Holiday Dining

Top 10 Austin restaurants for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day dining

Trace at the W Hotel will serve a lavish four-course menu on Christmas Day.Photo courtesy of Trace
Lump crab cakes from Fork & Vine are part of Executive Chef Camden Stuerzenberger's new winter menu.Photo courtesy of Fork & Vine
Goodall's will host regular breakfast service from 7 to 11 am, and a three-course Christmas Day brunch from noon to 4 pm.Photo by Andrew Smith
Visconti Ristorante at Hotel Granduca will serve a traditional Italian Feast of the Seven Fishes on Christmas Eve.Photo by Michelle Gardella
Christmas trout from Prelog's.Photo courtesy of Prelog's

Not in the mood to cook? Need to get away from it all? Want to recreate your favorite scene from A Christmas Story? No worries, you have options. There are many restaurants in Austin that will open their doors on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day to wine and dine you.

Threadgill's
This reliable Austin institution is the place to get your traditional Southern-style Christmas dinners with all the fixin's. You can dine in, or order a holiday feast to take home with turkey and ham by the pound, mashed potatoes, candied yams, cornbread dressing, green bean casserole, and a variety of homemade pies. These folks have saved Christmas from "Oh no! I dropped the turkey on the floor" emergencies more than once.

Trace
On Christmas, guests can partake in a four-course prix fixe dinner for $75 per person, which includes dishes like sunchoke and truffle soup, Anson Mills heirloom pea vol-au-vent, duck cassoulet, and mulling spice-brined pork loin, among others. Pastry Chef Angel Begaye will offer seasonal treats like brioche pudding with sweet ricotta ice cream and a gingerbread cake with milk chocolate bavarois and caramelized apples.

Prelog’s
This Downtown European restaurant will serve reserved lunch and dinner for both Christmas Eve and Christmas Day, as well as St. Stephen’s Day, a traditional holiday in some European countries on December 26. Prelog’s will feature a five-course prix fixe menu paying homage to European Christmas traditions. Guests are encouraged to arrive early for a Christmas-themed happy hour featuring holiday drinks like eggnog and glühwein (mulled wine). Menu is $49 per person.

Visconti Ristorante
The Italian restaurant at the gorgeous new Hotel Granduca will serve La Vigilia, the traditional Italian Christmas Eve Feast of the Seven Fishes, featuring a gourmet prix fixe menu. Visconti will also offer a prix fixe Christmas Day dinner. Both menus are $85 with an additional $45 for wine pairings.

Vox Table
Executive Chef Joe Anguiano is celebrating Christmas Eve with a five-course prix fixe truffle dinner for $89 per person. Dishes include a roasted chestnut soup with truffle panna cotta, micro crouton, and brown butter and crispy duck breast with pickled persimmons and truffled root vegetable cassoulet. Reservations are required.

Dine
Chefs David Garrido and Mario Medina will serve their normal menu on Christmas Eve until 8 pm and have also planned a fantastic Christmas Day buffet from 11 am to 3 pm for $49 per person and $12.95 for kids under 11. Items include a made-to-order omelet station, salad bar, carving station, pecan waffles, desserts, and much more. Dine at the Radisson Hotel will also be open for dinner until 8:30 pm, offering free validated parking.

Fork & Vine
The Northwest Austin wine bar will be open 11 am to 3 pm on Christmas Eve, offering dishes from Executive Chef Camden Stuerzenberger’s new winter menu. Some notable items include gulf lump crab cake with street corn remoulade, duck wellington, and wood-fired hanger steak with pickled sweet potato short rib hash drizzled with hollandaise.

Goodall’s Kitchen
The restaurant at Hotel Ella is hosting regular breakfast service from 7 to 11 am and a three-course Christmas Day brunch from noon to 4 pm for $44 per person. Brunch includes warm sugar doughnuts, spiced pumpkin hotcakes, sweet potato biscuits, and more. Beverages, tax, and gratuity are additional, and there will be a la carte pricing for children and complimentary valet parking. Goodall's and the Hotel Ella Parlor Bar will close following the 4 pm brunch seating.

