Killer Views

These 10 hot spots boast the most breathtaking views in Austin

These restaurants are your best bets for a breathtaking view.

Who wouldn’t want to have lunch, dinner or a refreshing drink at a hot spot overlooking water? Austin boasts a wealth of lakes, rivers and creeks, and most of them sport restaurants and bars.

Here are 10 restaurants with breathtaking views you won’t want to miss.

The Oasis
This sprawling complex sits on a bluff high above Lake Travis, facing west, which is how it came to be famous for sunsets. Folks who gather on the multi-level outdoor decks over a plate of nachos or enchiladas and a frosty margarita often burst into applause for a particularly spectacular end to the day. The Oasis also serves lunch, stages live music on the weekends, and has a full bar and gift shop. Remember your camera.

Ski Shores
Arriving by boat is de rigueur at this burger joint far up Lake Austin, but you’re also welcome to drive here. First opened in 1954, the iconic hangout closed in 2009. It reopened under new owners in 2010, serving tacos, baskets and an exhaustive list of burgers. Enjoy cold beer, wine and drink specials Monday through Thursday and live music Saturday and Sunday. Wearing a bathing suit? No problem.

Hula Hut
Half of this restaurant overlooks Lake Austin. The other half is actually over the water, where tiki torches, bamboo walls and lights create a festive atmosphere. The menu, self-described as "Tiki-Mex" or "Mexican food with a surfer twist," features creative variations on nachos, burgers, fajitas and tacos; dinners include baby back ribs and grilled Hawaiian chicken. This is the place to meet your friends and soak up those benefits of water.

Alta’s Café
Strategically located where Waller Creek meets Lady Bird Lake (and bearing Lady Bird Johnson’s middle name), this cafe fuels walkers and runners on the trail and patrons of the adjacent Waller Creek Boathouse. Nosh on artisan sandwiches and salads, and sip sustainable wine and craft beer selections all while enjoying the water view from the spacious outdoor deck.

Trio
This restaurant in the Four Seasons Hotel takes the waterside experience up a notch, serving breakfast, lunch, dinner and Sunday brunch in an elegant indoor dining room or an outdoor patio overlooking Lady Bird Lake. Lunch and dinner menus feature steaks and seafood, and the daily happy hour includes an extensive appetizer selection. Time your visit right and you can watch the Congress Avenue bat emergence over dessert or drinks.

Jacoby's
This East Austin establishment sits on a bluff high above the Colorado River just below Lady Bird Lake. The café serves Jacoby family beef in the form of cheeseburgers, chicken-fried steak and stuffed Salisbury steak, along with chicken, pork chops, shrimp and grits, and family-style sides. The outdoor seating area offers a view of the river that few ever see. Jacoby's is open for happy hour and dinner Tuesday through Saturday and brunch on Sunday.

Shoal Creek Saloon
The Saloon features an expansive outdoor seating area over Shoal Creek, a scenic little waterway known to turn into raging floodwaters (most recently on Memorial Day). When the water rises, the staff just cleans up and gets back to work serving daily specials such as chicken fried steak, pork chops, Cajun meatloaf and etouffe. If the giant New Orleans Saints helmet out front — a creation of eccentric artist Bob “Daddy-O” Wade — doesn’t tip you off to the Cajun bent here, the menu should.

Waller Creek Pub House
This small and nearly hidden establishment (a half-block off East Sixth Street on one-lane Sabine) serves 30 rotating craft beers on tap and “elevated pub food,” including a half-pound lamb burger, gouda grilled cheese sandwiches and salads. A small patio and the indoor dining and bar areas overlook Waller Creek, which may be Austin’s least-appreciated waterway, but one with great potential.

County Line on the Lake
Formerly an old lodge, this classic barbecue joint has a large redwood deck on the tree-lined shore of Bull Creek just off Lake Austin. Choose from a large selection of barbecue, sandwiches and blue plate specials. Have a cold beer or margarita with that and save room for homemade ice cream and cobbler. Bring change for the turtle food.

Roaring Fork
The lounge, dining room and outdoor patio here overlook tranquil and tree-lined Quarry Lake, an old limestone quarry filled with spring water. In the 1970s and ‘80s, locals swam and even went scuba diving here. Today, the lake is part of Pure Fitness; you’ll see runners on the trail as well as swimmers and paddleboarders on the water. Roaring Fork’s lunch and dinner menus feature wood-fired steaks and fresh fish as well as burgers and pork chops. During happy hour, Roaring Fork pours signature drinks including a selection of mojitos.

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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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