The 11 Most Anticipated Houston Restaurant and Bar Openings, Winter 2024

Houston’s restaurant scene welcomed more than 100 openings from multiple bars and restaurants in 2023. Now, 2024 has begun, and already, there are dozens of new restaurants planned to open throughout the year, with several slated for this winter alone. Diners will get to experience West African cuisine, dishes inspired by Texas, even more pizzerias, and the major returns of various restaurants. Though delays are possible, meaning projected opening dates could change — here’s what the Houston dining scene has planned for this winter.

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Phat Eatery - The Woodlands

Location: Grogan’s Mill, 2290 Buckthorne Place, The Woodlands, TX 77380
Key players: James Beard Award-nominated chef Alex Au-Yeung
Projected opening date: February 2024

Katy’s Malaysian restaurant Phat Eatery is making its way to the Woodlands. The larger restaurant promises to be bigger, with three private dining rooms and a robust menu, offering new items like Chinese barbecue pork, Beijing duck, and dim sum, plus a lunch menu featuring bian dang — a bento box-style lunch box featuring a main dish, like barbecue or stir fry, with rice and side dishes. Phat fans can rejoice — street food-inspired dishes like Phat’s flaky roti canai, satay skewers, Kerabu prawns, Malaysian curry chicken, and beef rendang will carry over to the new restaurant.

PKL Social

Location: 1112 Shepherd Drive, 77007
Key players: Jason Mok, co-owner of FM Kitchen & Bar
Projected opening date: March 2024

Pickleball has quickly become one of America’s favorite pastimes, and Houston is indulging its residents in the sport. Avid pickleball player Jason Mok, also the owner of FM Kitchen & Bar, will open PKL Social (pronounced pea-kay-el), a pickleball entertainment venue that features various pickleball courts, indoor and outdoor bars, and a menu that features a combination of FM’s favorite dishes and nutritious dishes geared toward pickleball athletes.

ChòpnBlọk — Montrose

Location: 507 Westheimer Road, 77006
Key players: owner Ope Amosu
Projected opening date: Early 2024

Branching out beyond its food hall and pop-up roots, West African restaurant ChòpnBlọk will open its first brick-and-mortar in Montrose, with a more expansive menu of cocktails, non-alcoholic drinks, and dishes that center West African flavors. The new restaurant will also take on a new look, with cultural prints, live plants, and green accents.

Gin Design Group

Nickel City

Location: 2910 McKinney Street, Suite 500
Key players:
Projected opening date: Early 2024

Travis Tober first announced in 2022 that a Houston outpost of Austin’s beloved bar Nickel City would be opening in East Downtown in early 2023. Finally, after several delays, there’s an opening in sight. The bar owner told Chron.com that the Houston location, the third in Texas, could open as early as mid-January. The local Nickel City will feature a rum-focused patio and the first on-site kitchen for any of the Nickel City outposts. (2910 McKinney Street)

Bar Bludorn

Location: 9061 Gaylord Drive, 77024
Key players: Chef Aaron Bludorn, Victoria Pappas Bludorn, Cherif Mbodji, Alexandra Pena
Projected opening date: Early 2024

Joining his namesake restaurant Bludorn and sister seafood establishment Navy Blue, chef Aaron Bludorn and his partners — wife Victoria Pappas Bludron and Cherif Mbodji — will open a third restaurant in Houston’s Memorial area at the beginning of the year. With Navy Blue veteran Alexandra Pena serving as executive chef, the “upscale tavern” draws inspiration from Bludorn’s bar and will spotlight French-inspired cuisine with lunch, dinner, and cocktail service.

Public Content

Pizza & Pints

Location: 2021 Mangum Road, 77092
Key players: Karbach Brewery
Projected opening date: Early 2024

Karbach Brewery will debut its newest pizzeria early this year, serving pizza, beer, salads, and appetizers just adjacetorom the brewery, next to its Swag Shop, and will open to the onsite Biergarten. The restaurant will also offer 20 Karbach beers on tap daily, with a rotation of seasonal and special edition beers.

MoLiHua at Blossom Houston

Location: 7118 Bertner Avenue, 77030
Key players: Chef Ho Chee Boon
Projected opening date: Early 2024

Blossom Hotel will finally welcome its first dining destination early this year. The hotel has tapped Ho Chee Boon, a chef who has worked at various Michelin-starred restaurants in Asia, to open MoLiHua, a luxurious Asian restaurant that will serve sushi, dim sum, and various desserts on the hotel’s second floor. Boon will help launch two other restaurants in the hotel.

