Hugo’s lands on New York Times’ list of best Mexican restaurants

The New York Times has named Hugo’s one of the best Mexican restaurants in the United States in a newly published list.

Husband-and-wife duo Hugo Ortega and Tracy Vaught launched Hugo’s in 2002, building up a following for dishes with roots all over Mexico: lechon, ceviche verde, barbacoa, carnitas, pescado en mole amarillo. The Sunday brunch buffet is particularly well-known. 

Today, the pair run five restaurants — Hugo’s, Caracol, Urbe, Xochi and Zaranda — as part of H Town Restaurant Group. (A sixth, Backstreet Cafe, is temporarily closed.) The collection sits among some of Houston’s best-known names in Mexican food. 

Hugo’s was the only Houston restaurant that the Times recognized, on a list of 41 spots nationwide.

The Times blurb, written by the New Orleans-based Brett Anderson, nodded to the long road it took to launch Hugo’s. Ortega, who was born in Mexico, immigrated to Houston and wound up working as a dishwasher at Vaught’s restaurant, Backstreet Cafe. He and Vaught began dating, and eventually went into business together.

“Hugo’s, the couple’s first restaurant together, introduced Houston to regionally distinctive cuisine that was more expansive and refined than what Texans then widely understood as ‘interior Mexican’ cooking,” Anderson wrote. “Aged into a fine-dining lion in the cradle of Tex-Mex, Hugo’s still features longtime staples like banana leaf-wrapped cabrito, grilled octopus and sautéed chapulines, not to mention mezcals and Mexican wine.”

Reached by phone, Ortega said the recognition felt like “big boots to fill.”

Ortega and Vaught have racked up accolades over the years. The James Beard Awards nominated Ortega for Best Chef Southwest five years running before finally granting him the prize in 2017. Ortega and Vaught were jointly nominated for Outstanding Restaurateur this year, though they didn’t win.

Only three other Texas restaurants earned a place among the Times’ picks for America’s best Mexican restaurants: Nixta Taqueria in Austin, Taqueria Elemi in El Paso and Burnt Bean Company, a Tex-Mex-inflected barbecue joint in Seguin.