Come As You Are

Southern-inspired spot opening soon in former Dog & Duck Pub space

Classic comfort food is the star of the show at the Cavalier.

Photo courtesy of The Cavalier

East Austin is about to get a dose of Southern hospitality. Co-owner Rachelle Fox confirmed to CultureMap that The Cavalier will be open for business on March 9.

The new bar and restaurant is going into the space formerly occupied by the Dog & Duck Pub at 2400 Webberville Rd., which closed in November 2017. Although the Cavalier has been modernized a little with a new bar and paint job, the space will still cater to a neighborhood crowd with casual counter service cuisine, approachable cocktails, and a robust beer menu.

The opening food menu has a decidedly Southern bent. For snacks, that means deviled eggs served with crispy chicken skins and Louisiana hot sauce, and classic pimento cheese served with chips and bacon bits. Small plates include Burt's Meat Market boudin balls, charred green beans served with crispy shallot and guajillo honey, and fried pickled okra served with remoulade.

The entrees include lighter dishes like the chopped salad made with pulled chicken, sweet corn, tomatoes, and spiced pecans (with buttermilk dressing, of course) and a vegetarian dish with roasted acorn squash, barley, pepitas, blackberries, and whipped goat cheese. There’s also heartier fare like fried chicken with a side of black eyed peas and honey jalapeño slaw; a burger served with house pickles and white American cheese on a cornbread brioche bun; and shrimp and grits with andouille sausage, shallot and garlic relish, and lemon butter.

Both Fox and co-owner Chadwick Leger are industry vets (Leger most recently managed Shangri-La, while Fox was the general manager of Backspace), and their experience is clearly shown in an accessible bar program that does not sacrifice quality. The centerpiece of the operation is a choose-your-own adventure menu where customers can create a $7 cocktail based on a choice of five base spirits, six mixers, and six garnishes.

If you are not feeling creative, there is a small list of favorites like a classic Old Fashioned, an overproof rum-topped Zombie on draft, and the Red Headed Stranger, a frozen sipper made with Del Maguey Vida mezcal, strawberry puree, and lemonade. The wine selection is tiny, but covers all the bases with affordable glasses.

And since it would be sacrilege for a neighborhood bar to not offer beer, the Cavalier offers cans and drafts from local makers Austin Beerworks, Hops & Grain, St. Elmo, Friends & Allies, and more. A shot of Jim Beam and a can of Pearl is available for $6 for those who want to get the party started right, while cane sugar sodas will be on hand for designated drivers.

According to Fox, the Cavalier will open with limited hours of Sunday-Friday from 4 pm-midnight and Saturday from 4 pm-1 am. In April, they will begin opening for lunch at 11 am with the same closing times.

After taking a breather from the SXSW rush, the owners say they will host a grand opening party to welcome neighbors into the space.

Whoops

Michelin goofs on a few restaurants honored in first Texas guide

Kau Ba/Facebook

Houston's Kau Ba has been removed from the Michelin Guide.

Texans' reactions to the first Michelin Guide in the state have ranged from glowing to unimpressed, but a few notable mix-ups are more concrete than differences in taste. The November 11 ceremony honored more than 100 restaurants across the state, but at least two were in error. In Dallas the guide confused two restaurants with each other, and in Houston one of them had closed.

Starting in Dallas: The Guide's release announcing the list of restaurants who'd won awards included The Charles, an award-winning Italian restaurant in Dallas' Design District, as one of 57 restaurants that earned a "Recommended" rating.

The Charles is a surely deserving restaurant that opened in 2018, the first concept from acclaimed food & beverage group Duro Hospitality, which has since gone on to open other restaurants such as El Carlos Elegante, Sister, and Cafe Duro.

But the Guide got the wrong Charles: The real recipient was Mister Charles, a sibling Duro Hospitality restaurant that opened at 3219 Knox St. in early 2024.

The Charles specializes in Italian and Texas-inspired dishes.

Mister Charles features French and Italian-influenced dishes.

It wasn't just an incorrect name; it listed the accompanying (incorrect) address.

A spokesperson for Michelin Guide verified that Mister Charles was the winner and said that the listing of The Charles was a mistake.

“This was an internal error caused by our geolocation process. The problem will be corrected in the most expeditious manner,” the spokesperson said. The Guide website has since updated the list and replaced The Charles with Mister Charles.

Having a difference of opinion about a critic's choices is one thing — but having an error of this magnitude is something else entirely.

And blaming "geolocation" as the source of the error is a curious excuse. Geolocation refers to the ability to track the whereabouts of an electronic device using GPS, cell phone towers, WiFi access points or a combination of these.

The Houston mix-up was also disappointing, but only involved one restaurant: In a press release issued Thursday, November 14, the Guide announced that it had removed Montrose Vietnamese restaurant Kau Ba from the list of Bib Gourmand recipients.

The reason: "Upon further investigation, our team has discovered the restaurant has been permanently closed since our Inspection team's visits occurred," the statement reads.

As has been widely noted in local media, Kau Ba closed earlier this month. The restaurant’s Instagram account now belongs to Alora, which is described as “a fresh Peruvian-Vietnamese fusion concept inspired by travels to Saigon.” It is expected to open soon.

Open since 2018, Kau Ba served an innovative take on Vietnamese fare created by Nikki Tran. The restaurant built on the notoriety Tran had achieved after being featured in two Netflix series: Somebody Feed Phil and Ugly Delicious. It earned considerable acclaim, including a spot in the Houston Chronicle’s top 100 restaurants as recently as 2023 and a nomination for Best Neighborhood Restaurant in the 2021 CultureMap Tastemaker Awards.

The restaurant went through a number of iterations during its tenure. For three-and-a-half years, Tran partnered with Aya Sushi owners Minette Corpuz and Bruce Kish to oversee operations, but they parted ways in February 2023.

In an email sent to Houston Public Media, Tran expressed regret over Michelin's decision.

“But we understand and respect Michelin’s decision to remove Kau Ba from its selection,” Tran said to HPM. “Exercising an abundance of caution from a legal position, I am not able currently to share further details of our situation but I do hope to follow up soon with more information.”

“Until then, on behalf of the entire Kau Ba team, we want to thank the entire culinary community for the recognition and support,” Tran added. “Kau Ba is proud of the dishes we created and look forward to sharing very soon what’s next.”

Thankfully in Austin, things seem to be going okay. The capital city swept the competition with seven stars (one more than Houston now that the change has been made), and two green stars for sustainability — in fact, the only green stars in the state.

Austin also had four of the first-ever barbecue restaurants to be awarded stars. Houston also had one.

Austin's winning restaurants were Barley Swine, Craft Omakase, Hestia, Olamaie, InterStellar BBQ, John Bates, La Barbecue, Alison Clem, and LeRoy and Lewis Barbecue.

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