The New York Times has included four Texas restaurants — including two from Austin — on its new list of “The 50 places in the United States that we’re most excited about right now.”

Austin's representatives are Mexican seafood restaurant Esteand Malaysian comfort food eatery Wee’s Cozy Kitchen, near the University of Texas. They're joined by Houston's Gatlin’s Fins & Feathers, a Southern restaurant from Gatlin’s BBQ owner Greg Gatlin, and El Hidalguense, a Mexican restaurant in the Spring Branch district.

Published Tuesday, September 19, the list mixes newer restaurants that have opened since 2022 with more tenured establishments. Overall, 28 states are represented. Texas’s four spots rank it third, with New York and California tying for first with five entries each.

“Despite the upheavals in recent years, this is an expansive moment for independent restaurants. We can’t help but feel that cities and towns in the United States are better to eat in today than they have ever been,” the article states.

Food reporter Priya Krishna writes the entries for all four Texas restaurants. Este chef-owner Fermín Núñez earns recognition for adding global touches like hummus and brown butter to his Mexican seafood dishes. Krishna praises Wee’s Cozy Kitchen for the way chef Wee Fong Ehlers serves dishes like curry laksa in a West Campus gas station “past the cases of Coors Light and off-brand iPhone headphones.”

Este has already received regional attention, earning a spot on Bon Appetit's best new restaurants list last week, and an honorable mention onTexas Monthly’s list of 2023’s best new restaurants (as did Gatlin's). Prior to opening Este last year, Núñez earned a Food & Wine Best New Chef award for his work at Suerte, his masa-focused Mexican restaurant in Austin. The Houston restaurateur Greg Gatlin has made a number of media appearances, including serving as a guest judge on a barbecue-themed episode of Top Chef and in Netflix’s High on the Hog documentary series.

At Gatlin’s Fins & Feathers, Krishna praises the biscuits, barbecue shrimp, fried catfish, and “warm-hug hospitality.” “From the cozy booths to the televisions mounted on the walls, it’s a place where you’ll want to stay a while. Just don’t leave without having the cobbler,” she writes.

Turning to El Hidalguense, Krishna feasts on the signature roasted goat and caldo de res. “This is the rustic cooking of Hidalgo, a state in central Mexico whose famously colorful houses are depicted on the restaurant’s sign and splashed onto the table decorations. Grab a big group, order several platters of meat and enjoy the kind of Mexican cooking that you can’t easily get elsewhere — and that’s saying something in Houston,” she writes.