List News

5 Houston hotels book top spots on prestigious Forbes Travel Guide

The The Houstonian Hotel Club & Spa scored well for its resort and spa.

Photo courtesy of The Houstonian Hotel Club & Spa

The famed Forbes Travel Guide, a global rating system for luxury hotels, restaurants, spas, and ocean cruises, has unveiled its 2024 Star Awards, with 30 properties from Texas making the list, including five Houston hotels.

This year's list — the 66th annual — spans more than 2,000 properties around the world, with three levels of ratings: Five-Star, Four-Star, and Recommended.

Dubai made the biggest gain with five new Five-Star hotels. Other high-ranking cities included Doha, Kuwait, and Macau, plus notable newcomers Rwanda and Kenya, although a release notes that smaller metro areas like Nashville, Charleston, and New Orleans all made good showings in the hotel and spa categories.

In Texas, the list included five restaurants, 17 hotels, and eight spas.

Tilman Fertitta's Post Oak Hotel scored five stars once again. Photo courtesy of The Post Oak Hotel

In a reprise of 2023, only three properties in Texas earned five stars: Tilman Fertitta's perennial winner the Post Oak Hotel (and its spa) here in Houston, Carte Blanche restaurant in Dallas, and the Ritz-Carlton Dallas hotel.

Scoring five stars is nothing new for the Post Oak Hotel, which now lands the Five-Star rating for the fourth consecutive year. That makes it Texas’ only Double Five-Star rated hotel and spa, and the only Forbes Five-Star rated spa in the state for the sixth year in a row, per press materials.

Post Oak Hotel Spa The Spa at the Post Oak Hotel. Photo courtesy of The Post Oak Hotel

Meanwhile, Forbes' crack crew of inspectors were charmed by The Houstonian Hotel Club & Spa. “You likely will forget you’re in Houston…” a Forbes reviewer noted of the Mediterranean-style architecture, outdoor soaking pools, garden experience, and ultra-personalized service.

“We had a little boy whose stuffy toy was swept away with the laundry,” recalls Houstonian director of marketing Seliece Womble. “Our staff found it and decided to make it seem as if the toy was not lost – just out playing. Photos of the toy and its new Texas friend, a stuffed armadillo, were taken at the pool, under trees, and in the restaurant and shared with the boy’s parents. It was a fun, thoughtful moment for the staff and the family.”

Trellis spa pools garden 2021 Reviewers loved The Houstonian Hotel, Club & Spa soaking pools and garden. Photo courtesy of The Houstonian Hotel, Club & Spa

These are the properties in Texas that made the 2024 list, by category:

Hotels:

The Post Oak Hotel at Uptown Houston: 5-star
Four Seasons Hotel Houston: 4-star
Hotel Granduca Houston: 4-star
The Houstonian Hotel Club & Spa: 4-star
The St. Regis Houston: 4-star
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
Hall Arts Hotel / Dallas: Recommended
Hotel Emma / San Antonio: Recommended
The Joule / Dallas: 4-star
Rosewood Mansion on Turtle Creek / Dallas: Recommended
Mokara Hotel & Star/ San Antonio: 4-star
The Ritz-Carlton Dallas: 5-star

Spas:

The Spa at the Post Oak Hotel Houston: 5-star
Trellis Spa Houston: 4-star
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
Verbena Spa at Austin Proper Hotel: 4-star

Restaurants:

Carte Blanche / Dallas: 5-star
Fearing's / Dallas: 4-star
Garrison / Austin: 4-star
The Mansion / Dallas: 4-star
French Room / Dallas: Recommended

The Forbes Travel guide started in 1958 as Mobil Travel Guide, a guidebook for US motorists. They created the original Five-Star rating system for hospitality in the US.

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.

telling stories

Black-owned Houston bookstore opens new home in historic Third Ward space

Kindred Stories bookshore Eldorado Ballroom

Photo by Craig D. Lindsey

Kindred Stories has moved to its new location.

Even though its grand reopening will be held this Saturday, May 17, Third Ward bookstore Kindred Stories has already begun a soft opening at its new location inside the Eldorado Ballroom at 2310 Elgin Street.

Since September 2021, the Black-owned bookstore was located on Stuart St., one of many businesses that came to life thanks to Project Row Houses’ Incubation Program. Last year, the nonprofit informed Kindred and the other business that they had to vacate their premises at the end of this month to allow new businesses to occupy the spaces.

Thankfully, Kindred already had its eye on the Eldorado location, next to neighborhood eatery The Rado Market (which has a collection of cookbooks curated by Kindred). It’s a space previously held by Hogan Brown Gallery, which abruptly closed in December. “I had caught wind that this space might be available,” Kindred founder/owner Terri Hamm tells CultureMap.

Hamm turned the moving process into a fun little event for her and her loyal customers. “Last Tuesday, we invited about 20 of our top community members that, you know, are always in the store and have really supported us all of the year,” she says. “We packed up all the books in the space in an hour and, then, we moved everything in an hour. So it was like the beautiful way to close out that space in the midst of the community that has really supported us throughout three-and-a-half years there. And we spent the last four days kind of unboxing and just getting all set up.”

Hamm says the new location is certainly roomier (around 1200 square feet) than their previous spot, which was only 450 square feet.

“There's more room to just spend time in the store,” she says. “I feel like that's the ideal bookstore experience, when you can go in and really take your time. I feel like in the other space, it was so small, people kind of felt like they were in a rush.”

Although Kindred is open and ready to welcome anyone looking for Black-and-proud literature, Hamm insists they’re only 90 percent done. More light fixtures need to be installed. Plants and furniture have to be brought. They even have custom-made wallpaper that needs to be installed.

“So, we have a few little things that need to happen,” says Hamm, “And, then, I feel like the space will be really, really ready – probably in another six months.”

In the meantime, it’s business as usual. This month’s calendar of events includes various appearances from authors as well as a couple of book clubs. Hamm is looking forward to new bookworms coming in and discovering what Kindred Stories has to offer.

“The bestsellers are selling,” she says, “But I feel like, in this space, people are going to get to discover a lot of under-the-radar titles, just because there's more space to see the books and explore.”

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