Will Uchiko’s Paul Qui be the big winner on the season nine finale of Top Chef: Texas this Wednesday, February 29? Or will he be the big loser? Keep your fingers crossed for our Austin boy. If you want to really get in the mood, drop by
The James Beard Foundation has announced the semifinalists in its annual awards given to chefs and restaurants across the country, widely regarded as the Oscars of the restaurant and beverage industry. Texans did well on the whole, with 20 nominees in 9 categories, although a few outstanding names were conspicuous
Starting in 2002, I have eaten my weight in lamb chops, roasted beets, pork belly, and micro-cilantro every year to come up with Texas Monthly’s annual list of the most innovative, exciting, and delicious new Texas restaurants. For 2012, our feature “Where to Eat Now” runs the gamut from a
Not bad at all: Texas captured four of seventeen finalist slots in Food & Wine’s new “People’s Best New Pastry Chef” competition.” That’s really impressive, considering that the Texans are up against chefs from Chicago and New Orleans, among other cities (we are in Central, one of three competition
The position of pastry chef at Congress, the new and much-lauded fine dining venue in downtown Austin, didn’t stay open long. Thirty-one-year-old Erica Waksmunski has slipped into the opening left by the departure of Plinio Sandalio (who went to the Carillon, in Austin). She started on January 22. Two days
Costa Pacifica and El Gran Malo.
RESPLENDENT WITH crystal globes, Philippe Starck–designed transparent “ghost chairs,” and a smart black, white, and gray color scheme, Feast burst onto the scene in San Antonio’s vaguely bohemian Southtown neighborhood five months ago like a New York runway model crashing the ladies’ bridge club. Owner and principal designer Andrew Goodman
Little did I know when I wrote the following words nearly four years ago—“Please, patronize Wild Blue before it’s too late”—that my greatest fear would come true. One of the true stalwarts of Texas Barbecue–Wild Blue B.B.Q., located in the near-Brownsville city of Los Fresnos—will shut its doors on
There’s nothing like a bandwagon. No sooner did Food & Wine and Bon Appétit fall all over themselves to give Austin a whole lotta love than StarChefs.com (an online magazine for chefs and culinary insiders) decided to hold one of its four national awards ceremonies in Austin
Modeled on the Manhattan Cocktail Classic, the first ever San Antonio Cocktail Conference is ginning up for next weekend, with four days of drink seminars, guided tastings, and cocktail parties. You can get a buzz just reading the program, which is amazing both in its scope and in
There are two kinds of people in America: pie people and cake people. If you’re a pie person (as I proudly count myself), consider coming to the fourth annual “Peace Through Pie” Social this Saturday, Jan. 14, from 2 to 4:30 p.m., at the Sweet Home Missionary Baptist Church
The Bird & the Bear and Bistro 31.
BY THE TIME MATT McCallister opens his own restaurant—sometime this year—the thirty-year-old wunderchef will have had more local media coverage than most cooks get in a lifetime. Self-taught, he started as a lowly pantry cook at Stephan Pyles’s eponymous Dallas restaurant in 2006. He then became executive chef and master
Were you naughty this past year? Do you need to produce a significant holiday present to get a pass out of the doghouse? Maybe a trip for two in January to Yosemite National Park for the 2012 Chefs’ Holidays series would do the trick, especially since two top Texas
It’s not too late to snag a couple of seats for the twelfth annual Stephan Pyles Celebrity Chef Dinner in Dallas this coming Sunday evening, December 4, sponsored by the Wine & Food Foundation of Texas. This year the line-up of star chefs from across Texas includes Stephan Pyles
One Art and Private Social.
I ORDERED AT THE COUNTER and took a seat on a metal stool at a big varnished wood table near wall-to-wall windows. My dinner arrived in a paper wrapper, and I ate it with my hands and a spork. Distraction consisted of watching a motley crew of fellow diners
Amanda Naim on baking her first batch of cookies, molding each piece of the dome, and having a steady head.
Jeffrey’s, one of Austin’s longest-running restaurants, is soon to get an extreme makeover courtesy of Austin chef and restaurateur Larry McGuire of Lamberts and Perla’s. Half a year from now Jeffrey’s will have a new chef and menu, a new look—and a new lease on life.
Le Chat Noir Eatery and Dough Pizzeria Napoletana.
JUMPING TO CONCLUSIONS. Making assumptions. Forming snap judgments. Call it what you will, we all do it, me included. So when I found myself at the address for Felix 55, staring at what looked like an upscale bar with a restaurant attached, my first reaction was, Michael Kramer is cooking
The second annual Texas Monthly BBQ Festival was held Sunday, October 30, at the outdoor terrace of Long Center in Austin. Some 3,000 people attended to sample barbecue from 22 vendors (all of whom had been named to our Top 50 Barbecue Joints in Texas in 2008),
To me, the most delicious part of the Texas Book Festival (Oct 22 & 23) is its great round-up of food-related talks and sessions and cooking demos. Rather than slog through the full schedule, focus on food with our easy guide. FOOD SESSIONS FOR SATURDAY, OCTOBER 22, 2011 Elizabeth
I promised I would stop referring to her as “our little Jessica” when I learned that my youthful but quite esteemed colleague, Jessica Dupuy, was going to be the head honcho at a Texas wine dinner coming up at Café Modern, at the Modern Art Museum of Fort
Kushi Yama and El Alma.
