Michelin picks 4 hotels in Dallas, 2 in Fort Worth as best in United States

Michelin’s latest list of the best hotels in the United States, Mexico and Canada was announced Sept. 12, 2024, and Texas fared quite well.

Six hotels in Dallas-Fort Worth made the list, and 20 across the Lone Star State got nods from Michelin’s anonymous critics.

The hotel award is called a Michelin Key. Similar to Michelin’s restaurant reviews — which will be announced in Texas for the first time in fall 2024 — Michelin-rated hotels are given a one-, two- or three-Key rating.

Michelin calls these hotels “the crème de la crème.” And we expected for North Texas to be competitive, given the recent openings of several boutique properties.

“The same way the Michelin Star recognizes restaurants for outstanding cooking, the Michelin Key recognizes hotels for outstanding stays,” reads a statement from the French-based company. (We’re learning the Michelin language together, now that Texas is one of its territories.)

No hotels in Texas received the coveted three-Key award. Those went to 16 hotels in the United States and include the Beverly Hills Hotel and Single Thread Inn in California, Kona Village in Hawaii, Sage Lodge in Montana and Casa Cipriani in New York.

Three Texas hotels nabbed a two-Key award, described by Michelin’s anonymous critics as “an exceptional stay.” Fort Worth’s elegant Bowie House, a hotel under the Auberge Resorts Collection, was the only property in D-FW to get two-Key status.

“It just might be the most stylish building in Fort Worth,” Michelin wrote, “[and] it’s surely the city’s most extraordinary luxury hotel.”

Other Texas properties on the two-Key list were the Commodore Perry Estate in Austin; and Hotel Emma in San Antonio.

In the one-Key list, described by Michelin as “a very special stay,” Dallas and Fort Worth hotels had a significant showing.

The five hotels in North Texas that received one-Key Michelin status are:

• Casa Duro, the second-story apartments overlooking Greenville Avenue in Dallas. Casa Duro is possibly “too small to be properly considered a hotel,” Michelin wrote, because it’s just three apartments. “From the outside they’re discreet, to say the least, but once inside you’ll be bowled over by the depth of their detail — the interiors feel not so much designed as painstakingly collected. Much of what’s inside is antique and vintage, plus some luxe design pieces.”
• Hotel Swexan, the 22-story stunner in Dallas’ Harwood District. “Call it cowboy entrepreneur,” Michelin wrote: “spacious, no-expense-spared rooms with commanding views, but also a freewheeling sense of humor and up-for-anything energy in the decor.”
• Hotel Zaza, a luxury property in Uptown Dallas. Michelin loved the themed suites, “from Far East (Japanese Zen) to the Cuban-style West Indies to the Texas Suite, complete with cowhide-print upholstery.” Critics also recommended the “Magnificent Seven — seven palatial residential suites with private kitchens, perfect for entertaining.”
• Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek, one of Dallas’ oldest hotels, dates back to the 1920s when it was built as a private residence. Michelin’s blurb on this hotel says, in part: “Much of The Mansion is an Italian fantasy as imagined with American big bucks due to [cotton baron Sheppard] King’s infatuation with the Renaissance. Everything is in excess. … Ostentatious, yes. Tasteful, possibly not, but awe-inspiring it certainly is.”
• Hotel Drover, the cowboy-chic spot in the Fort Worth Stockyards. Michelin said it is “unmistakably Texan but without crossing too far into kitsch.”

The hotels that receive Michelin Keys do not necessarily have Michelin-level restaurants within them. (In Texas, that would be impossible for now, until the Michelin restaurant announcement.) But, many of the six hotels in North Texas do have impressive food-and-beverage options. The Hotel Swexan is home to Stillwell’s steakhouse and several other restaurants, including basement nightclub, Babou’s. The Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek has been a fine-dining magnet since 1980, when the Mansion Restaurant opened. Casa Duro sits atop Sister, an Italian and Mediterranean restaurant that’s a sibling to other high-end Dallas restaurants The Charles, El Carlos Elegante and Mister Charles.

Perhaps most notably, Michelin’s top-rated D-FW hotel, Bowie House, has an elegant supper club called Bricks and Horses.

When Michelin announces its best Texas restaurants, we’ll be watching to see if these hotel restaurants are included.

Michelin was founded as a tire company, and it maintains that business today. Transportation and travel, therefore, have long been a part of Michelin’s focus. The newly-announced Keys ”aim to guide travelers to accommodations that stand out for their unique hospitality concept, distinctive character, warm welcome and extremely high level of service,” the company said.

They hope the list of excellent hotels is “a new international benchmark.”

Find Michelin’s Key hotels in the United States here.

For more food news, follow Sarah Blaskovich on X (formerly Twitter) at @sblaskovich.