Austinites need to eat. Simple as that. We also need places to meet friends, family, colleagues, and lovers outside of our homes. We need places to discuss big ideas, fund what the community cares about, and show visitors what our city is like. So the Restaurant of the Year at CultureMap's 2024 Tastemaker Awards does a lot more than look good in Instagram shots.

These 11 restaurants wear all those chef's hats and more, ensuring that a meal really means something beyond its exceptional taste. It takes a well-rounded leader to hold all that together, but we're saving most of those details for our last list of 2024: Chef of the Year.

For now, here are the standout dishes, inspirations, and ethos that inform our judges' favorite restaurants. Find out which wins Restaurant of the Year on April 11 at the 2024 Tastemaker Awards party at Distribution Hall. We’ll dine on bites from this year’s nominated chefs and restaurants, and sip cocktails from our sponsors before revealing the winners in our short and sweet ceremony.

You can keep up with all the Tastemaker Award nominees in a special editorial series, then be sure to buy your tickets to see who triumphs.

Let raise a toast to our nominees for Restaurant of the Year:

Canje
This Caribbean restaurant's colorful reputation doesn't just come from its many fruits and roots. It's Chef Tavel Bristol-Joseph's enthusiastic vision that has charmed reviewers from the country's top magazines to regular Austinites. There's much to say about tradition and its subversion (and there's much of the latter), but even diners who know nothing of the cuisine love the vibrant flavors. From spicy jerk chicken to sweet plantains, this menu will wake up any palate, no matter how informed.

Dai Due
As Austin grows, foodies have more and more opportunities to escape into faraway cuisines. Despite the partial Italian influence, Dai Due offers a chance to come back home. This butcher shop and minimalist eatery puts the lion's share of its efforts into perfecting ingredients — not just choosing the best ones but pickling, fermenting, rendering, and anything else that transforms something from Texas to something from Dai Due. And that's how you perfect a burger.

Diner Bar
Austin's best restaurants are for its locals first and foremost, but this hotel dining room offers tourists representation Austinites can be proud of — and a staycation feeling for anyone wandering around downtown. French-trained Chef Mashama Bailey, raised in Georgia and New York, is an expert at translating Southern foods so anyone can taste her nostalgia. From shrimp toast to simple ice pops, it might actually be insulting to say this menu is elevated. It's just real food, at its best.

Eberly
If there's a restaurant on this list where the decor deserves as much applause as the food, it's the elegant Eberly. There's a story behind every piece of cedar or concrete, and it probably name drops at least one classic movie star, musician, or writer. This haven by creatives, for creatives, lives up to its luxe look on the menu, too. These American dishes are vaguely eclectic in influence — from Mediterranean beets and pistachios to fried chicken with Thai dipping sauce — without turning diners into tacky tourists.

Épicerie
At a glance, this neighborhood bistro is all about the soft cookies and flaky pastries served at its prominent bakery counter. But there's more French greatness to taste, the airy and casual dining area belying the elaborate plates to come. A chicken liver mousse gets artsy with plating, and a confit duck leg anchors a more robust meal. Who wouldn't love a spontaneous lunch date that turns from "just a snack" to an impeccable feast?

Este
One of the buzziest restaurants in Austin's recent memory, Este transforms its little pocket of East Austin into a coastal Mexican retreat. Capitalizing on Chef Fermín Nuñez's taco prowess — the one that made him one of Austin's most famous chefs of the past few years — this upscale restaurant remains approachable while also serving vibrant, abstract masterpieces. Unique dishes like the shell-on shrimp with chile costeño garlic butter offer the best of both worlds: luxe dishes with messy finger eating.

Foreign & Domestic
Foreign & Domestic has long been on Austinites' favorite restaurant lists, but it just keeps getting better with time. Chefs Nathan Lemley and Sarah Heard have excelled in the wake of their 2017 takeover in centering comfort food without getting complacent. Combining three famously comforting cuisines — Italian, French, and Southern American — sure sets them up for success, and a liberal use of butter, duck fat, and egg yolk gets them the rest of the way there.

KG BBQ
It's hard to talk about KG BBQ without focusing on the unavoidable charisma of Chef Kareem El-Ghayesh, who left a job in Cairo finance for Texas barbecue. (Who among us hasn't thought about risking it all for a life by the smoker?) But the unique food has a strong point of view all on its own. We need more pomegranate in our lives, and KG delivers, combining the classic Middle Eastern ingredient with almost everything, including as a glaze on pork ribs and as a barbecue sauce on Egyptian mac and cheese.

Lenoir
Although Lenoir sounds like it'd stick to French classics, this garden restaurant leans into any inspiration it can get, from fresh pasta to bright curries. The thread running through is Texas ingredients, and Lenoir is great at inviting guests behind the scenes. Whether it's cooking classes or "community-supported restaurant" member accounts, Lenoir has an entire infrastructure around making Austinites feel welcome. And even introverts can appreciate local steak with truffles or dainty "crab fingers".

L'Oca d'Oro
This Italian restaurant is one of Austin's most salient symbols of how the restaurant industry could work, in a perfect world. A service charge bakes better pay into every meal; A popular dinner series raises funds for reproductive freedom or local hospitality workers. And the delicate-yet-rustic cuisine proves that restaurants really can focus on both sides. To be sure, a little gnocchi or home-style meatballs never hurt anyone.

Olamaie
There's no shortage of high-minded Austin restaurants committing to their respective cuisines, but Olamaie takes the cake when it comes to Southern food. Between chef de cuisine Amanda Turner (last year's Chef of the Year) and executive chef Michael Fojtasek, this restaurant never wants for inspiration. A seemingly endless beverage list contrasts a relatively tight dinner menu that's heavy on provenance: Alabama barbecue sauce, jerk spiced pork chop, and Hopi blue corn hush puppies, to name a few.