The New York Times included four Texas restaurants among its favorite dishes of 2025, divided into two lists: The 23 Best Restaurant Dishes We Ate Across the U.S. in 2025 and The 14 Best Restaurant Desserts We Ate Across the U.S. in 2025. The dishes are:

• Bad Honey Bunny at Mercado Sin Nombre (Austin)
• Ketan Hitam at Yeni’s Fusion (Austin)
• Konafa Naama at Sayad Mediterranean Kitchen (Houston)
• Picadillo Macaroni and Cheese at 2M Smokehouse (San Antonio)

Times food writer Priya Krishna, who authors the entries for all four Texas dishes, the praised the rice pudding at Yeni’s Fusion in Austin. “This barely sweet version, lush with coconut milk, aromatic with pandan and as soothing as warm porridge, is the gentlest way to end a meal,” she states.

Krishna singles out a honey bun at Mercado Sin Nombre, which is already hailed as one of America’s best breakfast spots by Bon Appetit. “The coiled honey bun at this semi-clandestine cafe looks almost cartoonishly perfect, and the heady scent of cardamom and honey hits you before you even take a bite. Somehow, it tastes every bit as plush and elegant as it appears,” she writes.

In San Antonio, the picadillo mac and cheese at 2M Smokehouse showcases how the restaurant incorporates Mexican flavors into traditional Texas barbecue. “Imagine Hamburger Helper, but spicier, punchier and even more luxuriously creamy. It’s not easy to one-up the singular, thickly spiced brisket here, but the picadillo mac and cheese — which runs as an occasional special — holds its own and then some,” Krishna writes.

Krishna also traveled to far west Houston to visit Sayad Mediterranean Kitchen. “The konafa, a signature here, arrives with a molten layer of cheese under a sticky-sweet layer of golden, nutty semolina. The craft is evident, the konafa gone in a few bites,” she writes.

Don't skip dessert at Sayad Mediterranean Kitchen.Sayad Mediterranean Kitchen/Facebook

The New York Times regularly shines its spotlight on Texas restaurants, In September, it named four establishments — ChòpnBlọk (Houston), Isidore (San Antonio), Lao’d Bar (Austin), and P Thai’s Khao Man Gai & Noodles (Austin) — to its list of America’s 50 Best Restaurants.