The 9 Best French Restaurants in Houston – Houston

We owe a lot to the French. Fries, for example. Statue of Liberty. Make rare butter a personality trait. The list goes on. Luckily, we know the best places in town to enjoy a bowl of mussels and fries and a side of pâté. Because who needs the Côte d’Azur when the bayou is the Côte d’Azur of Houston?

PLACES

Being in Uptown Park, you might think that Étoile would be a flashy place, especially considering the number of Tiffany blue Rolls Royces parked outside (at least one, which is a lot). But inside, the atmosphere is more relaxed and smells of White Diamonds perfume and crunchy peppercorns. People here consider a caviar appetizer a casual choice, the same way you might consume a canned condensed soup. Besides the ambiance, the food, like the beautifully boneless Dover sole swimming in hot butter or the tender duck floating on a mound of whipped butternut squash, makes Étoile the best French restaurant in town.

If you’re craving French cuisine with spectacle, the people watching at Brasserie 19 never disappoints. Most people at this River Oaks bistro are showing off either a recently acquired Cybertruck, divorce papers, or new Tootsies Loubs. Share a seafood platter (or at least a few oysters) or a delicate beef tartare with crispy lavash. And, if you’re lucky enough to have a patio table facing the front door of Brasserie 19, you can enjoy the whole scene from a front row seat with the pepper-covered filet surrounded by a pile of fries the size of a Christmas wreath. .

We like a lot of things about this charming little bistro at Memorial. As soon as you enter the former Bistro Provence space, you’re met with small wooden tables filled with regulars sharing conversations over baked escargots bathed in garlic and parsley butter cooked in a wood-fired oven. A sharing bowl of fresh mussels with white wine cream sauce is the ultimate date dish to soak up the broth, but like a delicious botched two-year date, not a first date. And the biggest surprise of the evening is how this French bistro serves excellent pizza. The decadence of perfectly crispy pork belly and tangy parmesan on carbonara makes this French restaurant a hidden pizza destination.

Cocody is luxurious, the kind of place dressed in tones of gold and light pink where you might pay $300 for a meal. But we suggest ordering the four-course tasting experience for $120, which gives you a full taste of what the restaurant has to offer (provided your entire table is ready). Diners celebrate birthdays around slivers of roast duck wrapped around little plum lollipops or caramel panna cotta served with a bubbling sherry cocktail. And if you’re feeling fancy at the start of the day, come to the weekend brunch and cosplay at Cocody, being the kind of person who spends their Sunday sunbathing with a crab omelette soufflé.

Even though Artisans looks more like a Mordor fortress than what a French restaurant should look like, it has some truly incredible food. Most dishes feature well-executed French classics, like veal chops with an earthy wild mushroom risotto or pan-seared beef tenderloin with puddles of tangy green peppercorns. Others are playful and break the air of pretension, like rich beef tenderloins served with crispy potato wafers that are just fancy waffle fries. The next time you need a place for a special dinner or want to fulfill your lifelong dream of snacking on snails in a bad guy’s lair, make a reservation.

The first thing the staff at A’Bouzy at River Oaks places on your table is a paper bag filled with hot popcorn, a not-at-all-subtle salty snack that suggests you’ll need a drink immediately. And you have to order champagne quickly. Given the length of A’Bouzy’s wine list, order a few bottles and add some French fries or beef bourguignon. And while A’Bouzy is more of a wine bar masquerading as an excuse to throw duck fat on an omelette at brunch, when you throw one of twelve types of caviar on the terrace and try to throw popcorn in your friend’s mouth (you I drank a lot of wine), the labels don’t matter. Because even though this place looks like a fancy River Oaks place, everyone here is into it and mostly just wants to have a good time.

At Brasserie Du Parc, you can relax with your meal as if you had time to burn. The sunny cafe is surrounded by long windows offering views of Discovery Green across the street. Come here for brunch and order the tasty mushroom-filled crepes and cheese-covered croque madame sandwiches. Plus, the relaxed service gives you plenty of free time to enjoy your meal with the book you’ve been meaning to finish over a carafe of raspberry mimosas.

Café Rabelais at Rice Village is designed for intimate, quiet dining and is small enough to feel cozy but not cramped. This space seems designed for lounging around a wooden table with snails swimming in garlic butter. And if the bottles lining every available wall or the manual masquerading as a bottle list weren’t indication enough, the folks at this French bistro take their wine seriously. With literally hundreds of choices, you can browse pages to find the exact varietal you’re looking for or let your server take the helm. Whatever you decide to sip on, pair it with mussels in a rich cream sauce for a Parisian countryside vibe.

A single meal on the terrace of Toulouse Café will rank it among the best places in the city to people-watch and eat a good beef tartare. River Oaks Restaurant is flanked by stores too expensive to even window shop, so Toulouse rightly feels like a table-away-from-the-table type of restaurant. Sit outside next to the little replica of the Eiffel Tower (which doesn’t look as cheesy as it sounds) while you prepare a rich beef bourguignon that barely needs a fork to cook. cut.