Café Leonelli is located inside MFAH’s Kinder Building and focuses on cafeteria-style Italian food for both visitors on the go as well as passersby looking for a nice, relaxing pit stop in the middle of a museum day. The focaccia, particularly the salsiccia and rapini, is especially great, and we also recommend Café Leonelli’s pastries for a quick bite.

Green Seed Vegan’s menu features a delicious array of fresh and flavorful cooked dishes as well as smoothies, but the raw dishes are the real highlights. The tacos made with sunflower walnut chorizo, “rawrrito” with zucchini bacon, and nori rolls encasing almond pâté are standouts.

Treat yourself to an experience that will make you feel in you’re soft-life era. The sleek ambience of Le Jardinier is only matched by the gorgeous presentation of the food. The menu items, curated by renowned chef Alain Verzeroli, whose restaurants have earned Michelin stars, offers European cuisine with dishes from foie gras to risotto. Just keep in mind the restaurant is pricey; so reserve it for a special occasion, and head to Café Leonelli next door for more casual dining.

Lucille’s, located in a beautiful cozy house, serves Southern food and is named after the owner’s beloved great-grandmother Lucille B. Smith, herself a celebrated culinary innovator, entrepreneur, and educator. Enjoy classics like braised oxtails and shrimp or catfish and grits (try them with a side of the fried green tomatoes) or more contemporary, uniquely Houstonian fare like the oxtail tamales or grilled octopus with coconut curry and peanuts. Lucille’s has mastered the art of balancing the tried-and-true with the emerging and new.

Mo’ Better Brews deserves a hallowed slot on every Houstonian’s regular brunch rotation. Featuring a breezy patio, strong coffee, and a brilliant playlist, it serves vegan dishes with a particular flair for Southern-style comfort food. The “chik’n” fried mushrooms and grits receives the most raves, but you can’t go wrong with the bagel and “lox” or “Smokey Rob” pizza featuring smoked oyster mushrooms. You can also shop from the owners’ collection of vinyl.

The atmosphere at Reggae Hut radiates joy, from the bright colors to the flavorful Caribbean menu. Whether you simply want a quick pattie and some plantains or a full jerk chicken meal with rice and peas and a bottle of homemade ginger beer, you can find your satisfying fill at this Houston institution. Those of you with sensitive palates take note: that homemade ginger beer is strong.

There’s no need to pack a picnic basket for your jaunts to Hermann Park. Sunday Press, which recently took the space of Ginger Kale, serves as the park’s official snack and coffee bar, offering a menu full of staples like burgers and hot dogs and some newcomers like the Japanese-style egg salad sandwich, vegetarian-friendly açai bowls, and several avocado toast options. Make sure to leave room for a chia pudding dessert.

Given its location right on the border between neighborhoods, Grand Prize Bar blends Montrose’s laid-back cool with the Museum District’s taste for excellent food and cocktails. The kitchen rotates food vendors regularly and the bar has one of the best (read: cheapest) happy hours in town.

Head to the Monarch restaurant and lounge within Hotel Zaza, or Poolside if you happen to be staycationing. While the food is excellent, locals know that the hotel’s cocktails are the sleeper hit. The Paloma Diablo adds a touch of jalapeño to spice up the classic tequila drink, while the Strawberry and Black Pepper Mule combines two familiar flavors in a delightfully unfamiliar way.

This friendly spot offers an impressive selection of wines and tapas-style dishes prepared specifically to pair with the vast list. As the name implies, the bar makes for a perfect spot to rest your feet and unwind after a long day of exploring Houston’s excellent museums.

Feeling inspired after your latest trip to the MFAH or CAMH? Art Supply is located right there on Almeda Road to help you indulge all your creative whims. Even if the craving doesn’t hit until after you get back home, don’t fret: it has a generous online shop.

Support local museums and find great gifts for yourself (and everyone on your shopping list) at all the gift shops that beckon you on your way out. From branded merch to educational toys to jewelry, home decor, and an incredible selection of books you may not even find at Houston Public Library, you’re sure to find the perfect present.

Boasting 445 acres of natural beauty, free and low-cost entertainment, and food, Hermann Park is the home of festivals, concerts at Miller Outdoor Theatre, a choo choo train, Japanese gardens, ponds, fountains, a reflection pool with a stately obelisk, and cute wildlife (although beware of those scary geese). No visit to Houston is complete without a day exploring this beloved Houston green space.

Within the Hermann Park complex, McGovern Centennial Gardens often goes overlooked because it sits across the street from its bigger parent. But it comprises just as much of Houston’s heart, showcasing impressive feats of landscaping, sculpture, and architecture spread out over eight acres. True to its origins as the former Houston Garden Center, the Family Garden section encourages children to learn about local seasonal foods and how to cultivate them at home.

