New Montrose-area Mexican café offers meticulously crafted, Instagram-able, and delicious breakfast and lunch plates.

1915 Dunlavy St, Houston, TX 77006
(832) 409-5253
Official facebook page

7AM–2:30PM Tue–Sun (closed Monday)

Walking the dogs, we recently noticed that a new restaurant had suddenly materialized in a cute blue cottage at the corner of Dunlavy and Welch, right across from the Guild resale shop. We peeked at the menu and made a mental note to check out this new competitor to the venerable La Guadalupana Bakery, just down the street.

Initially, Cielito Cafe struck us as “brunchy,” meaning it looked like the kind of place we usually avoid. The menu prices seemed slightly high, lacking in decimal places, and the overall aesthetic is within the Pinterest/Airbnb/adult kindergarten spectrum. Translating directly as “little sky,” the restaurant’s name, a Spanish word used commonly as a term of endearment, adds another precious touch. However, since the menu boasts enticing dishes and a complete lack of cheap Prosecco mixed with orange juice, we decided to try it for a weekday lunch.

Tostadas Flor ($10): This vegan option consists of two crispy tostadas, each topped with a smear of (vegan) refried black beans, roasted cauliflower, shredded cabbage, diced mango, and sliced avocado. The plate is completed with a ramekin of creamy, emulsified green salsa and a heart-shaped strawberry slice. The overall effect is lovely, inspiring diners to break out their smart phones and begin snapping and sharing photos. The best part is this plate tastes every bit as good as its promising appearance. Each vegetable and fruit element is ripe and fresh, down to the strawberry garnish. The tostadas are crunchy but hold up under their bounty. The cauliflower is toasted to a golden brown but retains its crunch. Complementing the delicate vegetal flavors and adding an herbal note, the salsa has a nice bite but is not overwhelmingly hot. Honestly, these tostadas hit every mark.

Sopes ($10): Cielito Cafe makes these thick masa cups by hand in house, and offers them topped with chorizo or chicken, plus black beans, avocado pico, cabbage, crema, and queso fresco. We ordered a mixed plate with one of each protein, and they came with two salsas; the green one that accompanied the tostadas flor, and a delicious, warm, red tomato salsa seemingly calculated to accompany the chorizo sope and reminiscent of Tex-Mex with its cumin notes. Like the tostadas, the sopes appear to have been assembled by loving hands for maximum visual appeal and carry that into the ingredients and flavors. Both the grilled chicken and chorizo toppings taste great, with visible charring on the shredded chicken and the moderately-spicy chorizo pulling off the trick of being unctuous while non-greasy. Another winner, this time for the omnivores.

Flan ($4.50): This was a nice flan, on the firm side, with a good custardy texture and flavor, plus two more ripe strawberry slices on top. To be honest, we slightly prefer the typical a-la-Guadalupana plating with a pool of thin caramel syrup to the fine-dining-influenced stripes of thicker caramel and chocolate sauce on display here, but we certainly enjoyed every bite.

Watermelon Agua Fresca ($2.50): This was the only agua fresca available on the day of our visit, and it turned out to be the best version of this classic summer beverage that we had ever enjoyed, with the exception of homemade watermelon juice. This tastes like nothing more or less than fresh melon. Cold, refreshing, not too sweet, and garnished with a small slice of the fruit itself, this is a perfect drink for a Houston spring day (AKA some other place’s raging dog days of summer).

To sum up: We got over our aversion to brunch and fell hard for Cielito Café. It might already be too late to hit it up before the inevitable crowds of weekend brunchers make the discovery, but the wait time for our midweek lunch was rather short. We will head back soon to try a coconut or caramel coffee drink and sample a few egg dishes off the breakfast menu, which looked wonderful on our fellow-diners’ tables, especially the Cielito Sandwich, which uses a sliced concha, a Mexican sweet bread, as the bread to hold egg, cheese, and bacon.