News You Can Eat

5 hot Austin restaurant openings to know right now — from all-star pizza to fancy fries

Loaded home fries by Homie Fries in Austin.

Homie Fries, by the same team as Burro Cheese Kitchen, is making the best part of breakfast available late at night.

Photo by the Velox Standard

Editor’s note: In this special edition of our weekly food news roundup, we highlight five exciting restaurant openings — and reopenings — in the Austin food scene.

Dovetail Pizza
This all-star collaboration from the teams behind Rosen’s Bagels, Salt & Time, Swedish Hill, and Lenoir — officially opened on November 30 at 1816 S. First St. The pizza project is all about delivering quality ingredients and getting out of their way. That means classic pizzas like cheese, pepperoni, and meat (with pepperoni, sausage, mortadella, and copa), as well as more adventurous ones with corn and hot peppers. Visitors are invited to create their own pizzas, and can select a gluten-free crust, or veer away from pizza entirely for some comfort-food pasta dishes. Dovetail is open Wednesday through Sunday from 4 pm to midnight.

Homie Fries
The owners of grilled cheese project Burro Cheese Kitchen have committed to another perfect comfort food. Homie Fries, which some Austinites may recognize from a soft-launch at Austin City Limits Festival, will start serving up piles of browned potatoes smothered in cheese and other toppings on December 2 at its grand opening party from 4-7 pm. Anyone who brings “a homie” gets a buy-one-get-one deal, while everyone enjoys drinks by Ranch Rider and live music by Hunter Walkup. RSVP for free on Eventbrite. Homie Fries is located at 75 Rainey St. and is open four days a week: Thursday and Friday from 6 pm to 2:30 am, and weekends from noon to 2:30 am.

Daydreamer Coffee
If you’re not daydreaming in the coffee shop, it’s time to look at priorities. Honoring this worthy pastime, Daydreamer Coffee has opened a second Austin location on the corner of West 24th Street and Seton Avenue, with appropriately dreamy decor. The blue tiles, pink bar, and wicker seating brings beach resort vibes to the landlocked capital city. Visitors can look forward to a simple, but inclusive menu and bites from TacoDeli and Quacks, two local foodie spots with cult followings. It’s still just a daytime affair, open weekdays from 8 am to 5 pm, and weekends from 9 am to 3 pm.

Dog Haus Biergarten
Spending a weekend in the dog house is sounding pretty good right now. Dog Haus Biergarten, the California-based restaurant known for its gourmet hot dogs, is reopening its only brick-and-mortar Austin location in Four Points Centre at 7710 N FM 620, Suite 750. (There is also a ghost kitchen in town.) Daily specials from December 1-4 will kick off the new era with new owners, new daily specials, and a new happy hour menu featuring $5 pints, half-price wings, and family bundles among other deals. To celebrate, 15 percent of sales on December 1 and 2 will go to Keep Austin Fed, which works on alleviating food insecurity. Dog Haus is open every day from 11 am to 9 pm.

Via 313 Round Rock
Many Austinites cite Via 313 as their all-around favorite pizza spot, an unusual achievement for a deep-dish pizza restaurant. After a decade of converting new fans, Via 313 is expanding to an 11th location, in Round Rock (2111 N Interstate Highway, Suite 35), and it’s looking for a massive new team: 50-70 staff for front- and back-of-house positions. The restaurant’s locations are split between Austin, San Antonio, and Salt Lake City, and the Round Rock location is set to open on December 8. It will be open every day at 9 am, closing at 9 pm on Sundays, 10 pm Mondays through Thursdays, and 11 pm on Fridays and Saturdays.

Other Austin dining news and notes

Suerte’s sister restaurant, Este, the newly opened Mexican restaurant dedicated to seafood and charcoal cooking, has launched a new happy hour for half off bottles of wine, oysters, and clams, plus 35 percent off seafood platters and towers. These deals take place from 5-6 pm every day. Reservations are available at esteatx.com.

