If you drive a clunker and you’re heading to new Mediterranean vibe dining restaurant Albi, it’s perhaps best to leave your car at home and opt for an Uber—or an Alto if you’re trying to fake your way to fancy. The River Oaks restaurant has valet, of course, but the parking lot is stacked so full of expensive cars on any given evening—Ferraris, Porsches, Lamborghinis—that showing up in a vehicle more likely to be driven by the help might attract some unwanted gazes.

Or at least that’s how we felt when we arrived by Uber on a recent Friday night and, after glancing at the restaurant’s glittering valet line, were immediately thankful we left our well-dinged and excessively miled hooptie at home. After slinking past the restaurant’s dapperly dressed (and very serious looking) security guards, we took an elevator up to the second level. When the doors slid open, we were ushered into an opulently designed space enhanced by loungey music supplied by a live DJ jamming near the host stand. What sounded like a Near Eastern instrumental cover of Zombie by the Cranberries greeted us, an aptly moody tune to mark our entrance into the moodily lit space, which is bathed in so many red neon lights and low-hung crimson chandeliers that we thought we may have accidentally stumbled onto a repurposed set of Blade.

While enjoying a bowl of Arak-scented mussels and high-end cocktails that come with names like Waters of Petra and Shahs of Sunset from our red velvet banquet perch, we watched as a belly dancer elaborately flourished two large LED-lit feather fans as she peacocked her way from gold-gilded table to gold-gilded table. At Albi, it’s not unusual for performers to dance with scarlet-hued ribbons, fans, and headdresses featuring lit candles—all while wearing barely-there ensembles. If the fine dining you’re accustomed to is at more reserved spots like Bludorn, March, or Georgia James, the spectacle might all seem a bit much. In the realm of vibe dining, however, Albi, with its noted absence of confetti pops, CO2 cannons, sparklers, and table dancing, is about as tame as you can get.

Although more common in ritzier locales like Miami, Las Vegas, Saint-Tropez, or Monaco, vibe dining has boomed in Houston over the past couple years with the opening of buzzy spots like Ciel, Se7en, Eden Resto and Bar, Juliet, and the Ivy House. While the entertainment varies, with some more elaborate and garish than others, the purpose of these restaurants is still the same: to wow diners through an experience that blurs the line between dinner and a show.

Unlike other vibe dining restaurants, whose focus is not always on great-quality food, Albi has solid culinary credentials: the owners are siblings Nano and Jimy Fakhoury, the duo behind Mary’z Mediterranean. They wanted the kitchen at Albi to be the focal point of the experience, but with enough live entertainment sprinkled about—including violinists and saxophone players in addition to the belly dancers—to separate the restaurant from more traditional, white tablecloth–type spots. The end result is a venue that feels more loungey than it does clubby, where the food and cocktails shine just as brightly as the candles affixed to the belly dancers’ headdresses.

“I think fine dining has become a little bit stale,” says Nano Fakhoury, noting that there is just enough entertainment at Albi to provide people with something to talk about while they’re enjoying their dinner without it overpowering the evening. “People always tell me that it feels different here and like they aren’t in Houston. They’re just smiling and talking about the entertainment and interacting with the entertainers.”

While Albi is on the tame side of vibe dining, Ciel (“sky” in French) is on the exact opposite end of the spectrum. The Galleria-area restaurant boasts several bottle service packages, lots and lots of sparklers and confetti, CO2 cannons, scantily clad dancers, and so much frenetic and unfettered finance-bro energy that it would give even Patrick Bateman pause.

Design-wise, Ciel feels very much like the lair of an ’80s Batman villain—we’re big Tim Burton fans, so we’re not mad about it. The ceiling, made up of mirrored tiles bordered with neon lights, has dozens of orb lights hanging from it that change colors and flash to the beats of the nightly live DJ music. A raised stage in the middle of the restaurant has several plush booths surrounding a life-size statue of what the owners say is Zeus, the sky god, although his trident might indicate he’s actually a more aquatically inclined family member.

Throughout an evening at Ciel, the restaurant’s troupe of young female dancers perform atop the platform while dressed in sultry ensembles featuring fringe, pearls, lace, or sequins. Their choreographed numbers change nightly, as does the live music performed by Ciel’s house singer, Laurana Strachan, a brass-voiced powerhouse the restaurant snagged from Miami who performs four nights a week. Despite the excessiveness of the spectacle, Ciel is in fact very fun—albeit you may leave feeling discombobulated from all the commotion and with a few stray pieces of confetti trapped in your bag or in your hair.

“It’s all inclusive. It’s a place where you can have a great night out at a restaurant where you don’t have to go anywhere else,” says partner and director of operations Michael Vo. “You can have a great meal, enjoy some great cocktails, wine, and Champagne, and enjoy the entertainment.”

The owners of both Albi and Ciel gathered inspiration for their restaurants by dining at vibey venues in tony locales across the country and the rest of the world, mostly tourist hot spots where people come to be entertained once or twice a year. Houston, despite the city’s best efforts, doesn’t quite have that touristy status. With a target demographic of mainly locals, Vo says the secret to a successful vibe dining restaurant in Houston is to always switch things up.

“Unlike tourist cities like Miami or Saint-Tropez, in Houston you’re attracting a lot of local guests who are going to become repeat customers,” Vo says. “Because of that, you have to keep your entertainment fresh and change it up periodically, so it doesn’t have the same feeling to it.”

Ciel regularly cycles in new acts, songs, costumes, and choreography. But will regular customers eventually tire of the spectacle? You can only burn through so many deep-pocketed local diners before your supply of people looking to have their first vibe dining experience starts to run low. As more of these restaurants open, the one-upmanship for the wildest show could continue to fuel the trend for many late nights to come—or it might start to peter out as vibe dining fatigue sets in. For however long it lasts, let’s just hope there’s enough sparklers and confetti for everyone.