How we pick

Every guide is bylined by Carissa Spisak, who has lived in Austin for seven years and writes the newsletter. She owns the voice and signs off on every guide before it goes live. The point of view is hers: what to order, what to skip, and what is worth crossing town for. When a guide takes a strong position, it is a person’s opinion, not an algorithm’s.

Here is the part most lists will not tell you: we have not personally eaten at every restaurant or visited every spot in every guide, and we will never pretend we have. What we do instead is read widely and cross-check.

For each guide we pull from the people who cover Austin closely: the critics at outlets like Texas Monthly, Eater Austin, The Infatuation, and the Austin Chronicle, the Michelin guide where it applies, and the locals in neighborhood forums and reader polls. Then we check every pick against the venue’s own current listing for hours, address, neighborhood, and price. A spot earns a place when the sources agree it is worth your time and the details hold up.

The ranking and the take are ours. The legwork is research, done honestly, not a claim of having been everywhere.

Most guides only tell you what made the list. We also tell you what did not, and why. Every guide ends with a short cut list: the spots we considered and left out, the tourist traps we steered you away from, and the obvious names that did not earn the place.

Leaving things out is the work. A list that includes everything is a directory, and a directory does not have a point of view.

Editorial and sponsorship are kept separate. We do not accept payment for a place in any guide. If a business sponsors the newsletter, that is labeled clearly as sponsored and never dressed up as a recommendation. A pick is a pick because we think it is worth your time, full stop.

The full policy, including affiliate links and how sponsored sections are marked, lives on our disclosures page.

Austin changes fast, so the guides are living documents. Places open, move, raise prices, and close, and a guide that was right last year can be wrong today.

We date every guide with when it was last updated, re-check the details when something changes, and revise rather than let a stale pick sit. When you see a recent update date, it means the facts were re-verified, not that we reshuffled the page to look fresh.

If we get something wrong, tell us and we will fix it. A closed restaurant, the wrong hours, a pick that has slipped, a detail that is off. Email carissa@theaustinnewsletter.com and we will correct the guide and note the change. Getting it right matters more than being first.