Maven Coffee & Cocktails

Location:
Key players: Astros’ pitcher Lance McCullers Jr., entrepreneurs Juan Carlos Martinez de Aldecoa and Blake Fertitta, Rex Hospitality
Projected opening date: Early 2024

Astros’ pitcher Lance McCullers Jr. plans to expand his coffee and cocktail bar Maven beyond its original Minute Maid Park digs, with a standalone location at Silver Street Studios slated to open in the Washington Avenue Arts District/Sawyer Yards area in early 2024, and another location on the first floor of the recently opened Thompson Hotel. The Silver Street location will transition from cocktail drinks and pastries during the day to cocktails and light bites at night.

Conservatory Galleria

Location: 5353 West Alabama Street, Suite 100, Houston, 77056
Projected opening date: Early 2024

Houston’s shuttered nightclub the Roxy is being remade into a food hall, featuring multiple food vendors, and two bars. The hall is slated to open sometime early this year.

Postscript HTX

Location: Shops at Arrive River Oaks – 2800 Kirby Drive, A32, 77098
Key players: GAP Concepts’s Veeral Rathod and Obi Ibeto; chef Bryan Caswell
Projected opening date: Early 2024

Sister to Dallas’s picturesque XOXO Dining room, Postscript HTX will be a pink lover’s dream. Located in the Shops at Arrive River Oaks, the Upper Kirby restaurant will be a champagne-fueled, Instagrammable paradise. Diners will be able to partake in sharable dishes for lunch, dinner, or buzzy weekend brunches; cocktails and champagne can be delivered directly to tables with the press of a doorbell featured in each booth.

Public Content

Dak & Bop

Location: 1801 Binz Street, Suite 120, 77004
Key players: Owner Jason Cho
Projected opening date: Early 2024

This Korean fried chicken spot closed its 18th Street location in December and will make way with a return to its roots in the Museum District early this year. Culturemap reported that owner Jason Cho has signed a lease at Dak & Bop’s original location, which he closed at the height of the pandemic in 2020. While Dak & Bop’s location in the Lazybrook/Timbergrove area features a menu with both Korean fried chicken and Korean dishes, Dak & Bop’s Museum District revival will focus largely on its shatteringly crispy fried chicken, with some select other items like bulgogi mac and cheese and kimchi fries.

Arnea Williams

Looking ahead

• Hong Kong Food Street: Little details have been revealed, but the family-owned Cantonese restaurant announced its return to Asiatown sometime this year on its Facebook page. The restaurant closed during the height of the pandemic in 2020 but shot down rumors of a permanent closure. The Houston Chronicle also reports that the restaurant will make its debut in the Katy area.
• Toca Madera: Hospitality group Noble 33 co-founders Tosh Berman and Mikey Tanha will open a modern Mexican steakhouse on the ground level of Houston’s Pavilion (1755 Allen Parkway, Suite 101, 77019), offering a lounge, speakeasy, private dining room, and multiple outdoor patios for dining. The restaurant will be joined by Meduza Mediterrania, its swanky sister restaurant that serves eastern Mediterranean cuisine, sometime in 2024, too.
• Duck N Bao: This Houston dim sum house will open its third location in Rice Village this spring, offering its crispy-skinned Beijing duck, soup dumplings, and other Sichuan specialties. The restaurant, which will seat at least 100 guests in its dining room and patio area, will also feature new cocktails and a refined tea service using various styles of premium loose-leaf teas, and new dishes, including duck fried rice, lobster tail served three different ways, truffle soup dumplings, and its new crispy, triple-cooked short ribs. (5215 Kelvin Drive)
• Azumi: Atlas Restaurant Group, the hospitality group behind Montrose’s Italian chophouse Marmo and seafood restaurant Loch Bar, will open Azumi sometime in the spring. Located adjacent to Loch Bar in the space that formerly housed the now-shuttered Ouzo Bay, the modern Japanese restaurant will be a multifaceted space that can accommodate 130 diners, with a main dining room, sushi bar, and an omakase tasting room. (4444 Westheimer Road, Suite G130, 77027)

