Skirt steak marinated in citrus and aromatics, grilled over a flame, sliced across the grain and served on a sizzling cast-iron skillet with flour tortillas, guacamole and pico.

The modern restaurant fajita was popularised by Ninfa Laurenzo at the Original Ninfa's on Navigation Boulevard in Houston, who opened her ten-table room on July 25, 1973, and put grilled skirt steak with flour tortillas on the menu as 'tacos al carbon'. By the late 1970s she was branding them as fajitas and the dish went city-wide, then national. Skirt steak (faja means belt in Spanish, the cut runs along the diaphragm) had been a cheap ranch hand's cut on the Texas-Mexico border for generations, but it was Ninfa who turned it into white-tablecloth food. The sizzling cast-iron presentation and table-side assembly are her staging.

3 editor picks for Tex-Mex fajitas in Houston, ranked by editorial score. All Houston signature dishes · Tex-Mex fajitas across every city.