Texas Monthly’s refreshed restaurant guide crowns 149 Houston spots

After half a century, Texas Monthly is ditching its revered Dining Guide. But before hangry locals start storming the magazine’s offices, it has replaced the massive list with the Texas Grand — an honor roll of the “thousand-ish” best restaurants in the state, including 149 in Houston, plus entries for suburbs such as Spring, Bellaire, Katy, and more.

The Dining Guide has been a fixture of the magazine since its 1973 launch. It was synonymous with Texas Monthly’s former restaurant critic Pat Sharpe, who began her storied career proofreading the entries as an editorial assistant, then added hundreds of restaurants until her retirement in 2025.

The new guide scraps the guide’s star system. Sharpe originally used the ratings under a three-star system, which she described as good/better/best in a 2001 column. In 2017, that scale grew to five. The new Texas Grand describes its entries as “restaurants in the state that are wholeheartedly recommended by [Texas Monthly’s] dining team.”