In the evenings, pack a picnic and a blanket and head to Miller Outdoor Theatre for concerts, dance performances, and plays that are free to enjoy (though you may have to spend a little extra if you want to sit in the pavilion’s seats). The institution celebrated its 100th anniversary in 2023.

A fun fact about the Houston Zoo is that it’s the second-most visited zoo in the country, with the San Diego Zoo claiming the top spot. Outside of its impressive collections—with a world-class Galápagos exhibit that opened in 2023—Houston Zoo also works on global conservation initiatives. The central theme around the different animal enclosures reflects this, and the zoo’s placards and literature are full of information about how to support endangered and otherwise threatened species.

Houston has been shaped by its Asian communities, and Asia Society Texas is one of 12 centers across the United States meant to help educate, celebrate, and preserve Asian and Asian American culture. Through film festivals, art shows, performances, holiday celebrations, lectures, architecture tours, and more, it commits itself to dispelling stereotypes and teaching the world about the sheer diversity found across Asia. Asia Society Texas also offers classes in tai chi, qigong, mahjong, and the Korean language.

Get a refreshment from Java Lava inside the museum, which serves Hawaiian coffee, Hanoi egg coffee, and a golden oat latte, plus bites like a salmon musubi.

Conveniently located across the street from MFAH, CAMH admission is always free and features rotating exhibitions rather than a permanent collection. It also approaches the arts through a multicultural, international vantage point, with an emphasis on contemporary sociopolitical issues. All this without medium bias. You’re just as likely to watch video loops as you are to walk around paintings as if in a traditional gallery.

The history of Czech immigrants in Texas understandably tends to focus on Hill Country, but the community still has a foothold in Houston that deserves recognition. Czech Center Museum Houston also serves as a cultural center with language lessons, regular happy hours, and an oral history project collecting the stories of Czech families in the city. Movie nights here are always free, and the museum hosts art shows from Czech and Slovak artists as well as exhibitions examining immigrant experiences from other nations such as Mexico.

Traditional crafts unfortunately don’t receive the same accolades as studio art, though they’re just as valid as aesthetic objects. HCCC celebrates crafts as simultaneously functional and fashionable, and offers a number of classes and workshops to help ensure that the practices don’t die out. It also hosts artists in residence to encourage promising craft talent to continue furthering their individual visions and overall contribution to their chosen media. Like CAMH, admission is always free.

Houston isn’t Houston without the cultural influence of its Black communities. Houston Museum of African American Culture takes a broad look at the African diaspora, with exhibitions ranging in scope from the local to the international. Because of this, it doesn’t limit itself to the type of media it presents. You can attend film screenings and lectures, read the museum’s latest research in online white papers, browse art shows, support Black artists through the gift shop, and plenty more.

One of the oldest cultural institutions in the city, HMNS has provided exhibits on the natural world for 115 years. The museum has three locations, one being the George Observatory out in Needville, which has one of the largest public telescopes in the country. Within the main Museum District campus, the Burke Baker Planetarium offers a range of shows to teach you about the cosmos, including rundowns of a typical backyard night sky, black holes, and even ancient star-tracking techniques. You can also catch laser shows set to Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon and get a look at the last days of the dinosaurs. The Cockrell Butterfly Center feels like a tropical paradise nestled within our subtropical home, where you can view lots of species and even walk through a living habitat. HMNS also has exhibits on ancient Egypt and is home to the largest paleontology hall in the US .

Living artists from around the world working in a variety of disciplines congregate at Lawndale Art Center to showcase pieces emphasizing the current news and problems of today. It presents a wide range of lectures, film screenings, and other events meant to further build on the major themes of its exhibitions. Admission is free, and there’s often not even an attendant at the front, so come on in.

In a global city like Houston, it makes sense that the main artistic attraction embraces a global perspective as well. MFAH recently expanded its Art of the Islamic Islamic Worlds center, has added the Albert and Ethel Herzstein Gallery for Judaica, and even built a whole new building across the street from the main campus, the Nancy and Rich Kinder Building, unveiled in 2020.

Over the past few years MFAH has invited installation artists from around the world to encourage visitors to explore and play with the exhibits. Even the non-installation shows still contain considerable interactivity. The recent M.C. Escher retrospective, for example, invited hands-on learning about how optical illusions work. The museum also offers film programming and international movies that you won’t find at your neighborhood theater. There are festivals, lectures, and special screenings with the directors and actors themselves in attendance. Make sure to stroll through the Cullen Sculpture Garden to soak in works by master sculptors such as Henri Matisse, Auguste Rodin, Joan Miró, and many more. The overarching garden itself is a sculpture by Isamu Noguchi.