Let's taco 'bout it

San Antonio Iron Chef invades Austin with new taco joint and margarita bar

Jason Dady is keeping things simple for his new taco joint in Austin.

Austin and San Antonio may have a famous rivalry, but business is business. Over the last couple of years, Alamo City restaurants like Bakery Lorraine, Merit Coffee, and Stella Public House have looked to expand their horizons by opening new locations up north while homegrown chains like Hopdoddy Burger Bar and Torchy’s Tacos are increasingly moving south.

Now, one of the biggest names in San Antonio food — celebrity restaurateur and Iron Chef Gauntlet star Jason Dady — is opening his first eatery outside the 210. Chispas, a bar and restaurant specializing in tacos, will open in the fall in the former home of Fado’s Irish Pub at 214 W. 4th St.

The news first broke during the Austin Food & Wine Festival on April 28-29. Dady told CultureMap that he has been sitting on the concept for some time and had always thought San Antonio would be the location, but when he heard that Fado vacated its Warehouse District location after more than 20 years in Austin, it was a “no brainer” to scoop it up.

Dady envisions Chispas as a “cool hangout taco and margarita joint with fresh salsa and guac, and homemade tortillas.” The menu will be minimal, with no more than 12 tacos.

“[Chispas] is not like Torchy’s with a lot of different ingredients,” said Dady. “There will be no more than four ingredients, including the tortilla.” That doesn’t necessarily mean traditional, however. Dady teased that the tacos may even use ingredients like avocado mousse.

The margaritas will be focused on a basic build as well, using fresh juices. “Chispas is San Antonio slang for strong, really good tart margaritas,” the chef explained. “There will not be a bunch of machines doing strawberry and mango.”

Although the majority of the cocktails will be shaken and on the rocks, Dady said he does love frozen margaritas, and said that he may allow one into the rotation.

As if all that wasn’t enough to keep him busy, Dady is also moving his Alamo City spot Tre Trattoria in mid-June. On May 1, he announced on Instagram that the popular Italian restaurant would be relocating from its current home to the Beretta Hops House at the San Antonio Museum of Art.

Dady said he has been looking at the location for five years. The new restaurant will allow him to scale down the restaurant, going from 100 to about 70 seats. The covered patio, overlooking the Museum Reach section of the River Walk, will accommodate another 60.

“With the Pearl and downtown merging, it’s a home run location,” he said. The original Tre Trattoria does not have a closing date just yet, but the Instagram post assured fans that they still had a few weeks.

After Chispas and the new Tre Trattoria opens, Dady said he has no new projects in the works — and he will continue operating his other six restaurants: Tre Trattoria, Shuck Shack, Two Bros BBQ Market, B&D Ice House, Bin Tapas, and his new chophouse, Range. “My wife would kill me if I thought about anything else,” he joked.

chefs 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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