Dining in Austin:

Restaurant Austin

Olamaie

1610 SAN ANTONIO ST.

RODOLFO GONZALEZ / AMERICAN-STATESMAN

Wagyu beef with Carolina gold rice at Olamaie.

Taste that sticky barbecue sauce slathering the chicken at Olamaie’s lunch. It’s a little sweet and filled with umami. It has a deep auburn hue. Close your eyes and try and detect the acidic hint of tomatoes. You won’t find it.

Chefs Michael Fojtasek and Grae Nonas don’t use tomatoes to create their barbecue sauce. They rely on a recipe from about 150 years ago that uses salt-cured mushrooms to create the sauce that also includes sorghum, vinegar and onions.

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#2: Barley Swine

2024 S. LAMAR BLVD.

RODOLFO GONZALEZ / AMERICAN-STATESMAN

Beet trifle at Barley Swine.

Bryce Gilmore has turned farm-to-table dining into an art form at his 5-year-old restaurant. Not many people champion local purveyors as strongly as Gilmore, and few can match his and his team’s ingenuity and creativity with the product.

The kitchen knows when to get out of the way and let ingredients shine, as with a refreshing crab salad topped with a sphere of Trinidad pepper sorbet. The team also takes ingredients and puts spins on them you didn’t know possible, such as using pinto beans to create miso butter for poaching a supple piece of snapper that sits atop a radish relish.

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#3: Lenoir

1807 S. FIRST ST.

RICARDO BRAZZIELL / AMERICAN-STATESMAN

Roasted quail with ginger sweet potatoes mole braised greens and pecan granola.

With its billowy curtained windows, mismatched whitewash cabinetry and geometric light fixtures, the shabby chic bungalow is an escape to a relaxed but refined wonderland. Lenoir feels haphazard yet curated, both rustic and elegant.

The cuisine drives the transportive experience as much as the aesthetic. The menu is a global jaunt. With the term “hot-weather food,” chef Todd Duplechan has defined his cuisine and culinary point of view with impressive clarity and acuity. Using local and seasonal ingredients, he creates unique dishes that echo the flavor profiles of other parts of the world with climates similar to our own.

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#4: Qui

1600 E. SIXTH ST.

TOM MCCARTHY JR. / FOR AMERICAN-STATESMAN

Marinated tomatoes with eggplant, Parmesan mousse, ciabatta, mint and dill from Qui.

Paul Qui has always been so much more than “the guy who won ‘Top Chef’” (in resounding fashion, by the way). But since that is his most public appearance, it can be a helpful lens through which to view the man introduced to America by Bravo TV.

The show revealed Qui as curious, daring, playful, earnest, passionate and grounded. Those same qualities are showcased at the chef’s eponymous restaurant. The kitchen builds beautiful and compelling dishes, utilizing precise technique on display in the open kitchen. A tamarind braise sweetens squid that comes with sumptuous short rib on one beef preparation. On another version of the seven-course tasting menu, fish caramel glazed the smoked and grilled short rib accompanied by Cowgirl Creamery’s Red Hawk cheese. Binchotan (burning white oak) seared fish at one dinner, and toasted meringue wobbling atop corn pudding at another.

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#5: Dai Due

2406 MANOR ROAD.

STEPHEN SPILLMAN / FOR AMERICAN-STATESMAN

Venison ceviche at Dai Due.

No restaurant feels more quintessentially Austin right now than chef Jesse Griffiths’ restaurant and butcher shop in East Austin. The chef-hunter-fisherman has been a fixture on the scene for years with his supper clubs and farmers market appearances, but the ruggedly handsome restaurant has given Griffiths a larger canvas for displaying his talent and his love of local produce and proteins.

The sourdough bread at Dai Due, all crust and floss, was created using a starter made with wild grape leaves foraged in an alley across from the restaurant. That genesis story encapsulates the from-scratch ethos of these locavores. The kimchi and red bean miso used in a hearty breakfast of brown rice and eggs are made in house, as is the sauerkraut and beet Thousand Island dressing found on the best pastrami sandwich in town.

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#6: Uchi / Uchiko

MULTIPLE LOCATIONS

LAURA SKELDING / AMERICAN-STATESMAN

Nigiri: Madai Japanese sea bream, Norwegian mackerel, salmon belly, and spanish anchovy at Uchi.

Chefs and diners across town owe a debt of gratitude to Tyson Cole. Uchi changed the fine dining scene in Austin, proving Austinites’ palates were prepared for a new level of sophistication and experimentation. The bungalow on South Lamar that opened more than a decade ago paved the way for Austin Dining 2.0.

It wasn’t just creative preparation and quality sourcing that defined Uchi; it was a complete dining experience, from ambiance to place settings to sophisticated but not stuffy service. Uchi set the lofty bar for Austin dining, and it continues to reach the heights it established.

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#7: Congress

200 CONGRESS AVE.

RICARDO BRAZZIELL / AMERICAN