Cavatore, Houston

Outside, this 100-year-old barn has all the expected adornments—a windmill, antlers mounted over the awning, a corrugated-metal roof. It's inside where things turn unexpected. Cavatore Italian Restaurant's century-old Italian memorabilia hangs from the rustic siding.

Servers mix caesar salads at tables draped in red-and-white tablecloths and surrounded by chairs with basket-weave backs. This fusion of Italian restaurant and Texas barn may seem an unlikely union, but there's a simple logic to it. When the Cavatore family came to the United States, it came from the pastoral regions of Northern Italy, a rich agriculture area known for its wine, truffles, and herds of wild colanders. Thus, converting the barn to a restaurant made sense, as it both embraced the family's Italian heritage and hearkened back to its countryside roots.