Great ambience, great food and wine, great service. Not cheap

Excellent food prepared very well. Incredible wine selection. Overall was a great experience.

Wonderful generous Salad Nicoise for lunch ! Great service.

excellent mussels

Good restaurant , with moderate prices. Service is correct and pleasant. My only recommendation is to have the owners of the restaurant, check on the acoustic issues of the place.
Thank you.
I.R.B

Two couples who have dined at Cafe Rabelais many times over the years, but have not done so in over a year due to the pandemic, were reminded it is one of the top restaurants in Houston. Wine list, waitstaff, appetizers to desserts, we had a wonderful evening and look forward to return.

We loved the food, the wine, the service, but the noise level was extremely difficult to handle.

Always a great place to eat and spend an afternoon. Love this place and the people who work here. Been going there forever and it makes me so happy!

Great food and lots of menu choices at lunch -- sandwiches and dinner-style entrees. Professional and friendly service.

I have been a Rabelais fan since 2013! love the low key ambiance, great wine list and friendly service. Their food is outstanding! Wonderful salads suitable for a light lunch--their goat cheese salad in particular is a treat! Their dinner menu is excellent as well.

Always a great meal! It's great to dine in a smaller more intimate setting.

We dine at Cafe Rabelais a few times a year. Post Covid they are up and running 100%. Two of us had stuffed chicken and one had the mussels. We were blown away by how good it was. Wine selection is excellent. It's always a treat to dine here. Beware the parking meters are odd. A small price to pay for an excellent restaurant.

We continue to be impressed with the food and service. We tried a new bottle of wine that wasn’t to our liking and they happily replaced it with another bottle. Mussels are always delicious but we ventured toward steak and were not disappointed.

It is always a delightful meal at Cafe Rabelais. The atmosphere is comfortable and the food consistently excellently prepared. We brought friends for their first visit, and they loved it. I always look forward to a meal at Cafe Rabelais.

Ambience and service were
excellent. The French Onion soup was some of the best I have had. My husband enjoyed his Steak au Poivre and sides. My Trout Almondine was excellent. Could have been slightly more seasoned, but delicious. For dessert we shared a Creme Brûlée. It is my favorite dessert, and we loved it.

We had a good dinner. Only draw back is gets noisy as the restaurant fills up.

Food and service excellent, just as it was pre-pandemic.

Great dinner and a great atmosphere! Will be returning.

It had been a long time. The menu seems shorter but the quality better. Salmon appetizer was a standout. St.Jacque Risotto was a lovely executed dish. Very good creme brûlée.

Dining here is like no other place in Houston. You feel as if you are in a Paris bistro. Wonderful,consistently sublime food and wine.
I wish I could be there every night!

Food is very good, but service was incredibly poor and slow.

This wasn’t the best of Cafe Rabelais. But little things didn’t help. Our table wasn’t ready and there was no place to wait ( maybe the car). So we drank our wine in the way of the wait staff until the bar cleared. Minor. But we sat at a table with just no light. Ok we’re older but it is getting so tiresome to have to use a phone to read the menu. There is a menu board but the spotlight on the main entrees was out Or misdirected. Then our former favorite mustard dressing was tasteless on a house salad with underripe tomatoes. Blah! Fortunately someone put apples in by mistake which gave the salad something palatable. Turns out they we’re supposed to go on the blue cheese salad at our table which didn’t have them. This was remedied quickly. That salad was good. Brussels Sprouts were soggy and bacon wrapped chicken was ok but bacon wasn’t crispy. Next time I will stick to steak with fries. They do these pretty well. Plus the French bread is fabulous. Wines were great. Profiteroles delicious though the pastry has shrunk. It may be awhile before we return. Sorry to say. We’ve been dining here for many years. But had not been here since they installed (unreadable )parking meters! More reasons to not make the trip into Houston from the burbs.

We had terrible meals. Only could not hear a thing since very noisy.

So happy Cafe Rabelais survived the pandemic. The food is great and the restaurant is lovely intimate dining experience.

Thank you for taking reservations instead of first come first serve.

Terrific dinner! Seafood was fresh and well prepared. Steak was done perfectly! Service was impeccable. Very extensive wine list. Quiet, pleasant ambiance. Highly recommend.

Service was somewhat sparse. It seemed the wait staff were stretched too thin. Overall very good food and atmosphere. I definitely will return to dine again.

I love the restaurant and wanted to treat my brother and his wife to a small quiet evening. There were 2 tables of four that were so loud we couldn’t hear ourselves in conversation. Because of the size and all concrete walls and floors it doesn’t take much to make it unbearable. Maybe putting some small area rugs may absorb the sound. I will return but thought you would like to know.
Thank you.

We highly recommend you give this wonderful little cafe a try, the ambiance is quaint and casual with some chatter and noice in the background. But table conversation is easily heard. The menu options are good, and the smoked salmon appetizer is delicious. Escargot was good and traditionally prepared. Both the bone in ribeye and beef fillet were properly prepared and delicious. Creme brûlée was perfect!!

Great to enjoy authentic French food in a simple and elegant atmosphere

This could have been a five-star review. The staff was very friendly. It is a great place with lots of character. The drop in score was related to my wife's dish. Our starters included mushroom soup and french onion both had very good flavor. For mains, I had beef bourguignon and it was excellent. She ordered lamb chops medium-rare but one came out medium and the other medium-well. It was the first time she has ever had to send a meal back. However, the staff took it without fuss, and a new order cooked medium-rare was quickly served. We will be back, this could easily become a regular for us.

Always fantastic. Been going here for 15 years and we’ve never had a negative experience. Ask for Jeff!

Post Covid I can understand the need to recoup costs, but the prices were higher than the meal deserved. I had the St Jacques. The 4 scallops were excellent. But I got half a cup of risotto.

Wonderful dinner at Cafe Rabelais! We started with the bone marrow. Decadent & delicious. For our entrees my wife had the famous Cafe Rabelais Moules-frites. The best in Houston. I had the delicious red snapper. For desert… profiteroles of course. It was great to dine again at one of favorite restaurants

One of my fav's in Houston. Like a typical French Bistro.

This is one of my favorite restaurant. Food is good. Try the mussels and risotto. The best ever.

Great place as always. Fantastic food and service in a quaint French neighborhood atmosphere. So glad they are open for lunch again.

The food made up for the start of our experience. When we showed up, we were told to wait 5 minutes while the table was cleaned. We were next on the reservation list (saw it on the iPad). Took a step outside to wait, and the couple that walked in after us ended up getting seated first because the waitresses were managing rather than a dedicated front person. So a different waitress came up, and took them without seeing us or confirming if they were even next. Then when trying to order a bottle of rosé, all of the bottles on the list were not prepared, ie still at room temperature. Luckily the food hit on all notes and saved the rest of the experience.

A staple for French cuisine. I had not been to Cafe Rabelais in many years but it was ALWAYS a favorite of mine. Returning was just as I expected, friendly staff, the mussels were still just as yummy and the fries was AMAZING!! A GEM of a restaurant in Rice Village.

great place ! great food ! very friendly ambiance.

Always enjoy this authentic French bistro. One of my favorites!