FISH ON

New seafood restaurants walk the plank into popular Austin district

It’s springtime in Austin, which means it’s practically summer in Austin. And that means it’s time to kick back on the patio, soak up some sun, and start gobbling up some fresh seafood. One regional restaurant group has two new seafood eateries to help Austinites reel in the goods.

Plank Seafood Provisions, newly opened at The Domain, is a property of Flagship Restaurant Group, based in Omaha, Nebraska, but that doesn’t mean this landlocked company is a fish out of water. In fact, Flagship boasts 15 sushi restaurants from the Midwest to the South — and a variety of other restaurant concepts, including Tex-Asian pub Anthem in Austin’s Rainey Street District.

The Plank concept originated in Omaha in 2013 and is billed as a “coastally inspired oyster bar and seafood grill,” that seeks to “transport guests to an elevated yet whimsical ocean-themed setting.”

Sustainable seafood sourcing is the name of the fish game at Plank. In fact, Flagship Restaurant Group is the largest sushi restaurant group partner of the revered Monterey Bay Aquarium Seafood Watch and maintains a Conscious Earth program that commits the company to responsibly and sustainably sourcing its seafood. The restaurant’s menu even includes sourcing details about every fish, fish roe, shellfish, and meat product Plank serves.

The new eatery — bedecked in wooden boat-shaped sculptures, nautical rope accents, and sea-style artwork — features a full raw bar and wood-fired grill, and menu items range from must-have seafood dishes to odd yet intriguing plates. Highlights include seafood towers from the raw bar, chowder fries, crispy crab boil turkey necks with creole wing sauce and chive, sauteed mussels, scallop a la plancha, and a filet of soft-shell crab sandwich.

Saturday and Sunday brunch offerings include dishes like a crawfish omelet, fried clam strips, and BLT avocado toast with bacon-onion jam. The kid-friendly Tackle Box menu takes into account that little ones aren’t necessarily hooked on seafood, and includes corn dogs and sourdough grilled cheese, as well as grilled salmon.

Unsurprisingly, Plank also features seafood-inspired cocktails and mocktails, including the Overboard Oyster (oyster, infused vodka, cocktail sauce, hot sauce, dirty mix), and the Island Hopper, made up of Bombay Sapphire Gin, Electric Jellyfish IPA from Austin’s Pinthouse Brewing, pineapple, and lemon. The restaurant also offers a selection of beer and wine.

Plank also boasts a four-seasons patio so seafood lovers can dine in the aforementioned al fresco style.

Plank Seafood Provisions is open daily for lunch and dinner service, Monday through Thursday and Sunday from 11 am to 10 pm, Friday and Saturday from 11 am to 11 pm, and for brunch service Saturday and Sunday from 10:30 am to 2 pm. Through April 4, Plank will welcome Austinites with half-priced oysters.

And proving there are always more fish in the sea, Flagship Restaurant Group will also open its Blue Sushi Sake Grill — the company’s first-ever concept — in Austin in April. With Blue Sushi Sake Grill already open in Dallas and Fort Worth, the company plans to expand further into Texas with its Austin spot, as well as a Houston location opening by the end of this summer.

Fresh seafood towers are a mainstay of the Plank menu.

Photo by Richard Casteel

Fresh seafood towers are a mainstay of the Plank menu.

sustainability openings

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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