TEXAS | THE SOUTH
Where Border Flavors Collide: These 15 Restaurants Define El Paso Right Now
By Rebecca Thompson | Oct. 6, 2025
Taconeta
AUTHOR BIO: Rebecca Thompson has held many jobs over the years, from daily newspaper writer to middle-school math teacher. As a restaurant critic, she’s eaten at everything from the Michelin starred to the stand-up counters in the back of gas stations.
When people picture Texas dining, they think of smoke and brisket, maybe a margarita sweating on a patio. But El Paso is a border town, and everything good about it happens in the in-between.
The food here isn’t about tradition so much as translation—Mexican, yes, but also desert, mountain, and West Texas swagger, all tangled up in one city that feels more like itself than anywhere else in the state.
You come for tacos and end up talking about the chef who trained in Oaxaca or the bartender who smokes chiles behind the bar. You stay because nowhere else in Texas eats quite like this.
After years of research and many trips to El Paso, here then are my favorite restaurants in a city that’s always bringing something new.
1700 Steakhouse
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Inside the Hotel Paso del Norte, 1700 Steakhouse plays the part of a classic chophouse with a regional accent. The menu leans heavy on prime cuts—filet, ribeye, and tomahawk—seared over pecan wood, alongside sides like truffle mac and Hatch green chile potatoes. Chef Jason Brumfiel keeps the focus on simple execution and smoke, letting the steak and the setting—marble, leather, low light—do the talking.
Best for: A proper Texas steak dinner done with polish and restraint
Ambar Restaurante
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In the lobby of the Plaza Hotel Pioneer Park, Ámbar channels fire, tradition, and inventiveness via its open wood-grill kitchen and handmade tortillas. Under chef Lawrence Acosta, the menu leans regional but bold — duck in mole poblano, tomahawk ribeye, carnitas, ceviche, enchiladas suizas — each dish built around color, texture, and Mexican technique. The bar is its own draw: more than 800 agave spirits line a backlit amber wall, framing nights with strong cocktails, smooth jazz, and a distinctly El Paso sense of place.
Best for: Mezcal-fueled nights in the city’s most striking dining room
Café Central
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Café Central has been serving El Paso long enough to feel like the city’s collective dining room—dark wood, white tablecloths, the low hum of conversation that never seems to end. The menu hasn’t changed much because it doesn’t need to: tableside Caesar, rack of lamb, and green chile–infused crab cakes that have been copied all over town. It’s the kind of place where anniversaries overlap with business deals, and the waiter somehow remembers your drink before you sit down.
Best for: Old-school service and dishes that never needed reinvention
Café Mayapán
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Café Mayapán is more than a restaurant—it’s a social project, part of La Mujer Obrera’s mission to preserve borderland culture and support local women through work and education. The kitchen turns out Yucatán-inspired dishes like cochinita pibil, panuchos, and tamales wrapped in banana leaves, all made from scratch and served without hurry. The dining room doubles as a cultural center, filled with art, conversation, and the smell of corn on the griddle.
Best for: Handmade Yucatán dishes served with purpose and pride
Elemi
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At Elemi, chef-owner Emiliano Marentes seeks to distill the essence of El Chuco culture using tortillas and maize as his compass. The menu pulses with unexpected tacos — pato al pastor, suadero, conejo pibil, and campechano — and snacks like pepinos dusted in sal de hormigas chicatanas. The bar leans deep on agave: mezcal, sotol, independent Mexican rums, and an Elemi Old Fashioned that nods to desert dusk and mariachi sunset.
Best for: Tacos that prove heirloom corn still rules the borderland
The Hoppy Monk
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The Hoppy Monk feels like the city’s craft-beer embassy—bustling, unpretentious, and serious about what’s on tap. The menu leans far beyond bar food: Korean-fried chicken, house-ground burgers, and Brussels sprouts that have somehow achieved local legend status. With more than 70 beers and a whiskey list that borders on obsessive, it’s the rare spot where both hop nerds and cocktail drinkers get what they want.
