A new all-day cafe has opened its doors inside Houston's Ismaili Center, giving Montrose visitors a place to grab breakfast tacos, chai, and rose-pistachio ice cream sandwiches without ever leaving the campus. Tapestry is a 70-seat, 2,000-square-foot restaurant open Tuesday through Sunday starting at 8 a.m., with dinner service added Friday and Saturday nights.
The cafe is led by Jackson & Company, according to CultureMap Houston, which reported on the opening and detailed much of the new menu. Jackson & Company was founded in 1981 by the late Jackson Hicks, a Houston hospitality figure nicknamed the “Prince of Parties” who built a reputation catering state dinners for U.S. presidents and foreign dignitaries, according to the Houston Chronicle. That pedigree now anchors the food program at one of the city's newest civic landmarks.
A Menu Built to Welcome Everyone
Tapestry does not serve alcohol or pork, and its menu labels dishes for vegan, vegetarian, gluten-free, nut-free, and dairy-free diets, per the same CultureMap report. Breakfast options include açaí bowls, beef chapli kolaches with mozzarella, breakfast tacos wrapped in paratha flatbreads, and full plates with scrambled eggs, hash browns, turkey bacon, and vegetable sides. Lunch and dinner bring chicken tenders, vegetable samosas, butter chicken, chicken koobideh, flatbreads, and biryani, drawing on influences from Europe, the Middle East, and Asia.
The beverage list features coffee, chai, soft drinks, juices, mango lassi, and flavored lemonades in peach, lemongrass-lychee, and mint varieties. Dessert options include rice pudding and a bastani ice cream sandwich made with rose-pistachio ice cream. “Jackson & Company is an ideal partner to create a welcoming, peaceful cafe open to all,” Omar Samji said, as reported by CultureMap.
Sébastien Laval added that the cafe uses food as a common denominator to extend Jackson & Company's hospitality mission into everyday life, according to the same account. Tapestry is designed to serve both area residents and visitors touring the Ismaili Center, the report notes.
Inside America's Only Ismaili Center
The Ismaili Center has been open since November 2025, when it was formally inaugurated by Houston Mayor John Whitmire alongside the 50th hereditary Imam, Prince Rahim Aga Khan V, according to the Aga Khan Development Network. The center was commissioned by the late Aga Khan IV, Prince Karim al-Husseini, who died in February 2025. The 11-acre campus at 2323 Allen Pkwy sits along Allen Parkway and Montrose Boulevard near Buffalo Bayou Park, land the Aga Khan Foundation USA first acquired in 2006 after nearly two decades of site selection and construction.
Houston's facility is the seventh Ismaili Center in the global network and the third in North America, following earlier centers in London, Vancouver, Lisbon, Dubai, Dushanbe, and Toronto, according to DLR Group. It remains the only Ismaili Center in the United States. Beyond Tapestry, the campus includes a prayer hall, rotating art installations, a black box theater, event spaces, and landscaped botanical gardens.
Gardens Shaped by Texas Ecology
Designed by London-based Farshid Moussavi Architecture, the 150,000-square-foot building incorporates three large covered outdoor verandas, known as eivans, that block 75% of direct solar heat exposure to help the structure adapt to Houston's hot, humid climate. The nine acres of public gardens surrounding the building were designed by Nelson Byrd Woltz Landscape Architects and showcase more than 800 trees alongside thousands of perennials organized into six distinct Texas eco-regions, ranging from Gulf Prairie to High Plains, per Farshid Moussavi Architecture's project details.
Built by McCarthy Building Companies, the five-story facility achieved LEED Gold certification and was engineered for a 100-year structural lifecycle, according to DLR Group. Free public admission to the building and gardens is offered Tuesdays, Thursdays, Saturdays, and Sundays, with visitor parking available in a two-level underground garage accessible via 2290 West Dallas Street, per the Ismaili Center's visitor guidance.
A Civic Hub Beyond the Kitchen
The center has increasingly doubled as a cultural venue for the wider city. In August, Hoodline reported that the 40-piece River Oaks Chamber Orchestra debuted free fall performances on the grounds. The campus has also faced security concerns since opening; in May, law enforcement arrested a 29-year-old man on charges tied to making death threats on the property along Allen Parkway, as Hoodline covered at the time.
With Tapestry now open daily, the Ismaili Center's mission of serving as an accessible gathering place for Ismaili Muslims and the broader Houston public extends from the prayer hall and gardens into the cafe's dining room, giving visitors a low-barrier way to experience the campus over a plate of biryani or a mango lassi.
