The Best Oysters in Houston?

A Bistro Challenges the Usual Go-To Stalwarts With Its Toppings

By James Brock // Dec 8, 2015

Grilled, with great technique, and topped with chorizo and pico.

I love oysters, and it’s bivalve season, so I’ve been eating them a lot lately. I cooked some this past weekend at a dinner — Blue Points that I lightly fried and served in the half shell with a cucumber-sesame oil sauce, topped with trout roe — and this past week I was served a half dozen at Kris Bistro. They were grilled, and topped with shallots, garlic, tomato, rosemary, dried chorizo, spicy chorizo, and cotija cheese. And they were excellent (even if their flavor was in danger of being subsumed by the complexity of the toppings).

The menu at Kris Bistro changes quarterly, and though it states that these are Gulf oysters, on the evening I visited they were serving East Coast varieties (which, for me, was a great thing, as I prefer ones from the West and East coasts). Briny, wonderful salinity, perfect raw, and very good lightly fried (actually, sautéed), these are what I think of when I have a craving for oysters.

I am not a fan of deep-fried bivalves, no matter their origin. Too much breading is bad, as well, because, well, one eats oysters to taste oysters, not breading. Kris Bistro is doing these right, because despite strong toppings, one tastes the natural beauty of the main attraction.

They came to the table hot — so hot that I could not comfortably pick up the shells — and tender, soft to the tooth. They came to the table delicious. I advise you to try them, because they give my other go-to grilled oysters in the Houston area — those at Caracol and at Gilhooley’s – a run for their money.