Where to eat and drink in the South

What changes at the table in the South

The South is not one cuisine but five. Texas has the barbecue, brisket smoked for twelve hours and sold by the pound, plus the Tex-Mex that Houston, Dallas and Austin argue over daily; Houston is also the most diverse food city in the country, with Vietnamese crawfish and Nigerian suya on the same block. New Orleans has gumbo, po'boys, oysters and the oldest restaurant culture in America. Miami is Cuban: the cafecito window, the ropa vieja, the ventanita at three in the afternoon.

The typical place is the barbecue joint with a line at ten in the morning, the taqueria in a gas station, the seafood shack by the water and the meat-and-three that serves lunch only. Austin has the food-truck scene that the rest of the country copied; Miami has the most expensive restaurant openings outside New York.

What changes for the diner: barbecue is sold by weight and runs out when it runs out, sweet tea comes unasked, tipping is twenty percent, and in Miami the check often includes an automatic gratuity of eighteen percent. Lunch is the big meal in Texas and Louisiana; dinner is late in Miami.