Le Colonial (River Oaks District)

Le Colonial opened in the River Oaks District in August 2016, an outpost of a French-Vietnamese restaurant group. The two-storey space channels 1920s French Indochina, with a wraparound terrace and an upstairs lounge bar. Executive Chef Fredy Cutz runs the Houston kitchen alongside Culinary Director Hassan Obaye.

In 2024 the restaurant unveiled a renovated patio and a new cocktail programme, and PaperCity Magazine's coverage of the launch singled out the Saigon Mint Colada as the pour for guests who were not drinking — naming it alongside the new cocktails rather than as a footnote.

That drink rewards a close look at its ingredient list. Coconut milk, fresh pineapple, lime and mint are the expected colada components, but turmeric and freshly grated nutmeg are not. Both are warm, earthy, faintly bitter spices, and they do the work that rum would otherwise do in stopping a coconut-and-pineapple drink from reading as dessert. Turmeric in particular brings a dry, almost medicinal edge that cuts the fat in the coconut milk.

Le Diable runs the opposite register: fresh pomegranate and ginger root with cilantro, lime, pomegranate molasses and Q ginger beer. Pomegranate molasses is the key — reduced pomegranate juice, intensely sour and slightly savoury, a staple of Levantine and Persian cooking rather than of bartending. It supplies a depth of acidity that no fresh juice can, and with cilantro's green, soapy bite and the ginger's heat the result is a properly savoury long drink. There are also three shaken black teas, in white peach, hibiscus herb honey and lychee, where the tea's tannin gives the drinks the dry astringency a sweet fruit build usually lacks.

There is a broader logic to ordering alcohol-free here. Vietnamese food is built around herbs, chilli, fish sauce and acid, and its own table drinks run to limeade, sugarcane juice, iced tea and coconut — a deep non-alcoholic tradition that has nothing to compensate for. This is a full-bar restaurant rather than an alcohol-free venue, but the mocktail section is named, distinct from the cocktail list and has drawn its own press. Open daily from half past eleven, to eleven at night Thursday through Saturday.