Taste the rainbow

Colorful new sweets shop brings magical unicorn desserts to downtown Austin

Magical Dessert Bar hopes to enchant Austin.

Talk about a huge change. The former home of Hoek’s Death Metal pizza at 511 E. Sixth St. will soon be awash in pastels when Dallas-based franchise Magical Dessert Bar opens its first Austin outpost in May.

Urdan Babar, the company’s director of business development, says the concept is “all about rainbows, clouds, and unicorns.” In addition to serving outrageous Instagrammable treats, the sweets shop aims to provide a total experience for its customers, complete with murals for selfie opportunities and a light-up dance floor.

Babar says many of his customers even get in on the theme by wearing unicorn onesies or tutus while they shop.

Of course, the desserts are the first draw. The offerings turn Pinterest board into IRL with an assortment of festooned milkshakes, macarons, colorful cakes, and Thai-style rolled ice cream.

Babar has gotten some flack for not making some of the offerings in house. Reiterating what he told CultureMap Houston, he emphasizes that Magical is a dessert bar and says “we have never advertised as a bakery.”

Sourcing some of the treats from local bakeries allows the spot to keep costs down on and handle high volumes. Still, Babar emphasizes that many of the treats are made on-site, including crepes, lemonade, and ice cream.

Wherever the desserts are made, it hasn’t put a damper on the business. The first Magical Dessert Bar in Dallas had such an overwhelming response that it is now shuttered and moving into a larger space. The March debut of the Houston outpost brought much of the same with four-hour lines on its opening day.

Time will tell if Austin is similarly enchanted, but the trend of Insta-desserts doesn’t seem to be going anywhere.

desserts openings

Peak Plates

7 Austin restaurants make OpenTable's top 100 for 2024

Jeffrey's Restaurant/Instagram

Jeffrey's Restaurant is a great example of the type of fancy, well-established restaurant that made the list.

Restaurant reservation website OpenTable has issued its new list of the top 100 restaurants in America for 2024, and seven Austin restaurants have made the list. That's already impressive at a glance — 7 percent of the entire national list in just one city — but compared to other Texas cities, it's huge. Austin is the only Texas city to have more than one restaurant on the list.

The "2024's Top 100 Restaurants" list is a compilation of the most sought-after and top-ranked restaurants in the U.S. based on 14 million verified reviews on OpenTable from October 1, 2023, to September 30, 2024. Restaurants are not ranked, but arranged in alphabetical order by state.

Austin's seven restaurants (including several repeats from OpenTable's 2023 list) are:

Aba: Known for its laid-back, yet fancy patio and being a popular spot for visiting celebrities
J Carver's: Known for a commitment to the classic steakhouse experience and legitimately fancy dining
Jeffrey's Restaurant: Known for fine dining, a connection to Austin before its boom, and a fantastic wine program
Red Ash Italia: Known for approachable, yet high-quality Italian food with rustic touches
Sammie's Italian: Known for its romantic take on the archetype of an East Coast Italian joint
Uchi: Known for bringing Austin into the national sushi conversation and defining the scene
Uchiko: Known for a cool atmosphere and getting creative with sushi and other small plates

Austinites will probably not be surprised by this list, which names some very well-established restaurants that are all upscale. These qualities tend to appeal to similar lists, regardless of who's curating them.

It is interesting, given that the list was democratically based on user ratings, that there were not more beloved food trailers or casual spots. However, other factors that led to high rankings included alerts set and reservations made ahead — things that don't really apply to even the most awesome taco truck.

Mediterranean food was a trend among the Austin picks. Red Ash Italia and Sammie's Italian are, as the names would imply, completely dedicated to Italian food, while Aba covers a wider swath of the Mediterranean. There were also two steakhouses: J Carver's and Jeffrey's Restaurant.

As list-perusers may have guessed, Uchi and Uchiko are in the same family of restaurants, with Uchi being the more formal and Uchiko being a bit more accessible for drop-in meals and cocktails. But are two more incognito duos of sibling restaurants on the list: J Carver's and Red Ash, and Jeffrey's Restaurant and Sammie's Italian.

That could be a coincidence. It could also be a reflection of the utility of money and experience in opening a good restaurant, or a lesson about the effects of good (and expensive) marketing. Whatever it is, it doesn't sound like hospitality groups had any direct sway on how OpenTable made its choices.

This list was different from the inaugural list of OpenTable Icons, which launched in 2024. The "Icons" list chose restaurants that are getting a lot of buzz, which ended up being more subjective. It also seemed to let in — as a side effect of the process, rather than a hard eligibility rule — more new and Mexican restaurants. Two restaurants are on both lists: Red Ash and Jeffrey's.

Restaurants outside of Austin that made the Top 100 list, organized alphabetically, are:

Hudson House — Dallas
Steak 48 — Houston
Signature — San Antonio

awards bests media lists