HOW PAINFUL MUST IT BE for a restaurant’s owners to admit that the place is kaput? That a once celebrated destination has come to the end of the road and needs to be—gasp—put down? But after cozy Austin restaurant Zoot departed the neighborhood where it had been for eighteen
Tailgate season is upon us. Since a Texan can never have too many recipes for queso and cheese dip, herewith are three magnificently gooey ones from three great new Texas cookbooks published this fall. Fort Worth chef Lou Lambert’s Big Ranch, Big City, cowritten with collaborator June Naylor
What do you call a group of chefs—A covey? A gaggle? A gargle? A convocation? A competition? Whatever you call them, several big-name chefs from the San Antonio area will be cooking dinner as a benefit for Foodways Texas next Thursday, September 8, at 7 p.m. If you’ve been
Restaurant Gwendolyn and Sapori Ristorante Italiano.
Awww. Bon Appétit is lovin’ on Austin again: On its website, bonappetit.com, Austin restaurant Congress was just named number nine of the magazine’s ten best new restaurants in America. Way to go, chef David Bull! (Bon Appétit is on a Texas tear; about a month ago they
Not that Texas needs New York to tell us that our barbecue is better than sex. Still, it’s nice to get a little love and see some mouthwatering pictures, particularly on New York magazine’s food blog, Grub Street. The ‘Street editors asked TM a few weeks back for our suggestions,
Up and McCullough Avenue Grill.
When early reports on a restaurant sound like a train wreck, I tend to wait for the debris to be cleared. And Houston’s Brasserie 19—a project of two veteran restaurateurs, Charles Clark and Grant Cooper, of Ibiza and Catalan—had clearly jumped the tracks. In the first few weeks, the Brasserie’s
Donna Shaver on finding a nest, sleeping at the office during hatching season, and dedicating her career to saving sea turtles.
Eater.com has just posted this picture, sent by a reader, of someone who most definitely looks like chef Paul Qui, of Austin’s Uchiko, in a photo shoot allegedly at Whole Foods San Antonio, dated July 2. They’re saying the time frame coincides with previous speculation about Qui being
Contigo and Alto Pizzeria.
Many things can be learned by butting heads with other chefs in a reality-TV cooking show. But the biggest lesson is this: If the judges ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy. And what does that translate to in real life? Substitute “clients” for “judges” and you’ve got it. Which is why
The Fourth of July may be all about American patriotism. But Texas chauvinism—and Texas barbecue—will be the order of the day on the Second of July. So fire up the TV at 8 a.m. Central and tune in to the CBS Early Show to watch Wayne Mueller, co-owner of
<!––>For the last several weeks, Aaron Franklin (he of the massive overnight success Franklin Barbecue, in Austin) has been building an additional smoker in his backyard, to increase the capacity of his perpetually sold-out joint at 900 E. 11th. Yesterday he and his wife/biz partner Stacy were in
Two weeks ago, to celebrate the launch of our BBQ app and web site, we bought three Austinites a Franklin brisket. And we aren’t stopping there. Follow @TMFood or @Texasmonthly on Twitter to keep tabs on the #tmbbqhunt. From here on out, three lucky winners will still
Could the insanity over Franklin Barbecue spin more out of control than it already has? Totally. For one thing, we’re piling on. Yesterday, Texas Monthly named the riotously popular eighteen-month-old Austin joint as the designated “newcomer” at the second annual Texas Monthly BBQ Festival, coming up October 30.
Sigh. A Texas ingredient actually made it onto the menu of a posh London charity dinner attended last week by the Dude and Duchess of Cambridge (i.e., Prince William and the former Kate Middleton). Yes! There it was in the appetizer: Rio Grande Valley avocado! But the poor things didn’t
If the term “molecular gastronomy” turns you on instead of off. If you don’t flinch at the idea of syringes, dehydrators, and liquid nitrogen as kitchen equipment. If you would have given an arm and part of your spleen to have dined at El Bulli, then you need
Bravo Network is promoting its top food show with a 21-city cross-country trip: Top Chef–The Tour. It began back in April and it’s got two Texas stops this week (that’s not as many as New Yawk, but more than most other states). So if you can get away from
Pondicheri and Malai Thai-Vietnamese Kitchen.
It helps if you understand just how small Barley Swine is: thirty-odd chairs along a short bar and around tall tables in a limestone building on a South Austin thoroughfare. It’s so compact that the minute you sit down you become best friends with the strangers on either side of
Big names in Texas chef circles will be starring at three events this week as part of the annual convention of the International Association of Culinary Professionals, in Austin. The general public can attend this trio of events (which are some of the best of the convention); the rest of
Just as I was headed out the door on Saturday morning, Philip Speer (right) let drop the most interesting tidbit of the whole morning’s entertainment: “It would be fun to do this on a citywide scale,” said the executive pastry chef for Austin’s Uchi and Uchiko. We were at
I didn’t get around to Central Market until four days after their big “Pasaporte España”—“Passport Spain”—extravaganza had started. I’m kicking myself, because I’ve already missed a Spanish wine tasting and a couple of classes that sounded really good. But last Saturday I did stumble on the paella man, who
The Beat Divas—the celebrated Austin female vocal trio that warbles while it works—has filmed its first video. To celebrate the occasion, they’re having another of their hallmark cooking-singing classes (they sing, not the students), on Saturday, June 18, from 6:30 to 9 p.m. at Central Market Austin, north