Atlas Restaurant Group

• The Pit Room — Memorial City: Sambrooks Management Company, the owner and operator behind local restaurants like Andiron and Candente, will open the second and largest location of The Pit Room in Memorial City. The new outpost will offer its signature Central Texas-style barbecue, including its brisket fat tacos, and a larger menu thanks to its homemade sausage grinding station and an ice cream sandwich bar. (0301-A Katy Freeway, Memorial City, 77024)
• Mayahuel: Culinary Khancepts, the restaurant group behind the Aubrey and Reel Luxury Cinemashasve partnered with chefs Luis Robledo (Comalito) and Atzin Santos to open a new restaurant and cocktail bar inspired by the food scene and culture in Mexico City. Slated to open in the spring in Autry Park, the restaurant will offer reinterpretations of street food and regional dishes that celebrate Mexico’s culinary heritage.
• Maximo Canteen: Benjy Levit has built a following behind his restaurants, including favorite lunch spot Local Foods, French fusion establishment Eau Tour, and wine speakeasy Lees Den, and, come the spring, he’ll add Mexican cuisine to his repertoire. The restaurateur will open Maximo Canteen in the former El Topo space, tapping Tony Luhrman, El Topo’s former chef, to help shape the menu with handmade tortillas and various dishes cooked in live fire. (6119 Edloe Street, West University Place, 77005)
• Traveler’s Cart: Fans of Traveler’s Table in Montrose might appreciate its new sister restaurant, Traveler’s Cart, which is slated to open in June. Culturemap reports that the fast-casual restaurant is inspired by outdoor markets and street carts and will accordingly serve affordable global street food in a more relaxed environment.
• Little Rey: Joining his local restaurants Superica, State of Grace, and La Lucha, Atlanta-based chef Ford Fry will open Little Rey, a restaurant that focuses on Northern Mexico cuisine, including wood-roasted chicken al carbon, street-style tacos, fresh salsas, margaritas, and soft serve ice cream in flavors like tres leches and cajeta and salted peanuts. Weekends promise brunch classics like migas breakfast tacos and buttermilk pancakes. (2345 Mid Lane)
• Credence and Sidebar: Levi Goode, the restaurateur behind Goode Company restaurants, will cement his new brand with the openings of his Texas ranch-themed restaurant Credence and a reservation-only steakhouse and cocktail bar Sidebar. The restaurants will open side by side in Memorial City at 9757 Katy Freeway.
• Leo’s River Oaks: Culinary Khancepts will open a fine dining restaurant in the spring that serves up steaks and seafood next door to the historic River Oaks Theater, which Star Cinema Theater Group is renovating. Led by Tim Reading, a former Underbelly Hospitality chef, the restaurant is similar to Audrey Restaurant and Bar in the Woodlands, just steps away from Reel Luxury Cinemas. (2009 West Gray Street)
• Haywire: Dallas-based restaurant Haywire will expand to Houston with a location in the Gateway Memorial City shopping mall this summer, offering dishes like mini elk tacos, wagyu tomahawk rib-eyes, and chicken-fried steak. Diners can cap the experience with decadent desserts — think chipotle chocolate layer cake — and sips from Haywire’s award-winning wine cellar or ground-level whiskey library.

The Nix Company

• The Pizza Place: The owners of the Taco Stand and the Burger Joint will open a new pizzeria, aptly named the Pizza Place, later this year that will offer a hybrid of Neapolitan and New York-style pizzas, plus pasta and salads all made in-house. (2124 North Shepherd Drive)
• New Berg Hospitality restaurants: Helmed by Houston-based restaurateur Benjamin Berg, restaurant group Berg Hospitality is slated to debut several new restaurants in 2024, including Turner’s Cut, a new luxury steakhouse; Buttermilk Baby, a retro-styled hamburger joint and soda fountain shop in the Heights M-K-T development; and Canopy Social, a Caribbean-influenced rooftop bar located above Benny Chows. Dune Road, a seafood restaurant inspired by New England cuisine that will open in Downtown’s Texas Tower, and Prime 131, another steakhouse slated to open in March.

MaKiin

2651 Kipling Street, , TX 77098 (832) 695-9999

Norigami

2715 Bissonnet Street, , TX 77005 (832) 649-2966 Visit Website

Cocody Restaurant and Bar

1971 West Gray Street, , TX 77019 (832) 203-8899 Visit Website

Katami

2301 West Dallas Street, Houston, TX 77019 Visit Website

Annabelle Brasserie

811 Buffalo Park Drive, , TX 77019 (713) 844-8111 Visit Website