Executive editor Patricia Sharpe grew up in Austin and holds a master’s degree in English from the University of Texas at Austin. After working as a teacher (in English and Spanish) and at the Texas Historical Commission (writing historical markers), she joined the staff of Texas Monthly in 1974. Initially, she edited the magazine’s cultural and restaurant listings and wrote a consumer feature called Touts. She eventually focused exclusively on food. Her humorous story “War Fare,” an account of living for 48 hours on military MREs (Meals Ready to Eat), was included in the anthology Best Food Writing 2002. Many of her stories appear in the 2008 UT Press collection Texas Monthly on Food. Her story about being a restaurant critic, titled “Confessions of a ‘Skinny Bitch,’ ” won a James Beard Foundation award for magazine food writing in 2006.
Sharpe has contributed to Gourmet, Bon Appétit, Saveur, and the New York Times. She writes a regular restaurant column, Pat’s Pick, for Texas Monthly.
Over the past thirty years, I’ve edited or written more than 28,000 restaurant reviews for this magazine. That’s a lot of crème brûlée under the bridge, folks. So what’s my life been like, exactly? And how have I stayed this thin? Good questions.
Thirty years ago, Texans who equated fine dining with chicken cordon bleu and trout meunière suddenly found themselves eating barbecued Gulf shrimp and goat cheese quesadillas. An oral history of the Southwestern cuisine revolution.
Tom and Lisa Perini have won awards, traveled the world, and cooked for heads of state. But nothing means more than the old hay barn where it all began.
At the Lymbar, legendary Houston restaurateurs David and Michael Cordúa serve Truffle Twinkies and potato “bouquets” alongside the churrasco and empanadas that made the family famous.
The days when Mexican food on this side of the border was all about crispy tacos and yellow cheese are long behind us, thanks to innovative chefs and cultural shifts.
Don’t let the chef’s soda-jerk hat fool you. Herein you’ll find royal osetra caviar, escargots in butter-filled shells, and a modern-day version of Spudnuts.
After a diversity scandal in 2020, the Oscars of the restaurant industry upgraded its standards. A bar in Houston, a taqueria in Austin, and Texas Monthly taco editor José Ralat are among the first winners under the new system.
Restaurants are still struggling, yet new places keep stepping up to the plate. Here are our favorite dishes from the most impressive rookie establishments.
Rarely does a museum’s restaurant rival its galleries, but this addition to Houston’s Museum of Fine Arts is poised to take its place among the masters.
With a lush setting and a vegetable-forward menu, the showcase restaurant of the Commodore Perry Estate, Texas’s only Auberge Resort, has Austinites crashing the garden gates.
After her four decades of dining across Texas came to a halt in the pandemic, Pat Sharpe realizes that what makes a meal special goes way beyond the food.
Chefs and owners have had to adapt quickly and nimbly, with takeout, meal kits, booze to go, and reconfigured dining spaces. Will it be enough to survive?
