Rockin' Tacos

Celebrity chefs dish up rockin' tacos at Austin Food + Wine Festival

Notable chefs from across the country arrive in Austin this week to wow crowds with their innovative culinary techniques at the Austin Food + Wine Festival. Familiar faces from Bravo’s Top Chef competitions and heralded culinary stars will share their cooking wit and wisdom at daytime sessions, the Fire Pit grilling station and the sold-out Rock Your Taco cooking showdown.

Rock Your Taco, taking place Saturday night, is the best opportunity to taste the creations of these kitchen masters. Here’s a sneak peek of what to expect from the celebrity chefs on Saturday night.

Hugh Acheson
Acheson fell in love with foraging in his adopted hometown of Athens, Georgia, combining his love of fresh ingredients with his classical culinary techniques to great success. He was named Best New Chef in 2002 by Food & Wine magazine and the James Beard Foundation awarded him Best Chef: Southeast in 2012.

What he’s dishing up: Braised lamb taco with cotija, fava and ramp salsa on white corn tortilla
Also catch him at: “Spring Has Sprung: A Favorite Ingredient” demo session and signing for his James Beard Award-winning cookbook, A New Turn in the South: Southern Flavors Reinvented for Your Kitchen on Saturday.

Jamie Bissonnette and Ken Oringer
Bissonnette and Oringer are the James Beard Award-winning duo behind acclaimed restaurants up and down the east coast. The restaurants represent a wide range of styles, from Oringer’s Tsukiji fish market-style uni sashimi bar to the Roman enoteca, Coppa. Their tapas bar Toro was such a hit in Boston that they opened a second location in New York City.

What they're dishing up: Lamb chili hard shell taco
Also catch them at: “Paella: Double Trouble” demo session, and Bissonnette's book signing for The New Charcuterie Cookbook: Exceptional Cured Meats to Make and Serve at Home on Sunday.

Richard Blais
The Top Chef All-Stars winner and reigning Rock Your Taco champion unseated hometown favorite Tyson Cole last year with his flavorful octopus and lamb picadillo taco. Blais is known for combining unusual ingredients in classic dishes and mixing in a touch of molecular gastronomy.

What he’s dishing up: Pig and prawn head a la pastor taco
Also catch him at: “For Goodness Steak” demo session and a signing for his cookbook, Try This at Home: Recipes from My Head to Your Plate, on Sunday.

Antonia Lofaso
Lofaso, whose winning smile and attitude made her one of the most beloved Top Chef contestants, will show off her culinary chops as she tries to claim the title from her former rival at Rock Your Taco. In addition to her California restaurants, this busy single mom recently joined chefs Joe Bastianich and Tim Love in the second season of CNBC’s Restaurant Startup.

What she’s dishing up: Crispy octopus taco with jicama, radish, pickle chiles, achiote
Also catch her at: “Cavatelli Party” demo session on Sunday.

Jenn Louis
On the heals of launching her first cookbook, Pasta by Hand, Louis brings her seasonally inspired Pacific Northwest cuisine to the festival. The popularity of Louis’ Portland restaurants has earned her a Best New Chef nod from Food & Wine, as well as two semifinalist nominations from the James Beard Foundation for Best Chef: Northwest.

What she’s dishing up: Root vegetable taco with escabeche, sikil pak and cotija
Also catch her at: “Tartare 101” demo session and book signing for Pasta by Hand on Saturday.

Tony Mantuano
Mantuano, a culinary legend, has racked up countless accolades for his work, including the 2005 James Beard Foundation Award for Best Chef: Midwest. His flagship restaurant, Spiagga, Chicago’s only four-star Italian restaurant, recently celebrated its 30th anniversary. The spot has also earned one Michelin star each of the last four years.

What he’s dishing up: Mushroom polenta taco with fermented black garlic aioli, parmigiano-reggiano and micro herbs
Also catch him at: “Filler Up” demo session and cookbook signing on Saturday.

Levon Wallace
Wallace recently moved to Nashville to launch the Link Restaurant Group’s first foray outside of New Orleans, bringing Cochon Butcher’s nose-to-tail charcuterie to the Music City’s growing food scene. Wallace earned his Southern cooking credentials at the widely praised Proof on Main in Louisville.

What he’s dishing up: Grilled pork adobo tacos with guacamolito

Also catch him at: “Chop Chop” demo session on Sunday.

Jonathan Waxman
Waxman, of New York's Barbuto and Nashville's Adele's, is credited as one of the original "bad boy chefs." Waxman has written two cookbooks, is a frequent guest on the Top Chef franchise and is a founding partner of Nashville’s Music City Food + Wine Festival.

