Start from 120 curated places around Houston, TX, then choose the recommendations that fit your guests.
Restaurants & cafés
Theodore Rex
Justin Yu's intentionally low-key follow-up to the closed Oxheart, in a converted downtown warehouse with about 30 seats and an a la carte menu that turns over weekly. Bib Gourmand and the room every other Houston chef wishes they had.
Tatemó
Emmanuel Chavez's 13-seat Spring Branch tasting counter built entirely around heirloom Mexican corn - he stone-grinds his own masa and most courses begin with a tortilla cooked to order. The first Houston restaurant to win a Michelin star and one of two in Texas to ever do it.
Trails & outdoors
Buffalo Bayou Park - Sandy Reed Memorial Trail
5.6-mile concrete loop along both banks of Buffalo Bayou between downtown and Shepherd, with skyline views, lit at night, and the city's most-used recreational trail by a wide margin. Flat, wide, and the ground zero of Houston outdoor life.
Seymour Lieberman Exercise Trail
3-mile crushed-granite loop around Memorial Park - 10,000 daily users, exercise stations along the route, and the running track every Houston runner knows. Pedestrians only, no bikes.
Things to do
Museum of Fine Arts, Houston
Largest art museum in the South - 70,000-piece collection across the Beck and Kinder buildings, connected by a James Turrell light tunnel that's free to walk. Free general admission Thursdays.
Houston Museum of Natural Science
Hermann Park anchor with a Hall of Paleontology that's one of the largest dinosaur exhibits in the country, the Cockrell Butterfly Center, and a Faberge egg collection that surprises visitors who came for the t-rex. Plan four hours.
Landmarks & sights
The Menil Collection
John and Dominique de Menil's 17,000-piece private collection housed in a Renzo Piano building on a leafy 30-acre Montrose campus, free of charge in perpetuity. Surrealism, Byzantine icons, and Cy Twombly's standalone gallery a block away justify the slow walk between buildings.
Rothko Chapel
Fourteen Mark Rothko murals commissioned for a non-denominational octagonal chapel next door to the Menil. The room is intentionally austere; visitors who walk in expecting a museum tend to leave puzzled, while those who sit for fifteen minutes leave changed.