txmo best new restaurants

7 Austin eateries land on Texas Monthly's best new restaurants list

Texas Monthly includes Kalimotxo on its list.

Photo by Chelsea Francis

This year, Texas Monthly food editor Pat Sharpe’s annual ranking of the state’s best new restaurants looks a little different. Instead of a ranked list of 10 establishments, Sharpe focuses on her favorite takeout dishes and drinks from across the Lone Star State, along with spotlighting three of the year’s most exciting new openings.

In total, the article covers 30 restaurants spread across seven regions, Sharpe writes, divided into categories such as starters and sides, sandwiches, entrees, sweets, and cocktails. All of them offer to-go. To be eligible for the list, establishments must have opened between December 1, 2019 and December 1, 2020.

Sharpe selects Kalimotxo, a Spanish-inspired bar and restaurant from chefs Kevin Fink and Tavel Bristol-Joseph (Emmer & Rye, Hestia). She praises the operation, which was originally conceived as a tapas-style cocktail bar connected to Hestia, for its pivot during the pandemic.

"Hestia is now doing tasting menus in-house only while Kalimotxo has morphed into an easygoing bistro that also offers food to go," Sharpe explains.

For her Houston spotlight, she praises restaurant Bludorn and chef Aaron Bludorn for blending the French techniques he honed as executive chef at New York’s Cafe Boulud with elements of his Pacific Northwest childhood and Texas ingredients. She also gives a special nod to San Antonio’s Jardín, an Eastern Mediterranean cafe from noted San Antonio chefs Jason and Jake Dady that’s located at the San Antonio Botanical Garden.

Austin restaurants are also well-represented in the individual dishes. They include: Paperboy's pesto and parmesan kale salad, Reunion 19's pork belly banh mi tacos, Summer House on Music Lane's eggplant toast with pickled raisins, Peacock's Aleppo pepper and garlic Gulf shrimp, Gati's Thai coffee ice cream, and Lola's Donuts' dark chocolate chai doughnut.

Head to the Texas Monthly website to see the complete list selections from across the state.

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By Car or By Stagecoach

Historic inn near Austin reopens 78-year-old eatery after renovations

Photo courtesy of Stagecoach Inn

The Stagecoach Restaurant is open again after two years of renovations.

Out in Salado, the restaurant at the historic Stagecoach Inn has been serving breakfast, lunch, and dinner since 1947 — minus a two year break for renovations beginning in June 2023. Now, the team has opened their doors once again, welcoming diners back from Central Texas and beyond.

According to a press release, Stagecoach has partnered with Monument Group in Georgetown (owners of Monument Cafe and El Monumento) to "breathe new life into the celebrated restaurant."

With the reopening, guests can expect reimagined versions of old favorites — and that does mean old. Some of the classic dishes, like the famous hushpuppies, were on the menu when the restaurant first opened nearly 80 years ago.

"The infamous hushpuppies came into existence because of the need to buy time for [co-owner Dion Van Bibber] to run to the grocer and get the ingredients needed for each ticket as there was no menu, and guests ordered whatever dish they fancied at that moment," says a timeline on the inn's website.

Historical Stagecoach Inn restaurant The Stagecoach Inn's restaurant first opened its doors in 1947. Photo courtesy of Stagecoach Inn

Other items include a creamy goat cheese dip, a fried chicken salad, grilled bone-in pork chop with peach chutney, and seasonally-inspired and weekend-only dishes like prime rib. The Stagecoach Restaurant also features a bar with a wine, cocktail, and beer menu.

Dining at the Stagecoach Restaurant is a unique experience, not just for the food, but the history.

The Stagecoach Inn itself was established back in 1860 as a hotel, welcoming wagon pioneers and folks pulling up in horse-drawn carriages. More than 160 years later, the Stagecoach Inn is the second-oldest continuously-operating hotel in Texas, and though the rooms have certainly been modernized and amenities like a pool and gift shop have been added in over the years, the bones of the building remain the same.

Stagecoach Inn pool Even the newer amenities have a retro feel.Photo courtesy of Stagecoach Inn

“The Stagecoach established itself as a welcoming rest stop on the Chisholm Trail for weary travelers over 160 years ago and that southern hospitality continues today,” said Monument Group's Rusty Winkstern in the release. “We want to honor that legacy with genuine hospitality and crave-worthy food and drink, continuing thetradition as a community hub for visitors old and new.”

The Stagecoach Restaurant is open for lunch and dinner Wednesdays through Sundays from 11:30 am to 8 pm.

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