Best for: A night that starts with a pint and ends with a whiskey you didn’t know you needed
Kiki’s Mexican
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Kiki’s Mexican has been around since the 1970s, long enough to become the answer locals give when you ask where to eat first in El Paso. The dining room still feels like a throwback—wood paneling, neon beer signs, and servers who know half the crowd by name. Everyone comes for the same thing: the brisket machaca, a messy, bubbling plate of comfort that’s as close to a city signature as El Paso has ever had.
Best for: A no-frills institution where the machaca is nonnegotiable
Lamezze
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Lamezze brings the warmth of a Mediterranean family table to El Paso, serving dishes meant for passing and sharing rather than plating and posing. Chef Carlos Arzola’s menu runs through classics—hummus, grilled kebabs, falafel, shawarma—built around bright herbs and charcoal smoke. The space stays lively from lunch through late night, helped along by mint tea, Turkish coffee, and a playlist that sounds borrowed from a Beirut café.
Best for: Food and music that feel straight from the Mediterranean
L&J Café
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L&J Café, which sits across from the Concordia Cemetery, is a landmark as permanent as the gravestones it overlooks. Inside, it’s all clatter and conversation, the same way it’s been since the Lucero family opened it in 1927. The enchiladas come stacked, the chile rellenos ooze cheese, and the green chile sauce carries the exact amount of heat you remember from the last visit.
Best for: Classic border cooking in a place that hasn’t changed just because the city has
Park Tavern
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Across from San Jacinto Plaza, Park Tavern balances polished and relaxed under the hands of a creative kitchen and bar team. From restaurateurs Danny and Gabi Heredia, the kitchen turns out elk tenderloin and seared scallops alongside a lobster roll that’s become the restaurant’s unofficial mascot. Set in a restored downtown building with exposed brick and a wraparound bar, it feels like El Paso’s version of a big-city brasserie—casual, confident, and ready for a long night.
Best for: Steak, seafood, and cocktails in El Paso’s liveliest downtown room
SAZON By Chef Rulis
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Chef Rulis Gonzalez has been part of El Paso’s dining DNA for decades, and Sazon is his most personal project yet. The menu folds borderland flavors into fine dining with quiet confidence—duck tacos layered with mole negro, ribeye with chimichurri, scallops over esquites. The dining room feels modern but lived in, the kind of place where every dish arrives with a story he’s been perfecting for years.
Best for: Elevated border cuisine from one of El Paso’s most enduring chefs
Starlite Restaurant & Bar
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Starlite comes from chefs Rulis Gonzalez and Nikko Gravalos, who’ve built a gastropub that leans equal parts dining room and lounge. The menu moves from Starlite tacos and a panko-crusted milanese to Chía’s chicken à la king puff and a ribeye done “Caprese style.” Even the art plays along—scan the walls with their app, and the restaurant tells its own story back to you.
Best for: Dinner that mixes comfort dishes with a bit of showmanship
Taconeta
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Taconeta nails the taco bar formula without pretense: scratch masa tortillas, pared-down combos, and flavor first. The menu includes suadero (slow-cooked brisket), achiote-grilled chicken, Baja fish tacos, and grilled elote that gets both char and bite. The space is compact and casual, the kind of place where orders come fast, the lines form early, and the tacos live up to the buzz.
Best for: High-quality tacos in a neighborhood spot
Taft Díaz
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Behind the polished doors of the Stanton House, Taft Díaz delivers the kind of border-city cooking that makes you rethink what modern Mexican can be. Chef Rodrigo Moreno builds his menu around big contrasts—rich roasted bone marrow served as “Mexican Butter,” crisp octopus chicharrón, and Chilean seabass in garlicky mojo de ajo. The dining room feels quietly dramatic, all dark marble and soft light, the kind of place where conversation slows because the food keeps interrupting.
Best for: A refined dinner that captures the border’s creative edge
Twisted Fork
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On El Paso’s west side, Twisted Fork is a scratch kitchen built on a no-tipping, living-wage model and a menu that splices border, Italian, and Asian flavors. The kitchen sends out potstickers stuffed with Italian sausage and chorizo and wings glazed in Korean BBQ, with pastas and steaks for the main event.
Best for: A no-tip, scratch-kitchen dinner with big flavors
