El Real Tex-Mex Café

El Real Tex-Mex Café at 1201 Westheimer Road in Houston's Montrose neighborhood opened in 2011 as a celebration of Tex-Mex culinary history rather than a merely casual restaurant. The project was driven by Robb Walsh, a food writer and historian who spent years documenting the evolution of Tex-Mex cuisine and recognized that its oldest preparations—chili gravy enchiladas, Frito pie, old-school combination plates—were being lost to trendy reinvention. El Real occupies a spectacularly converted 1920s movie theater, with the original marquee still crowning the building and the high-ceilinged interior drawing on the building's cinematic past in its décor. The kitchen executes Tex-Mex in its authentic mid-twentieth-century form: cheese enchiladas in a dark, cumin-heavy chili gravy; nachos made as the original 1943 invention specified; combination plates assembled from enchiladas, tamales, chalupas, and rice and beans. The Frito pie—Fritos in a bag topped with chili, cheese, and onion—arrives as a heritage dish treated with the seriousness it deserves. Margaritas are made from fresh citrus with quality tequila rather than the pre-made sour mixes common at cheaper establishments. The dining experience is convivial, festive, and designed to educate as much as satisfy: the menu itself functions as a brief history of Tex-Mex, noting dish origins and the food writers and cooks who codified the tradition. El Real is an essential stop for anyone interested in the historical and culinary roots of Texas's most distinctive regional food culture.