Triola's Kitchen — Restaurant in Houston

Triola’s Kitchen is full of heart, history, and hospitality. Housed in a converted home, this Italian spot feels like you’re dining at a family gathering. Photos of Frank Triola’s family line the walls, celebrating generations of Italian culinary tradition in Houston since the 1940s. Frank himself was in the dining room, warmly chatting with guests, which added a personal touch that you don’t see often anymore.

Service was fantastic—our server was attentive, and our waters were never empty. However, as a table of two, we did feel a bit of a push toward ordering more appetizers than necessary. The portion sizes here are very generous, and just one entree could easily feed two people, so keep that in mind when ordering.

[APPETIZERS & SALAD]

+Tomatoes Caprese ($16) – Sliced tomatoes, fresh mozzarella from Houston Dairymaids, and basil. I usually love a good Caprese salad, but this one was drenched in sauce, which overpowered the fresh ingredients underneath. Still, the quality of the mozzarella and tomatoes was solid. - 3.5/5

[PASTA]

+Pasta Bolognese ($42) – Frank’s Bolognese sauce with Osso Bucco, beef tenderloin, Italian sausage, meatballs, and brisket, all tossed with fresh pasta. In the restaurant, this was overwhelmingly rich with a strange sweetness and heavy saltiness that had me reaching for water after every bite. However, as leftovers, the flavors mellowed out beautifully. You could really appreciate the depth of the sauce and the care put into it. - 3/5 in-restaurant, 4.5/5 as leftovers

+Meg’s Penne Con Salsiccie ($28) – Penne pasta with spicy Italian sausage, suga rosa, and mozzarella. Between the two pastas, I preferred this one at first taste. It had a nice spice and flavor, but again, very rich and salty while dining in. As leftovers, it held up well. - 3.5/5 in-restaurant, 4/5 as leftovers

Overall, I had high hopes for Triola’s Kitchen, and while there were some hits and a few misses, I can see the passion behind the food. I’m curious to come back and try the seafood lasagna next time—it seems like a place where a few menu explorations might...

Picture this: you enter a restaurant that looks like a home, the door opened for you as you reach the threshold. Inside is almost a living room space, complete with family pictures up the walls of the stairs. Order normal, fine, what have you, yada yada. Then it arrives WHAM it's the chorus of angels and your mouth has a front row seat. Chicken "Mollica" somewhere in your memory a faint part of your frontal lobe is aware the name of your dish, but the applause from the limbic system is louder. "How is everything?" You're asked 3 times by 3 different guys. "Huh?" You're punch-drunk, swimming, nothing but mollica. Savoring each bite, letting it live between your buccals, rent free, I don't mind, put your feet up mollica, no really it's fine. And then you look down and the food is gone. You grieve, but it's for the best, because without the limits provided you know you would have eaten until comatose. But just as you've reached the fifth stage of grief and accepted the end of your meal, they bring out the dessert menu. The "gregarious-is-an-understatement" chef tell you it is the best part. You're skeptical as they remove the earthly remains of your beloved mollica, but then the cheesecake hits your buds. Your taste buds. And you realize the choir of angels had only been performing vocal warm-up exercises. New heights. And with the sip of espresso bitter to wash down the sweet, you shoot straight through heaven and into wherever God Himself goes when He dies. You leave. The bill doesn't upset you, you'd have paid with a body of an enemy to the family if they'd asked. Colors are brighter, the afterglow feels nearly post-coital. You finally understand what old people meant by "good digestion." Picture it. Thanks Triola's, I enjoyed my...

This restaurant is getting a lot of attention in some of the local Facebook groups and as a native New Yorker, I'm always craving authentic Italian flavors in Houston, so decided to bring my cousin who was visiting from New York and we went there straight from the airport after picking her up. It was a weekday afternoon so the restaurant was not too crowded. Parking is a challenge and there is a lot next door but it was grass and dirt and and doesn't feel very safe but it was 2:00 p.m. so we decided to go for it.

I wish I could say I absolutely loved everything but that wouldn't be true.. The calamari was very good but not great, a little chewy and very small calamar pieces (Santa Barbara in Pearland has really good calamari). The pasta was also decent but the seafood lasagna which was what I really was looking forward to felt a little flat. I don't know if it was reheated or They use a mix of cold and hot seafood, but the inside of it was cool/ cold in some places. I'm obsessed with seafood so again, definitely not complaining but I think if I went back I would try some of the other dishes and not put all my hopes into this one.

Now the highlight of the meal was the tiramisu dessert. This is hands down the best tiramisu I've had in Houston, and maybe ever. I've no idea if they make it in house or they get it from somewhere but I would a thousand percent go back just to have a meal and enjoy that tiramisu at the very end.

Service was okay. The owner came out and was very nice but there was only one waiter during our time there and he was in the kitchen most of the time.

Overall, for the price of the entrees, I don't really recommend it, but if there's some kind of special going on or you want some really good dessert, definitely...