7 things to know in Austin food right now: Famous Nashville hot chicken restaurant brings the heat

Hot chicken and fries by Hattie B's, coming to Austin.

Hattie B's is bringing the Nashville heat to Austin.

Photo by Joseph Woodley

Editor’s note: We get it. It can be difficult to keep up with the fast pace of Austin’s restaurant and bar scene. We have you covered with our regular roundup of essential food news.

Openings

Famous Nashville hot chicken restaurantHattie B's is opening a new Texas location, this time in Austin. The eatery at 2529 S. Lamar Blvd. is slated to open in fall 2023, giving the team ample time to get their third Texas location — and Austin debut — right. In a press release, cofounder Nick Bishop, Jr. said he has always wanted to open in Austin thanks to similar cultures between Austin and Nashville. The Austin location will seat 150 guests, who can test their palate against Nashville-level heat.

Nine months after changing hands, and right on time according to chain president Craig Haley, the barbecue jointSmokey Mo’s is expanding into Round Rock. When the first restaurant opened 22 years ago in Cedar Park, the founders were starting with 30 years of barbecue experience, so this is well-practiced. The new location at 17280 North FM 620 Road, Suite 100, is throwing a party to celebrate on October 25 from 6-8 pm. Stop and enjoy the DJ, photo booth, face painter, games, and giveaways.

Uproariously, the downtown location of Roaring Fork is returning to lunch service for the first time since the pandemic started. Weekdays from 11 am to 5 pm, the restaurant focused on wood fired cooking is offering a long menu covering soups, salads, burgers, sandwiches, and more. It’s not much different than the dinner menu (said by director of operations Brad Miller to contain “a little bit of everything”), but it opens up hours of service as the Congress Avenue restaurant sees more traffic.

Other news and notes

The extremely popular blogger Joy the Baker is issuing the 2022 fall and winter edition of her eponymous magazine, and her recipes are going on tour. Restaurants around Texas will be recreating favorite recipes by the baker on October 7, the day of the launch, including Austin’s Bakery Lorraine, which will be selling Tart Lemon Poppy Seed Bars. Also participating are Houston’s Fluff Bake Bar and San Antonio’s Extra Fine.

We should have more holidays around melted cheese, but for now, we have Quesoff, “a celebration of all things melted cheese.” On October 8 from noon to 3 pm, competitors and spectators will gather at The Mohawk to face off in four categories: meaty, spicy, veggie and wild card. Anyone can compete, but this year’s 35-40 teams represent many local restaurants, listed in part on Instagram. Tickets will be available at the door, benefiting the Central Texas Food Bank.

Whether you’re enjoying ACL Fest or saving money and relaxing for the weekend, the Carpenter Hotel has a special hookup for coffee and late-night snacks. The new Lil Carpenter food truck will be open at the hotel for the two festival weekends — October 7-9 and 14-16 — starting coffee service at 9 am (with donuts and breakfast sandwiches) and starting late food service (hot dogs, burgers, fries, and beer) right as the festival starts to wind down, at 9 pm.

Rambler Sparkling Water, a growing default in Austin restaurants and bars, now offers a new flavor, its third in four years: satsuma, a type of mandarin orange. It joins grapefruit, lemon lime, and an unflavored original in the Rambler lineup, easily recognizable for its charming can depicting a Texas spring. The brand uses a proprietary "Texas Limestone Filtration" system and has one of the more carbonated sparkling waters on the market, which gives some proceeds back to environmental protection.

lunch dinner barbecue openings festivals desserts drinks news you can eat

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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