Contigo, Haddingtons and the New Tavern movement

Scrapyard Americana and waiters with the requisite 17 pieces of flair have come to define the bar and grill in this country. Oh, we can call them gastropubs and bistro bars and taphouses all we want, but it's hard to truly reconcile the notion that a place for serious drinking can also be a place for serious eating, and vice versa.

That's why we need the New Tavern movement.

The New Tavern believes in a stiff drink. It believes in beer with eccentric names. It believes that the kitchen should have some accountability. And a New Tavern will ask you to step outside if it ever hears you call it a gastropub.

A New Tavern restaurant has a blurred visionary who knows what he wants from a bar. At Haddingtons, that person is cocktail innovator Bill Norris, pulling down a master list of 20 drinks both classic and contemporary. At Contigo, it's an owner who'll drink Pearl but appreciates craft beer and knew to consult with Tipsy Texan David Alan for a concise cocktail list.

Haddingtons has one of the best alcohol programs in the city. Contigo works simple magic in the kitchen. Both are members of the New Tavern movement.

Contigo

Contigo seems like one of those ideas that sounded great on a breezy October afternoon with the promise of a long cool fall ahead. Let's have a restaurant that's mostly outdoors, with beer and picnic tables and sausage that we make ourselves. We'll string lights, and in the twilight it'll look like one of those soft-focus commercials for a mood-elevating drug or something.

Contigo is all those things, and even in the crucible of our early summer, the tables are full, just six weeks after it opened.

"People in Austin like to sit outside, even in the heat," owner Ben Edgerton said. And so he plotted the building in a way that its roof and trees would guarantee late afternoon shade. The building, designed by Austin architect Ben May, spreads out from a single-room bar that's framed by stable-style doors in natural wood tones. There's a long, covered patio reminiscent of a pole barn and wooden tables and benches on plots of decomposed granite. It's like a cross between the new picnic area at a national park and the public bar at a polo field.

When he was pitching his restaurant idea, Edgerton said the word "gastropub" would come up. "It doesn't apply to what I'm trying to do. We're trying to have a comfortable place that's very comfortable and relaxed. ... I feel like the word gastropub creates a layer of pretentious atmosphere."

The Contigo concept — look, feel, food — was modeled after his family's Contigo Ranch in South Texas, Edgerton said. He and chef Andrew Wiseheart have known each other since summer camp when they were growing up. Edgerton told Wiseheart he wanted to build a sense of community, so they designed plates that are meant to be passed around the table. "It's food that we like to eat, food that we would cook down at the ranch," he said.

Wiseheart has worked at Olivia in Austin and at Angèle in Napa, Calif., a restaurant recognized by the Michelin Guide for charcuterie. And if the food he makes is what they cook at the ranch, let me get my hat. And pour me another El Pepino ($7) with tequila and cucumber water, because I'm fancy that way, and that big stalk of mint really cools me off.

You might start with green beans fried in translucent batter ($6) with spicy sauce, better than fries any day. Or a dish of pickled okra and cauliflower and more green beans ($4) and a bowl of spice-roasted peanuts and pecans ($3) to give that Firemans #4 something to put out, or a crisp splash of Live Oak hefeweizen beer. Next time, we'll skip the white bean dip ($6) because it's more bland than hummus and a dish of corn polenta ($4) because it's sweeter than custard pie, and runny. But we liked the idea of bacon as a primordial spoon.

Our table included two tween-age girls, and we talked them into trying an ox-tongue slider ($3) without telling them what it was. They liked the tender meat, braised and seared on sliced baguette with arugula and pickled green tomato. They also liked the rabbit and dumplings ($13), without us being secretive. No wonder.

The rabbit was pulled into tender pieces in light herbed gravy with pearl onions and carrots, crowned with flaky sage dumplings that were more like potpie or biscuits.