new tastes
The must-try restaurants during the sweet, savory days of Austin Restaurant Week
Mar 27, 2012 | 3:45 pm
Uchi's mustang roll made with fresh water eel, yellowtail, avocado and tobiko.Photo by Rebecca Fondren
Uchiko's fried milk dessert made with chocolate milk, toasted milk and iced milksherbet.Photo by Rebecca Fondren
Uchiko's polenta custard dessert with caramel salt and lemon.Photo by Rebecca Fondren
Uchiko's tobacco cream dessert made with chocolate sorbet, maple budino,huckleberry and scotch.Photo by Rebecca Fondren
BBQ Lockhart quail with strawberry barbeque sauce and cucumber-mint slaw fromMAX'S Wine Dive.
Seared tuna “noodle casserole” with crisp sweet potato noodles, fresh peas, leekand wild mushroom béchamel from MAX'S Wine Dive.
TRIO's trifle with vanilla bean cream, pound cake and spring berries.Photo by Lara Kastner
One of the featured dishes at Olive & June.Photo by Ken Lewin
It has begun. The first of two weeks foodies across Austin anticipate each spring: Austin Restaurant Week. Navigating these 14 sweet and savory days can be a piece of cake for those familiar with the farm-to-table joint down South Lamar Boulevard or the acclaimed sushi restaurant run by a new Top Chef.
There are a multitude of restaurants participating in the Meals On Wheels fundraising event these next two weeks, which is rewarding news for those of us who generally feel inclined to spend a night in with Lean Cuisine fettuccini alfredo or 15-minute Chinese stir-fry. We can leave our homes, eat gourmet and it's for a great cause — sounds delicioso.
It can be rather overwhelming, though, to peruse and choose amongst the menus featured during Austin Restaurant Week - not to mention narrowing down which restaurant dishes to actually try. For those who aren't versed in all matters of Austin cuisine, here are four restaurants that bring sophisticated execution and culinary innovation to this week’s and next week’s events.
Uchi
It can be rather overwhelming, though, to peruse and choose amongst the menus featured during Austin Restaurant Week - not to mention narrowing down which restaurant dishes to actually try. For those who aren't versed in all matters of Austin cuisine, here are four restaurants that bring sophisticated execution and culinary innovation to this week’s and next week’s events.
Uchi
How many times can this restaurant be recognized without the attention becoming a tad absurd? Who knows, but look beyond the magazine spreads and cuisine accolades and one truth remains: Uchi and Tyson Cole are the ones that started it all — all that delicious Japanese cuisine madness. And it goes without saying that without Uchi and Cole there would be no Uchiko, delicious Philip Speer desserts and, of course, the magic of Paul Qui.
In planning the Restaurant Week menu, Cole says he wanted to plan a presentation that would embody why diners originally fell in love with Uchi, with items like uchiviche with salmon, striped bass, tomato, garlic and bell pepper or the mustang roll with fresh water eel, yellowtail, avocado and tobiko.
"We’ve been doing Restaurant Week for a few years now, but we want to make our menu accessible to first-time users, so we try to stay away from putting anything too crazy on the menu,” Cole says. “The Uchi menu is customized to lead guests through an experience. With that in mind, we still want to expose people to things they may have never tried, like eel.”
Click here to see the Uchi ARW menu.
Two words why you should venture to try this playful Southern-comfort kitchen: Erica Beneke. In November, young twenty-something Beneke was promoted to head chef of MAX'S and made it undisputedly clear that despite her novice, she plans to tempt palates across Austin to try MAX’S newer and bolder dishes, such as BBQ Lockhart auail with strawberry barbecue sauce and cucumber-mint slaw or seared tuna “noodle casserole,” with sweet potato noodles, fresh peas, leek and wild mushroom béchamel.
Classic favorites like the MAX‘n cheese, made with pasta, fresh mozzarella, white cheddar, gruyere and Parmesan cheeses will also be featured during Restaurant Week. Still, Beneke’s creativity and determination have generated a never-before-seen revolutionary spirit at MAX'S that celebrates more than just classic cuisine. "We’re featuring some dishes we rolled just a couple weeks ago," Beneke says. “I want to highlight what’s available this season and continue to do plays on classic American dishes.”
Click here to see the MAX’S Wine Dive ARW menu.
In late February, Chef Shawn Cirkiel of Parkside opened this intimate Italian spot. From the beginning, Cirkiel emphasized that olive & june wouldn’t feature your typical mundane Italian dishes, like Parmesan-encrusted Caesar salads drowned in creamy dressing or extra-thin, brick-oven pizzas smothered in four commercial cheeses. His innovative pastas, anti pastas and entrées would be authentic and served in a family-style manner, like dining at a Grandma’s quaint home in Sicily.
Though relatively new, olive & june is on the path to becoming one of the respected restaurants in the city. “We are trying to have more fun with our Restaurant Week menu,” Cirkiel says. “We’ll start with something new, play with it and see where it goes.” During Restaurant Week, Cirkiel plans to test some of olive & june’s newer dishes to test how diners respond. Continuing through the upcoming spring and summer, he also plans to start experimenting more with seasonal dishes by including items like lamb, spring onions, green garlic, fresh carrots and rabbit on the menu.
“It’s been about a month now and the restaurant has found its balance,” he says “The place is finally starting to stand on its feet.”
Click here to see the olive & june ARW menu.
The adjustment from Vancouver to Austin has been both shocking and riveting to Grant Macdonald, chef de cuisine of TRIO. After uprooting his life in Vancouver to move to Austin in mid-December, Macdonald has quickly discovered that the growing seasons and availability of ingredients drastically differ in the two famed cities. Yet Macdonald has observed one trait Austin and Vancouver uniquely share.
“Food-wise and ingredient-wise Vancouver and Austin are as different as night and day, but both cities are coming into their own, though, on the national and international culinary scene,” he admits. Chef Macdonald is using these next two weeks to test TRIO’s upcoming seasonal dishes, such as the heirloom tomato and crab gazpacho with pickled spring vegetables, with the inclusion of the class restaurant’s favorites, like the smoked Texas ribeye with brown butter.
Continuing into the summer, Macdonald wants to test dishes with Texas’ summer fruits and famous heirloom tomatoes. “I came to Austin because I had heard so many wonderful things about the city and the food,” he says. “I’m certainly not disappointed with what I’ve found.”
Click here to see the TRIO ARW menu.
Dear Dry Drinkery, a non-alcoholic bottle shop, will be offering several events through January. Photo from deardrydrinkery.com
Electric Shuffle is partnering with Poppi to offer a variety of mocktails for Dry January. Photo from electricshuffle.com
Postino Wine Café is offering five new zero-proof cocktails for Dry January. Photo courtesy of Postino