ChopnBlok - Where to Eat 2025
Let’s get out of here.
Let’s go somewhere we don’t know yet. Let’s eat something new to us. Let’s trade our familiar concerns for unfamiliar flavors and experiences. These are the basic desires that compel travelers to restaurants around the world and bring together people for meals across cultures.
They’re also the demands that power the global tourism industry, which has ironically frustrated customers’ needs for novelty and connection by funneling them into a few, well-trodden, and increasingly expensive destinations where locals have struggled to keep up with demand: the cruise ship ports of Greek islands, the beaches of Tulum, the influencer stomping grounds of Paris. As more people have joined the surge in travel in the last few years, 2025 is set to be one for the record books — and the guest books — in crowded hot spots, where it’s become hard to truly get away.
But many cities, towns, and businesses around the world are eager for visitors, including many places where chefs are attracting attention by putting their food cultures front and center. We tapped our team of culinary experts to find out about some of these overlooked destinations. They lay out arguments for the places they’re sending friends and hungry travelers in 2025: why you should skip the clogged Greek island ports for the olive groves and tavernas of Messenia on the mainland, eschew the packed Mexican coast for the contemporary Yucateco cuisine and roadside kibis of Mérida, and take a break from the bustling French capital for laid-back Basque specialties in St-Jean-de-Luz. In all 18 spots on this list, from Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire, to Goa, India, you’ll find local chefs, bartenders, and street vendors ready to make their own cases for escapism in full plates and brimming glasses, too. — Nick Mancall-Bitel
Houston
Texas
In November, Michelin finally arrived in Houston, bringing overdue appreciation for one of the U.S.’s greatest dining cities. Here, the dining landscape is as sprawling as the land it sits upon, and each neighborhood has something to offer: There are mango sticky rice danishes at Koffeteria, Vanarin Kuch’s quaint Downtown ode to Cambodia; and empanadas stuffed with stringy Oaxacan cheese at the Michelin-starred Tatemó in Northwest Houston. There are the rich, plantain-laden stews at Ope Amosu’s ardent illustration of West African foodways at Montrose’s ChòpnBlọk; or boastfully spicy Thai plates at the James Beard Award-winning, gas station outpost-turned-Second Ward hot spot Street to Kitchen. Don’t forget the juiciest cochinita pibil around at Victoria Elizondo’s Cochinita & co. in East End.
The city offers plenty of tacos and brisket, as you might expect. But it’s also home to some of the Lone Star State’s most innovative chefs, who are turning out progressive Creole fare, African Mexican fusion, the makings of a pizza renaissance, Cuban biscuit sandwiches, progressive and dynamic African American cooking, Vietnamese Texan whole-hog bánh xèo — well, you get the idea. —