Cafe Mawal Mediterranean Grill, Houston

At Cafe Mawal Mediterranean Grill, the family that owns the Northern Mediterranean restaurant prepares many of the same Albanian and Greek dishes that they eat at home. Using ingredients from local farms, the cooks create plates of kebabs, hummus, shawarma, and tabouli. They also whip up desserts in house, from honey-soaked baklava to seasonal kanafeh cheese pastries or sweet and savory crepes.

Visitors enjoy their meals paired with Turkish coffee or Pakistani chai tea. Outside on the patio, guests can indulge in traditional hookahs or pipes outfitted with special fruit bowls. Staffers fashion the bowls out of whole pieces of fruit, including giant pineapples, to give the hookah an intense fruit flavor.