Kitty Cohen's, the East Austin patio bar that practically carries the Jewish Austin cocktail experience, is inviting neighbors over to "Get Lit" for Hannukah. Throughout the month of December, the space will be decorated for the holiday while serving themed cocktails and bites with help from New Waterloo chef Amanda Rockman. Look out for menu items like “L’Chaim!” (Wild Turkey 101 Rye Whiskey, Amaro Averna, and chai syrup) and shortbread cookies.

Every year, Ballet Austin invites another round of notable Austinites onstage during The Nutcracker as Mother Ginger, the matronly figure in a gigantic, rolling dress that children run out of in some of the most well-known choreography in all of ballet. This year, one such guest star is Mason Ayer, CEO of Kerbey Lane Cafe. The restaurant will celebrate the casting with the "Mother Ginger Swirl" pancake, made with gingerbread and cinnamon. This pancake of the month will be available through December.

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Peak Plates

7 Austin restaurants make OpenTable's top 100 for 2024

Jeffrey's Restaurant/Instagram

Jeffrey's Restaurant is a great example of the type of fancy, well-established restaurant that made the list.

Restaurant reservation website OpenTable has issued its new list of the top 100 restaurants in America for 2024, and seven Austin restaurants have made the list. That's already impressive at a glance — 7 percent of the entire national list in just one city — but compared to other Texas cities, it's huge. Austin is the only Texas city to have more than one restaurant on the list.

The "2024's Top 100 Restaurants" list is a compilation of the most sought-after and top-ranked restaurants in the U.S. based on 14 million verified reviews on OpenTable from October 1, 2023, to September 30, 2024. Restaurants are not ranked, but arranged in alphabetical order by state.

Austin's seven restaurants (including several repeats from OpenTable's 2023 list) are:

Aba: Known for its laid-back, yet fancy patio and being a popular spot for visiting celebrities
J Carver's: Known for a commitment to the classic steakhouse experience and legitimately fancy dining
Jeffrey's Restaurant: Known for fine dining, a connection to Austin before its boom, and a fantastic wine program
Red Ash Italia: Known for approachable, yet high-quality Italian food with rustic touches
Sammie's Italian: Known for its romantic take on the archetype of an East Coast Italian joint
Uchi: Known for bringing Austin into the national sushi conversation and defining the scene
Uchiko: Known for a cool atmosphere and getting creative with sushi and other small plates

Austinites will probably not be surprised by this list, which names some very well-established restaurants that are all upscale. These qualities tend to appeal to similar lists, regardless of who's curating them.

It is interesting, given that the list was democratically based on user ratings, that there were not more beloved food trailers or casual spots. However, other factors that led to high rankings included alerts set and reservations made ahead — things that don't really apply to even the most awesome taco truck.

Mediterranean food was a trend among the Austin picks. Red Ash Italia and Sammie's Italian are, as the names would imply, completely dedicated to Italian food, while Aba covers a wider swath of the Mediterranean. There were also two steakhouses: J Carver's and Jeffrey's Restaurant.

As list-perusers may have guessed, Uchi and Uchiko are in the same family of restaurants, with Uchi being the more formal and Uchiko being a bit more accessible for drop-in meals and cocktails. But are two more incognito duos of sibling restaurants on the list: J Carver's and Red Ash, and Jeffrey's Restaurant and Sammie's Italian.

That could be a coincidence. It could also be a reflection of the utility of money and experience in opening a good restaurant, or a lesson about the effects of good (and expensive) marketing. Whatever it is, it doesn't sound like hospitality groups had any direct sway on how OpenTable made its choices.

This list was different from the inaugural list of OpenTable Icons, which launched in 2024. The "Icons" list chose restaurants that are getting a lot of buzz, which ended up being more subjective. It also seemed to let in — as a side effect of the process, rather than a hard eligibility rule — more new and Mexican restaurants. Two restaurants are on both lists: Red Ash and Jeffrey's.

Restaurants outside of Austin that made the Top 100 list, organized alphabetically, are:

Hudson House — Dallas
Steak 48 — Houston
Signature — San Antonio

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