After the reveal of the first-ever Michelin Guide to Texas restaurants, Dallas’ chefs and diners had opposite reactions to the city’s underwhelming total of exactly one star. A grateful peace prevailed among the chefs whose restaurants are now listed in the new Guide. Some were amused by their specific awards. (Michelin confers one, two, or three stars for excellence; a green star for sustainability; a Bib Gourmand for good food at allegedly modest prices; and a “recommended” listing that acts as a catch-all honorable mention.) Some were irked by the presence of a handful of mediocrities in Dallas’ “recommended” section. But in general the chefs were happy. They saw a mention in the Michelin Guide as a career achievement and a recognition of their merit; they weren’t bothered much by missing out on the more prestigious stars.
Diners and media members were more upset. Hey, where were all the stars for Dallas? Why weren’t our best restaurants praised more highly? Why was the very best dining experience in the whole city—Purépecha, the backroom tasting menu at Revolver Taco Lounge—snubbed? And why did most of Dallas’ finest high-end restaurants, places where you can expect to spend $80 to $100 per person even if you’ve ordered prudently, win Bib Gourmands for budget-friendly eats?
I felt both the general public’s bafflement and the top chefs’ satisfaction. Truth be told, Michelin doled out its few Texas stars wisely, picking long-established restaurants with track records of excellence, imagination, polished service, obsessive craft, and strong individual identity. Even some chefs I thought would come home with stars agree that, in Dallas, only Tatsu meets the description of a starred restaurant. (The Guide also reached into the top tier of Texas barbecue and, seemingly at random, picked the four places they liked the most for stars. Why CorkScrew BBQ but not Cattleack? Sometimes we have to embrace life’s mysteries.)
But my approval of the starred restaurant selections was matched by confusion at Bib Gourmand’s definition of affordability. There was plenty of irritation with the “Recommended” honorable mentions, which include some of Dallas’ best restaurants—and some tepid tourist traps. I was also frustrated at the lack of diversity in Michelin’s survey. The Guide honored far too few Mexican restaurants. Setting aside Japan, all the Asian American communities in the Dallas region are represented by a single kitchen, Ngon Vietnamese. To Michelin, our nationally significant populations of Korean, Lao, Nepali, and Indian immigrants don’t exist. (Or, at least, they don’t make any good food.)
We can spend all year debating Michelin’s individual choices. Truth is, though, its virtues and flaws share a common cause. The key to the whole thing is Michelin’s point of view. The reason they’re so good at identifying world-class cooking is the exact same reason they’re so bad at understanding what a local community really eats.
They’re tourists.
That’s all. They came to Texas on a trip, with some expenses paid by the tourism bureaus for the state and its largest metro areas. They heard we had great barbecue and steak, so they went to the barbecue restaurants and steakhouses. They’re French tourists, so they hit all the bistros, too. But they probably didn’t bother with Dallas’ Korean food—we’ll never know—because tourists don’t think, “I want Korean food. Let’s fly to Dallas.”
Michelin already went to Mexico as tourists in early 2024, which could be why the Guide didn’t give enough respect to the cuisine that accounts for many of Texas’ very best restaurants. Just two Mexican restaurants have earned Michelin stars in Texas, San Antonio’s Mixtli and Houston’s Tatemó, both of which serve chef’s-choice multicourse tasting menus for, respectively, $150 and $125. Compare them to the four stars earned by Texas barbecue restaurants.
Michelin ignored Purépecha, Resident Taqueria, and others in Dallas; the extraordinary Don Artemio in Fort Worth; deeply personal El Naranjo in Austin; and the empire of trailblazing chef Hugo Ortega in Houston. Suerte in Austin, one of my favorite restaurants in the state, received a mere honorable mention. Even in San Antonio, only two of 12 Guide-listed restaurants are Mexican.
After proclaiming a love for Tex-Mex in a summertime press release, Michelin came to an awkward realization: no, they don’t love it. Just three restaurants—one each in Austin, Houston, and San Antonio—represent that style in the Guide, and none received the Bib Gourmand budget prize. I’m not exactly surprised that Michelin ditched Tex-Mex, and the tokens are well-chosen (you should plan a road trip around Garcia’s Mexican Food in San Antonio), but the Guide sure made a lot of fuss to only honor three restaurants.
In lieu of tacos, Korean barbecue, or bánh mì, Michelin frequented tourist traps and hotel restaurants. The Guide includes Crown Block, the no-longer-revolving restaurant in Reunion Tower; Monarch, the controversial steakhouse with prices as high as its 49th floor location; Stillwell’s, a hotel steakhouse in the Harwood District; the Houston (but not Dallas) location of Pappas Bros. Steakhouse; and Signature, a posh resort restaurant in the hills outside San Antonio that in 2023 served Express-News food critic Mike Sutter a vol au vent that “was a bland, watery mess riddled with bone fragments like toothpicks.” That’s how the locals eat!
Michelin researched its travel the way that tourists do. Inspectors stayed and dined at swanky hotels. They made a short list of things Texas is known for—steak, brisket, and “Austin weird”—and doubled down. They clearly studied Texas Monthly’s best barbecue list, D’s 50 Best Restaurants in Dallas, Sutter’s San Antonio ranking, and a variety of Eater guides.
But once Michelin felt that it had a good handle on Texas, its curiosity slowed. It largely disregarded the Southern and Cajun communities who’ve moved to Texas in recent years, didn’t learn much about less-famous immigrant groups, and skipped over the kind of highly accomplished but less ambitious neighborhood restaurants that fill the European Guides to bursting. Part of the reason that Milan by itself has more Michelin-listed restaurants than Texas (124 to 117) is that, in Europe, Michelin spends more time visiting charming little neighborhood spots. In the USA, the tourists don’t have time for that.
Cards on the table here: including Texas, I’ve dined at 16 one-starred restaurants, three two-starred, and two three-starred. Several of the one-starred European restaurants I’ve visited are right at the level of, say, Mot Hai Ba and Lucia. The American food industry believes that Michelin has a double standard between continents. It’s also true that Europe generally has higher-quality produce. But the disparity is also in part because the inspectors are tourists here, and locals there.
None of this lets Dallas off the hook for its lightweight showing. Michelin was right to start this city on training wheels. Several of the chefs attending the ceremony told me that Dallas’ meat-and-potatoes traditionalism stands in the way of star-worthy cooking. We are called upon now to make a choice. Maybe we don’t want to eat the way that Michelin prefers, or maybe the Guide will nudge more of us to try new things. Maybe, too, it can create a class of culinary tourists who support more star-worthy cooking. The Guide will return next year with an update, and we have a real opportunity to improve our showing if Dallas diners let their favorite chefs step up and take the chance by packing their dining rooms.
But it’s not just Dallas that will need to prove itself again next year. Yes, we showed a baseline competence and earned the chance to demonstrate more. But we can describe the Michelin inspectors in the same way. They unpacked their bags, had a passable look around, and found a lot of our coolest stuff. They also showed a shocking gullibility around shiny tourist bling. Next year they need to get away from the luxury hotels and immerse themselves more fully—and find the diverse Texas that stereotypes don’t capture.
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