Texas Monthly’s award-winning restaurant critic, Patricia Sharpe, has decided to officially put down her knife and fork. After fifty years at Texas Monthly, Sharpe—who’s spent decades inspiring readers to explore a culinary landscape that’s as wide-ranging as the state she loves—will retire at the end of the year.
Sharpe joined Texas Monthly as an editorial assistant in December 1974, nearly two years after the storied magazine launched. She proofread the Dining Guide and calendar of events and also helped keep the office running smoothly. But the restaurant reviews were what opened Sharpe’s eyes to the possibilities of the state’s developing restaurant scene.
Sharpe worked her way up to managing and editing the Dining Guide at a time when ambitious chefs in the state were just beginning to gain national recognition. For years, the magazine regularly published dozens of new reviews each month, highlighting restaurants in roughly fifteen cities across the state. The reviews became the definitive authorities on where and what to eat in Texas. That work on the Dining Guide led Sharpe to eventually write a monthly restaurant column dubbed Pat’s Pick, as well as an annual feature, Where to Eat Now, that for more than twenty years has highlighted the best new restaurants in the state.
Thanks to Sharpe’s eye for detail, sharp wit, and years of expertise, her reviews and columns have long been recognized for both their information and their entertainment value. The restaurant roundups she first organized, such as collections of the best Mexican restaurants, the best barbecue joints, and the best small-town cafes, were consistently among the magazine’s most sought-after offerings. In 2006, she won a James Beard Foundation Award for her feature “Confessions of a ‘Skinny Bitch,’ ” a must-read look into her life as a restaurant critic. The Texas Restaurant Association honored her with its first Excellence in Journalism Award in 2023, at which time the organization’s president and CEO, Emily Knight, said, “There was no better person across the entire state, when we think about restaurant and food service, than Pat Sharpe” to receive the inaugural award. Many of Sharpe’s works can be found in the 2008 UT Press collection Texas Monthly on . . . Food.
“Pat has covered the fine-dining scene in Texas for so long, and in such a discerning and engaging manner, that she has become a vital part of the scene herself. There is no replacing Pat Sharpe,” said Dan Goodgame, the magazine’s editor in chief.
Sharpe will continue to contribute to the Dining Guide and write Pat’s Pick through the rest of the year as she brings her legendary Texas Monthly chapter to a close.
