crawfish is termed "Vietnamese-Cajun" or "Viet-Cajun" in the early 2010s. Viet-Cajun differs from Louisiana cuisine by seasoning crawfish on the outside and inside of their shells, whereas Louisiana cuisine only flavors the interior.
      Houston has many "you buy, we fry" seafood restaurants. Most of the "you buy, we fry" restaurants in Houston are operated by Vietnamese immigrants and Vietnamese Americans. Carl Bankston, an associate professor of Asian studies and sociology at Tulane University, said in 2004 that ethnic Vietnamese are disproportionately employed in fishing, seafood processing, and shrimping in the Gulf Coast area. Around 1974 Vietnamese immigrants began coming to the Gulf Coast to work in the shrimping industry, therefore many ethnic Vietnamese worked for related industries in Texas. African Americans tend to be the main clientele of Houston's "you buy, we fry" fish restaurants. As of 2004 the Third Ward, an African American neighborhood, has the city's highest concentration of "you buy, we fry" restaurants.


      Barbecue


      According to J. C. Reid of the Houston Chronicle, the area within Beltway 8 had over 100 barbecue establishments. The first new-style "craft barbecue" restaurants of the 2010s were established in the 610 Loop in 2011, and much of the subsequent expansion came to areas north and south of that. Reid stated in 2018 that expansion of barbecue establishments into Greater Katy came recently. That year he stated "northwest Houston has a legitimate claim to being the most active neighborhood for barbecue." In 2016 Reid stated that distances between barbecue establishments in Houston are greater, due to urban sprawl, compared to such establishments in Austin, and therefore it is easier for news media organizations to give coverage to Austin barbecue than Houston barbecue. He added that restaurants in Houston face less competition than Austin ones due to the distances between one another.
      Beef brisket was available commercially beginning in the 1900s, declined due to wartime rationing in World War I, and by the 1960s became a regular menu item.


      Po-Boy


      Houston has its own variety of the Po-Boy, with chowchow added to ham, salami and provolone cheese, traditionally served cold. The sandwich is currently known as the "Original Po' Boy" and was previously the "regular". There is also a version with added meats and cheeses called the "Super". Stephen Paulsen of the Houston Chronicle stated that the "Original" variety is "in the city's food DNA, the Shipley Do-Nuts of sandwiches."
      It was developed by Lebanese American Jalal Antone, owner of Antone's Import Company in the Fourth Ward, in 1962 after his brother-in-law stated that area residents at the time would not be accustomed to Levantine cuisine, and therefore the business needed to be openly focused around more familiar cuisine. John Lomax of Houstonia described the 1970s and 1980s as the height of their popularity and that the growth of chain sandwich shops that operated across the United States, the introduction of banh mi, and the poor quality of third party sandwiches in gas stations resulted in a decrease in popularity for the variety. Lomax in particular stated that the storage of the sandwiches at grocery stores ruined the flavor due to the delicate properties of the chowchow and mayonnaise. In 2002, 40% of the sandwiches sold at Antone's were the "Original" variety.


      Middle Eastern cuisines


      As of 2008, multiple Houston-area restaurants selling Levantine cuisine also served sandwiches. This trend started with Jalal Antone, who in the 1960s/1970s advised Levantine businesspeople that American people at the time would consider Levantine cuisine to be too foreign, so it would make more business sense to open a sandwich shop that also sells Levantine dishes on its menu.


      Chinese American cuisine



      As of 2022, the longest-operating Chinese American restaurant in the city is China Garden (Chinese: 華園酒家; Jyutping: waa4 jyun4*2 zau2 gaa1) in Downtown Houston. China Garden was originally founded in 1969 on what is now Polk Street and Avenida De Las Americas, before moving to the corner of Crawford Street and Leeland Street in the late 1970s.


      Japanese cuisine


      Some Japanese restaurants in Houston are owned by persons of Japanese backgrounds, although the majority are not. There was a restaurant named Tokyo Gardens which stopped operations in 1998; Erica Cheng of the Houston Chronicle wrote that during the period it was active, it "was Houston’s premier Japanese restaurant". According to the owner of Nippon, a restaurant in Montrose which opened in 1986, Japanese baseball players who are in the Houston area go to that restaurant. Some Japanese restaurants in Houston were previously owned by persons of Japanese heritage but were later sold to other owners.


      Vegan


      By 2020, Houston had a group of vegan restaurants. According to Emma Balter of the Houston Chronicle most of the vegan restaurants she chronicled, in a list that was "comprehensive, yet not exhaustive", were owned by African-Americans, and races other than non-Hispanic white owned an "overwhelming majority".


      Notable Houston restaurants



      Antone's Famous Po' Boys
      Bambolino's
      Becks Prime
      Blood Bros. BBQ
      Carrabba's Italian Grill
      Felix Mexican Restaurant
      Frenchy's Chicken
      James Coney Island
      Kim Sơn
      Landry's Restaurants
      Luby's
      Mai's
      Marble Slab Creamery
      Mexican Restaurants, Inc.
      Molina's
      Niko Niko's
      Ninfa's
      Pappas Restaurants
      Saltgrass Steak House
      Shipley Do-Nuts
      Two Pesos


      Notable persons


      Percy Creuzot
      Jim Goode
      Christine Ha
      Ninfa Laurenzo


      See also


      Cook Like a Local - Cookbook by Chris Shepherd based upon ethnic cuisine in Houston


      References




      Further reading


      Galvani, Paul; Galvani, Christine. Lost Restaurants of Houston. - See profile at the Houston Heritage Society
      Leftwich, David (2016-11-22). "The history of Houston food". Houston Chronicle.
      Kaplan, David. "Restaurateurs from Mexico adapt as they start anew in area." Houston Chronicle. February 17, 2013.
      Pollack, Hilary. "Meet the Most Influential Man in Houston’s BBQ Scene" (Archive). Munchies, Vice. February 17, 2016.
      Reid, J.C. (2020-07-24). "Houston's connection to the birth of Central Texas barbecue". Houston Chronicle.

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