Indian delicacies isn’t a monolith. The Republic of India is residence to an enormous array of culinary styles, flavors, and substances, from North India’s thick curries and sauces to the herby, coconut milk–primarily based dishes of South India. And that’s a particularly broad brush; we haven’t even dissected the sorts of road eats, seafood, and desserts that may differ from area to area.
Fortunately for us, Houstonians can expertise a few of this diversity proper right here at residence. So, which is the greatest Indian restaurant in Houston? Relies upon who you ask. And the place they’re from. Listed here are our high picks.
Aga’s Restaurant & Catery
Aga’s repute precedes itself: likelihood is, you really liked their meals earlier than really eating at their Wilcrest Drive location. Positioned smack-dab in the midst of a standard strip mall, Aga’s Restaurant & Catery is a catering fan-favorite for giant gatherings, celebrations, and extra. This Indo-Pak restaurant and banquet corridor has a wide-ranging menu (with photos!), provides top-rated service, and constantly serves a few of the greatest conventional Indian and Pakistani dishes within the Higher Houston space. Aga’s goat chops and numerous vindaloo dishes are particularly beloved, however you possibly can’t go improper with something at this Indian-Pakistani mainstay.
Da Gama Canteen
Da Gama canteen could be residence to probably the most fascinating fusion delicacies out of all of Houston’s latest Indian eating places. Opened in 2021 at The M-Ok-T within the Heights, this eatery encompasses the tastes of Goa, a former Portuguese-Indian territory, with a Bayou Metropolis spin. Da Gama’s effortlessly trendy house does triple responsibility, serving espresso, chai, and baked items on their wood-paneled patio most mornings. Then, the lunchtime hours carry out an assortment of curries, together with dishes like grilled cheese infused with inexperienced chili chutney and Portuguese salted cod fritters served with oregano chutney. You’ll need to stick round for social hour and dinner, too: Da Gama’s rotating completely happy hour menu options distinctive craft cocktails and light-weight bites, and the dinner menu boasts an assortment of vegetarian dishes, seafood, curries, and rather more.
The Monk’s
Meals, tradition, and historical past are deeply intertwined, as you’ll expertise for your self at The Monk’s. This Indo-Chinese language restaurant traces its flavors again to town of Kolkata, the place this distinctive fusion, described by Kolkata native Nayantara Duttaas as “an Indian interpretation of Chinese language meals,” originated across the late 1700s. At The Monk’s, conventional Chinese language and Indian entrées are served alongside dishes that marry a few of the aptitude attribute of every respective delicacies, like Desi-style noodles tossed with paneer and Sichuan spices. With areas close to Washington Avenue and on Westheimer Street, you may get your Indo-Chinese language repair each inside and out of doors the 610 Loop.
Udipi Cafe
Named after a coastal metropolis in Southern India, Udipi Cafe proudly serves South Indian vegetarian delicacies. Fan favorites embrace Udipi’s beneficiant serving of masala dosa, a crisp and savory crepe stuffed with spiced potatoes, and filter espresso, a South Indian signature sip. Additionally referred to as filter kaapi, filter espresso isn’t your typical brew; sugar, slowly brewed espresso, and scorching milk are fastidiously mixed in what’s referred to as “the stretch,” the ultimate step of brewing filter kaapi that makes for a wonderfully blended and aerated cup of joe. So, what’s the key? As soon as the espresso’s substances are mixed, the espresso concoction is poured backwards and forwards between the consuming vessel and a second vessel, generally a small cup or bowl. However irrespective of your selection of meals or drink, Udipi Cafe, positioned close to Hillcroft and in Sugar Land and Katy, is a conventional staple that shouldn’t be missed.
Maharaja Bhog
Maharaja Bhog, positioned simply off US 59 South close to Gessner Street, is thought for its tasty vegetarian thali. A Hindi phrase for a big plate or platter, thali eating is a dream (that’s, if sampling a wide range of dishes and flavors on one giant platter is your dream). Consider it as an infinite buffet on one plate, and at Maharaja Bhog, that’s precisely what you’ll get. Your eating expertise on the restaurant is full with appetizers, entrées, a beverage, and dessert, all impressed by recipes sourced from India’s Gujarat and Rajasthan states. Plus, vegan, gluten-free, and nut-free diets are welcome right here too.
Shri Balaji Bhavan
Shri Balaji Bhavan is a family-owned restaurant specializing in South Indian vegetarian dishes. Right here, you’ll discover staple dishes like masala dosa and a wide array of chaat, snack-like road eats that should mild up each style bud with their combos of flavors and textures. Shri Balaji Bhavan has a dozen varieties of chaat to select from, together with samosa chaat, Indo-Chinese language fusion chaat, and a combined chaat stuffed with just a little little bit of every little thing. Enjoyable reality: you possibly can even get your individual dosa batter right here to take residence!
Musaafer
For upscale Indian eats, head to Musaafer within the Galleria. Musaafer’s wide-ranging menu relies on their two cooks’ travels to 29 areas in India, the place their inspirations have included hand-picked saffron sourced from northern Kashmir, Mangalore’s vivid, coastal-inspired rooster curry with kori roti, and dishes and brews impressed by indigenous tribes in India’s Northeast nook. And people are only some of the dishes and locations that contribute to the grand imaginative and prescient and eating expertise you’ll discover at Musaafer.
India’s Restaurant
For a sampling of a wide range of Indian flavors and mainstays, attempt India’s Restaurant for lunch. India’s lunch buffet is ideal for each the uninitiated to Indian delicacies and connoisseurs of tandoor oven classics like tandoori rooster and recent naan. Every day from 11 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., 19 cold and warm dishes are served at India’s buffet, together with salads, vegetable sides, and curries. India’s dinner choices are certain to thrill, too, from seafood specialties and scrumptious tandoori dishes to vegetarian and vegan meals as properly.
Neeta’s Indian Cuisine
One other can’t-miss eat within the coronary heart of Houston’s Mahatma Gandhi District, the formal identify of the South Asian group round Hillcroft, is Neeta’s Indian Delicacies. Beloved for his or her genuine North Indian and Indo-Chinese language eats—together with staples like butter rooster, goat chops, and tons of vegetarian specials—you possibly can’t go improper at Neeta’s.
Shiv Sagar
One other Southwest Freeway favourite, Shiv Sagar serves up Gujarati and South Indian road flavors with a contemporary aptitude. This vegetarian restaurant provides an assortment of dishes, together with a number of varieties of dosas, chaat, and spins on fashionable road dishes like pav bhaji (a thick vegetable curry served with a roll) and halwa puri sabji (a breakfast dish that includes deep-fried bread and a candy filling). Followers love Shiv Sagar for its well-priced, wide-ranging menu.
Pondicheri
Anita Jaisinghani’s fast-casual café, a success because it opened in 2011, provides Gulf Coast–Indian fusion fare for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Positive, an order of saag paneer and butter rooster could be probably the most primary of Indian meals orders, however the punchy creaminess of the previous and the light warmth of the latter show that even with on a regular basis dishes, Jaisinghani is a reduce above the remaining. No meal at Pondicheri can be full with out ordering a thali, a conventional Indian-style meal made up of a collection of dishes that’s served on a platter. Thalis at Pondicheri embrace the Vishnu, that includes aviyal, beet soup, smoked eggplant, sesame saag, and carrot roti; and the Texan, that includes butter rooster, kalonji lamb chop, ghee mashed potatoes, lamb keema, smoked eggplant, and garlic naan.