What he’s dishing up: Nopales y hongos asados tacos
Also catch him at: “What a Catch, Passport to See Food” demo session and cookbook signing on Saturday.

Tandy Wilson
Wilson’s culinary inspiration may have come from his mother and grandmother, but his Southern inspired take on rustic Italian cuisine at Nashville's City House is all his own. Substituting traditional ingredients for local favorites (think grits instead of risotto) and perfecting the art of curing meats have won him many devoted fans.

What he’s dishing up: Smoked catfish taco on corn tortilla
Also catch him at: The Fire Pit on Saturday.

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Belles of the Ballroom

9 Austin bar and venue experts take over popular Old Austin space near UT

29th Street Ballroom/Facebook

Changes are coming at the 29th Street Ballroom, but the goal is to preserve what already makes it special.

The evolution continues at the 29th Street Ballroom, the music venue formerly attached to Spider House Café. It's no secret, Resound Presents CEO and co-founder Graham Williams says, that he and a large team of other industry pros are taking over the space; but now they're ready to talk about what comes next for the venue and adjoining bar.

Although Spider House Café closed in 2020, the Ballroom stayed open, and has continued serving University of Texas students and anyone else who wants to see a show outside of the ordinary: punk shows, burlesque revues, fundraisers, and more. It'll stay open through most of the renovations, scheduled through January of 2025, and is expected to hold a grand opening in March.

Now Resound — one of Austin's top live music organizers, which was itself born from the ashes of another Austin institution — is lending two of its co-founders to managing the space going forward: Williams and Ian Orth. They're joining seven other team members from venues around town, many of them overlapping: Amy Mullins, Brian Tweedy, Jason McNeely, John Yaklin, and Shannon LeBoeuf of Hotel Vegas, Chess Club, Kinda Tropical, Tweedy’s, and Yellow Jacket Social Club, in varying capacities; and Brian Buscemi and Mike Sanchez of the Little Darlin’.

Williams emphasizes that although things will be changing at the Ballroom, the goal isn't to change anything people already love.

"Over the next few months as we kind of ease into the spring, we're using this downtime to revitalize things, decorate, revamp some of the stuff in the venue and the bar, and just kind of get things moving in the right direction," Williams says, "taking what's already popular about the venue and just adding to it, really."

Bar updates
The biggest shift will be turning the bar from an accessory to live shows into its own entity that's open even when there's nothing else going on. Amy Mullins, best known as a co-owner of Yellow Jacket Social Club, is overseeing that transition. She's never operated a venue that is primarily focused on music, and has been enjoying learning more about how to do it; she even worked the door recently when a staff member called out sick.

Mullins echoes Williams in assuring that the change is more about logistics than tone. It'll still feel like Old Austin, but she does express a hope to run more than the "typical venue bar," handing out simple drinks as quickly as possible. She's working on a new menu that includes wine, beer, craft cocktails, and non-alcoholic options like tea, kombucha, or mocktails. Regardless of what's on the schedule on any given night, Mullins says the menu will stay the same.

"There's no drink too complicated for us to make, however busy we are," she says.

Food options
Another goal for the team will be making sure the space works when there's not someone onstage to crowd around. They'll expand the front and side patios and create a food truck food court that features the same trucks that are there now, plus one newcomer. All in all, that includes Yalla Burger & Wings, Gyro Center, Li’l Nonna’s Vegan Pizzeria, Guppy’s Indian Fried Chicken, Waylon J’s BBQ, and Ay Chihuahua Tacos.

The expanded patio will connect to Tweedy's Bar next door, which also has its own food trucks. The idea is to create a space to hang out after shows that feels fit for the purpose. It's possible to stick around after events now, but the layout does create a vague feeling of loitering.

Artist and fan-friendly tweaks
On the entertainment side, Williams says some of the renovations include putting in a new sound system, redoing the green room, updating the facade, and repainting signs. Since the winter is a slower time for live music, they'll be taking advantage of the extra time to work on things before packing the calendar with more events than before. Resound will handle most of the bookings in live music, comedy, and DJ sets, welcoming both national and local talent.

Whatever the details end up being, this team has proved to Austinites that they know how to run venues worth visiting. And since they're all friends and business partners on multiple levels, it sounds like having this many cooks in the kitchen just isn't an issue.

"Some of us have been roommates and known each other since we were young," says Williams. "It's a good mix of people who are all very like minded, so a lot is being brought to the table per decision. So yeah, it's it's really exciting. Sometimes that's not the case. .... But with this project, it's a lot of really great, creative people that are good at what they do [and] they trust each other."

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