The Room
Loro Houston opened in 2021 as the second outpost of the Aaron Franklin–Tyson Cole Asian-Texan smokehouse partnership — Franklin (Franklin Barbecue, James Beard Best Chef Southwest) and Cole (Uchi, James Beard Best Chef Southwest) applying central-Texas barbecue technique to Thai-Vietnamese flavour. The Heights room handles a hundred-plus seats across a long indoor counter, a generous patio, and an open smoker visible from most of the dining room.
Eater Houston named Loro one of the year's best new restaurants in 2021. The format is intentionally non-fine-dining: high-volume, casual, but with kitchen-discipline that the names on the door require. The room is the place locals book when they want serious cooking at a casual register.
The Food
The smoked brisket bánh mì is the menu's calling card — Franklin-quality brisket, sliced thin onto a fresh baguette with pickled vegetables, cilantro, jalapeño and Vietnamese mayonnaise. The smoked salmon laab, the oak-grilled fish collar with peanut-curry, and the smoked beef short rib by-the-pound are the regulars' three other orders. The whole-fish program is the order for the table of four.
Frozen-cocktail programme is one of the best in Texas — a frozen Negroni, a frozen Margarita, a frozen Old-Fashioned that has no business being as good as it is. Beer list runs Texas craft. Wine programme is small but considered. Service is counter-and-runner.
Best Occasion Fit
Team Dinner: Loro is the most reliable team-dinner room in the Heights. The smoked-meat by-the-pound option handles a corporate dinner of ten to twenty without forcing a menu negotiation, the patio holds a long table, and the frozen-cocktail programme is the icebreaker.
Birthday: Birthdays at Loro are loud, brisket-led, frozen-Negroni-soaked affairs the room hosts with the practiced ease of a kitchen that runs the same drill twenty times a Saturday.
First Date: The patio at Loro is one of the Heights' better casual-first-date seats. The bánh mì shares well, the frozen Negroni is the conversation, and the bill at $50 a head reads as honest.