Geraldine’s
The wonderful new restaurant and bar at Hotel Van Zandt will open for dinner on Christmas Eve from 5 to 10 pm and Christmas Day from 5 to 11 pm, serving its regular menus. The bar will offer hot toddy cocktails alongside other sinful concoctions from bar manager Jen Keyser and will be open Thursday until 1 am and Friday until 2 am.

Wu Chow
This hot Chinese spot from the folks who brought you Swift’s Attic will be open both Christmas Eve and Christmas during regular dinner hours. Wu Chow will offer special dishes for the occasion, but no prix fixe menu — everything will be a la carte. Not sure if the wait staff will sing you Christmas carols, though.

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Best of BBQ

Austin favorite declared best BBQ joint in Texas by Southern Living

Franklin Barbecue/Instagram

Franklin Barbecue has topped another Texas barbecue list.

Don’t be surprised if the almost ever-present lines grow even longer outside East Austin’s Franklin Barbecue, one of the darlings of the local barbecue scene. Offering yet another culinary accolade, Southern Living has crowned Franklin the best barbecue joint in Texas for 2025.

In all, the magazine singled out one barbecue restaurant in each of 16 states — although Texas had plenty of influence elsewhere, too. Southern Living based its 2025 winners on the results of an online survey of the magazine’s readers.

Here’s Southern Living’s take on Franklin Barbecue:

“In 2009, Aaron Franklin helped launch the craft barbecue movement from a small Aristocrat Lo-Liner camper trailer parked near I-35 in downtown Austin. Flawless prime-grade brisket, tender pork ribs, and snappy jalapeño cheddar sausage — plus a dose of nascent social media — rocketed him to Internet celebrity. Franklin Barbecue moved into its current blue and white building on East 11th Street in 2011, and barbecue fans from around the globe have been lining up for hours to experience it.”

Franklin himself is no stranger to professional kudos. For instance, he won the James Beard Award for Best Chef: Southwest and is a member of the American Royal Barbecue Hall of Fame.

Southern Living spiced up its 2025 barbecue list by mentioning winners in other states that have embraced Texas-style barbecue.

“Texas-style brisket continues to spread across the South, winning over fans from Charleston to Little Rock,” the magazine pointed out.

Here’s a taste of this year’s Texas copycats, as cited by Southern Living:

Wright’s Barbecue, the 2025 winner in Arkansas, “is a noteworthy practitioner of the Texas-inspired craft style that is taking the South by storm, and barbecue fans in Arkansas are eating it up.” Wright’s even serves a combo of meats known as the Texas Trinity: thick-sliced brisket, tender pepper-spiked ribs, and juicy sausage links. The barbecue chain smokes meats for Arkansas customers in Johnson (near Fayetteville), Bentonville, Little Rock, and Rogers.
In Kansas City, where barbecue icon Arthur Bryant’s BBQ grabbed Missouri’s top spot, the barbecue scene “has shifted in recent years thanks to a parade of aspiring pitmasters bringing the styles of Texas and elsewhere to this storied smoked meat capital.” It’s worth pointing out, though, that Arthur Bryant’s hasn’t adopted this Texas trend.
Former Austin pitmaster John Lewis, who grew up in El Paso, opened South Carolina’s top barbecue joint, Lewis Barbecue, in Charleston in 2016. He added a second barbecue joint in Greenville in 2022. As you might have guessed, both restaurants specialize in Texas-style barbecue.

Aside from rating barbecue joints, Southern Living readers identified the South’s 10 best cities and 10 best beach towns for 2025 based on the survey’s findings. Charleston landed at No. 1 on the list of the best cities, and St. Simons Island, Georgia, snagged first place on the list of the best beach towns. No Texas community showed up in either ranking.

“Southern hospitality is more than just a saying — it’s a way of life — and no one knows the best experiences better than the locals. That’s why, year after year, we turn to our readers to share their favorite places that define the South,” said editor in chief at Southern Living Sid Evans in a press release.

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