News You Can Eat

A farm-to-trailer opening and 100+ local deals freshen up Austin food news

Fig Italian Kitchen & Bar is participating in Austin Restaurant Weeks, with specially priced prix fixe meals.

Fig Italian Kitchen & Bar

The August slump is nearly over, but we've enjoyed the extra slow lunches and patio drinks. There's still always news in the Austin restaurant scene, and this week that includes a new farm-to-table restaurant without the snooty trappings, a fun Hatch chile and lobster combo, and a go-at-your-own pace foodie fest around the city.

Openings and closings

Local food is one thing, but what's going on at the new Old Coyote Cafe in Cedar Creek is on another level. About 20 miles east of Austin, and without the urban space constraints, it grows its own ingredients for fresh-pressed juices, plus "much" of the rest of the menu. That includes organic coffee and tacos, and a weekend treat of organic beer and birria empanadas. Everything is organic, grass-fed, or grass-finished, with no seed oils. An opening weekend celebration starting August 30 at 5 pm will entertain guests with musicians including Austin's Armadillo Road, and DJs through September 1. The converted airstream trailer is located at 142 Northside Ln.

A snack at Old Coyote Cafe.Photo courtesy of Old Coyote Cafe

Snarf's Sandwiches, a small chain out of Boulder, Colorado, opened its fourth Austin location on August 29, at 1901 W. William Cannon Dr., Ste. 149. A large part of its customer base is students, since it opened its first Austin location across UT — and surely the convenience of a takeaway sandwich helped. The new location is open from 10 am to 9 pm daily.

ICYMI: Although we heard about lots of restaurant news this week (like some very fancy dinners designed to compliment outdoor landscapes, and a popular influencer's new cookbook), we only had one opening. Chef Hannah Nichols, who has worked as a sous chef at BBQ Tatsu-Ya and Tiki Tatsu-Ya, is branching out into vegan olive oil cakes, which she's now selling from home. The new project is called Hooniecakes.

Other news and notes

It's Hatch chile season, and among the many local twists is Garbo's Hatch chile lobster roll. These rolls are topped with cotija cheese, crispy tortilla strips, a Hatch chile sauce, and cilantro. Get them at any Garbo's restaurant until October.

Garbo's Hatch chile lobster roll Hatch chiles and lobsters do not come from similar places, but they work together.Photo courtesy of Garbo's Fresh Maine Lobster

Uptown Sports Club is using its many industry connections to organize a "nostalgic" Sunday dining series called Frankie’s Supper Club. From 5-10 pm every Sunday, the cozy East Austin restaurant and bar is getting a little more formal with extra touches like white table clothes, and offering an alternate menu. Some of the many new menu items are deviled eggs with caviar, strawberry Eaton mess (like a strawberry jam trifle), and a Wisconsin Old Fashioned.

Abby Jane Bakeshop leans more into bread than desserts, but a few frozen options are sweetening the deal. The popular bakery is now doling out soft serve and slushies, officially launching Labor Day weekend and then continuing indefinitely. Soft serve flavors featured August 30 to September 1 are vanilla and chocolate with housemade cones, rainbow sprinkles, bread crumbs, brownie chunks, and Texas peach sauce. Slushies will start with a frozen lavender latte, and move on to frozen lemonade, watermelon rosé made with Lewis Wines Rosé, and a rotating coffee drink.

Hey, we're among friends, here — it's always Austin restaurant week for us. But for the next two weeks from August 30 to September 15, the official Austin Restaurant Weeks event will bring exposure to local restaurants around town, while donating to the Central Texas Food Bank. Participating restaurants will offer specially priced prix fixe meals to help Austinites break out of their usual routines, whether that's visiting a new restaurant or trying a new menu item. The more than 100 participating restaurants include Gracia Mediterranean, Old Thousand, La Popular, Cenote, Bambino, Lonesome Dove Austin Bistro, and Lucky Robot.

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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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