6 Best Restaurants in River Oaks, Houston and Galveston

Don't look for the sign—there isn't one at this clubby, see-and-be-seen River Oaks sorta-Tex-Mex favorite. Armando Palacios's eponymous eatery—fashioned after 1920s Mexico City—is consistently packed with friends and regulars who love the clean, simple signature fajitas, queso flameado (a cheese dip made with chorizo and served with flour tortillas), and fresh lime-juice margaritas. The bar is always hopping, and not with the young and the restless, either. Reserve the private room in the back for your next air-kissing celebration.

After all these years, the original location of Carrabba's remains the busy and quintessential Inner Loop destination for reliable, Americanized Italian cooking. This location is not part of the national chain: here the founding families retain control and you can tell the difference. From steaming vessels of robust pasta dishes (heavy on the garlic) to crusty pizzas and hefty grilled meats, the kitchen fires on all cylinders to keep the customers happy. Service is fast and ultra-chummy, and servers will even sing an Italian song for your birthday if you so desire.

Part wacky Tex-Mex restaurant, part shrine to Elvis, dogs, and hubcaps, and part kitschy gift shop, Chuy's is a true Texas original. Always busy and always fun, this is the place to go for large, many-flavored margaritas and original dishes like the Elvis Green Chile Fried Chicken, which is coated in potato chips. The Chuychanga—a fried flour tortilla filled with chicken, cheese, cilantro, and green chilies, and best when ordered with Deluxe Tomatillo Sauce—is bigger than most people's forearms and is life-alteringly good. Be sure to request complimentary creamy jalapeño dip to accompany your chips and salsa (trust us on this one). At happy hour, poor college kids and high-rolling energy traders dig into complimentary nachos served out of the trunk of a classic Cadillac.

You know you've come to a dining hot spot when you're greeted by the cement handprints of local notables outside the front doors of the ebullient La Griglia. Even after all these years (it opened in 1991), no other Houston restaurant can match its buzzy social energy. Dramatic decor, an open kitchen, imaginative and dependable food, and fair prices make this River Oaks favorite a touchstone among those in the know (and in the gossip columns). This place fills by 7 pm, so arrive early or prepare to enjoy the scenery for a while. Try the seafood cheesecake, maybe the richest appetizer in town and worth every calorie or smooth, silky shrimp bisque. Soft-shell crabs and fillet of red snapper are excellent entrées. La Griglia has open-air dining on a covered side patio.

At Elouise "Ouisie" Adams Jones's casually elegant, ersatz preppy restaurant, American cuisine is prepared with eclectic, Southern accents. Dine in the main room, or request a table on adjoining Lucy's Porch for a view of the herb plantings snipped daily by the kitchen staff. Fine dinner choices include a brace of roasted quail with apple-smoked bacon, and a shrimp curry with lemon-ginger rice. There's a fabulous weekend brunch and an afternoon "little bites" menu.

It's a strange fact of Houston life that many of the city's finest restaurants are found in strip shopping centers, albeit the more glamorous ones. Tony Mandola's, in the art deco–themed River Oaks Shopping Center, is an upscale restaurant that proves, with loads of tastebud-pleasing menu choices, that the concept of a Texas-, Italian-, and (some) Mexican-influenced seafood restaurant is here to stay. Off-the-menu items, such as Calamari a la Mama, lightly battered with lemon-butter sauce, may make you see stars. You'll see everyone you know at this neighborhood joint, if everyone you know is rich, famous, and well connected. There's open-air dining and a kids' menu.