Awards News
These luxe Austin hotels, restaurants, and spas made prestigious 2023 Forbes Travel Guide
The Fairmont Austin swept all three categories, with a four-star rating for its restaurant (Garrison), hotel, and spa.
The 2023 rendition of the prestigious Forbes Travel Guide is out, and 26 properties in Texas have made the list — with eight in Austin.
This is the 65th annual Forbes Travel Guide, which a release describes as the only independent, global rating system for luxury hotels, restaurants, and spas, worldwide. Bow down to Forbes Travel Guide, bow down.
Ratings are broken into three categories: Five-Star, Four-Star, and Recommended, Five-Star being the best. The list, which comprises 1,956 properties around the world, runs heavy on hotels (1378) and spas (314), with only 259 restaurants. And for the first year, the list also includes ocean cruises.
In Texas, the list included five restaurants, 12 hotels, and seven spas, although come on who cares about spas, it's the restaurants and hotels that are most intriguing, am I right.
In a reprise of 2022, only three properties in Texas earned five stars: Carte Blanche restaurant in Dallas, Post Oak Hotel in Houston (and its spa), and the Ritz-Carlton Dallas hotel.
These are the properties in Texas that made the 2023 list, by category:
Restaurants:
- Carte Blanche / Dallas: 5-star
- Fearing's / Dallas: 4-star
- Garrison / Austin: 4-star
- The Mansion / Dallas: 4-star
- French Room / Dallas: Recommended
Hotels:
- Adolphus / Dallas: Recommended
- Archer Hotel Austin: 4-star
- Austin Proper Hotel / Austin: 4-star
- Commodore Perry Estate Auberge Resorts Collection / Austin: 4-star
- Fairmont Austin: 4-star
- Four Seasons Hotel Austin: 4-star
- Four Seasons Hotel Houston: 4-star
- The Houstonian Hotel Club & Spa: 4-star
- The Joule / Dallas: 4-star
- Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek / Dallas: 4-star
- The Post Oak Hotel at Uptown Houston: 5-star
- The Ritz-Carlton Dallas: 5-star
- Mokara Hotel & Spa/ San Antonio: 4-star
- The St. Regis Houston: 4-star
Spas:
- Fairmont Spa Austin: 4 star
- Mokara Spa / San Antonio: 4-star
- The Ritz Carlton Spa Dallas: 4-star
- The Spa at Four Seasons Austin: 4-star
- The Spa at the Joule / Dallas: 4-star
- The Spa at the Post Oak Hotel Houston: 5-star
- Trellis Spa Houston: 4-star
The Forbes Travel guide started in 1958 as Mobil Travel Guide, a guidebook for U.S. motorists. They created the original Five-Star rating system for hospitality in the U.S.
To determine the ratings, Forbes Travel Guide's inspectors visit every hotel, restaurant, spa, and cruise ship in person, visiting anonymously as a typical guest. Participants pay a fee to be considered, but no one can buy a rating.
