It’s summertime, and folks will be hitting the roads and taking trips, seeing family and just getting out and exploring. There is nothing I like more than quick trips to clear the mind and see new things.

Last weekend, I cooked at Aaron Franklin’s Hot Luck Festival in Austin, and man, was it awesome. It was a time to connect with new friends and reconnect with old ones. It’s a time to cook and share meals with the ones you love. I would like to share one of those meals with you because when you are in Austin, this is one of those places you need to be.

Birdie’s opened in July of 2021 and made a lot of noise that was heard for miles. Let’s talk about why. Birdie’s is a husband-and-wife team that took the dining experience and changed it up. Tracy Malechek-Ezekiel is the chef, and her husband, Arjav Ezekiel runs the front of house. Together they have created a concept to which they refer as “Fine Casual,” meaning all of the sourcing, technique, and thought of a fine dining restaurant but done in an approachable, counter service restaurant without reservations.

In their words, “We are a high-low, counter service, first-come-first-served restaurant. You can expect dishes you might expect at a high-end restaurant, but they might come served on a plate that’s a little chipped and with paper napkins instead of pressed linens. We are a scrappy, family-run business and we hope your evening feels like it’s a dinner party at a new friend’s home. The music is louder than most restaurants and the energy is higher!”

With this model, they have also been able to follow the dream of a family-owned and operated restaurant model, deeply rooted in the idea that restaurants ought to be a place where people can pursue long and meaningful careers. They advance this philosophy by paying their team fair wages and offering them benefits, including paid family leave, subsidized therapy, health insurance, and four weeks of planned and paid vacation every year. This is just amazing and has been noticed a lot! Food and Wine magazine named them Restaurant of the Year in 2023, and Tracy is a James Beard Award finalist for the Best Chef: Texas. (Editor's note: She also just won Chef of the Year in the CultureMap Austin Tastemaker Awards.) The results will be announced in a few weeks in Chicago.

The menu is ever evolving. Last week when we dined there, we basically had the entire menu plus a couple of extra treats. Don’t miss the beef tartare with pecans, sonora, rosemary, and carta di musica, and the minute steak with smoked cabbage and a sauce of beef and red wine. Anything that says it has a sauce of beef, I’m in!

One of the many things that I love about this restaurant is — you guessed it — the wine list. Arjav describes it as this: “It’s an eclectic mix of new and classic producers who all put farming and great fruit production first. We put it together based on what Tracy’s cooking and where we are in the seasons. Hot weather means lots of chilled reds, rosés, and easy drinking whites. Winter brings broodier reds and richly textured whites. The intention is to be a bridge between the exciting new wave of wine making and classic wine makers.”

The list includes multiple sections that are very well thought-out at multiple price points, which is very nice to see. “The Bottle List” has so many delicious options, including wines like a Sylvaner from Beurer, “Alte Reben,” 2020 for $64 and a Gamay from Phelan Farm “Autremet” 2022 for $97. Arjav has made wine ordering easy by using one word adjectives to describe the wines. He lays it out for you so you can understand what you are getting into. Words like lovable, fiery, friendly, and dazzling.

Then you get to the next part of the list that is entitled “Gems,” and that they are! We had a bottle of Ronchi di Cialla Schioppettio 1994, which is a grape that was believed to be extinct. It was brought back by this family and is worth a test drive, because it’s fantastic! Then out of nowhere, bottles of Chateau de Pibarnon Bandol 1995 and 1996 hit the table, and my senses became overwhelmed!

Arjav has put a lot of thought into the non-alcoholic section of the list. It’s something I’ve never seen before, with bottles of Navarro Vineyards Pinot Noir Grape Juice from Mendocino and La Ferme d’Achille Sea Buckthorn Juice from Saint-Ubalde, Quebec. Another amazing bottling was a Copenhagen Sparkling Tea Company, “Bla,” from Denmark, but the thing that topped all of it was a “Amrno” style of Amaro from Dr. Zero Zero in Trieste, Italy that was delicious! I appreciate a restaurant that has delicious food, amazing wine and beverages, is great to their staff and community, and can see a vision of the future of restaurants. Good job team, I’m a fan.

Calling all (wine) lovers

On another note, it’s that rosé time of year! I love it so much, I really do. We at Southern Smoke are throwing a party in Houston. This year we are throwing another Respect the Rosé party and bringing the whole gang back! The party of the summer is here! Wear your finest Kentucky Derby fashions as we Run for the Rosés, presented by Lexus, with our good friends Ryan Prewitt, Stephen Stryjewski, Michael Hudman, Andy Ticer, and Victoria Dearmond. And yes, I’m cooking at this dinner!

Respect the Rosé returns on June 29.Courtesy of the Southern Smoke Foundation

The dinner is going to be at my alma mater Brennan’s of Houston on June 29. This dinner is a fantastic party but also a big fundraising event for Southern Smoke to help folks in the food and beverage industry. As you all know with the unexpected storms that came through Houston over the past few weeks, the team has been hard at work with more applications for assistance than Hurricane Harvey. SSF has already granted over $132,000 with more to come. These events make it possible for the people that take care of you to be taken care of when they need it most. These are the people that you ask for gift certificates for your own charity auction, when you need a space to host a party, or need that reservation last minute when you forgot it was your anniversary. Help them help you. Get your tickets now!

  

Photo by Mackenzie Smith Kelley

Arjav Ezekiel and chef Tracy Malechek-Ezekiel have made Birdie's one of Austin's most acclaimed restaurants.

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Which restaurants are your favorites in Austin? Send your suggestions to Chris via email at chris@chrisshepherd.is.

Chris Shepherd won a James Beard Award for Best Chef: Southwest in 2014. The Southern Smoke Foundation, a nonprofit he co-founded with his wife Lindsey Brown, has distributed more than $11 million to hospitality workers in crisis through its Emergency Relief Fund. Catch his TV show, Eat Like a Local, every Saturday at 10 am on KPRC Channel 2.