FOOD & DRINK

Dramatic restaurant growth in Austin

Two decades bring big increase in numbers and quality

By Dale Rice
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Wednesday, August 27, 2008

When I look at Austin, I see food. And, it wasn't always that way.

The capital, when I moved here in 1984, wasn't much of a food town. A handful of special-occasion restaurants and a bounty of Tex-Mex spots pretty much summed up the Austin palette, and any national reputation we had seemed inevitably linked to the Longhorns.

Oh, how things have changed.

Now there are several hundred high-end and mid-priced restaurants jamming downtown and dotting the suburbs, with even more modestly priced, casual dining places in between. Together, they cover a host of cuisines, from Japanese to Brazilian and Ethiopian to Colombian.

Despite a rocky national economy, several upscale restaurants have opened here in the past few weeks, with many more in various stages of planning or construction. Nearly every new high-rise residence, hotel or office building in Central Austin wants to have an equally impressive dining establishment on-site, which means continued, major growth in the downtown dining scene.

The Domain, with nearly 2,000 seats in a variety of upscale places, has established itself as a second dining center, competing effectively — judging by the crowds on the days I've eaten lunch or dinner there — with downtown Austin. It will be growing, too, over the next several years.

Back in the '80s, it was tough to find anything other than cafes and barbecue joints in the smaller towns of Central Texas. Fine dining has taken root across the area, expanding diners' choices in remarkable ways.

The overall restaurant growth has been supported by a key ingredient: the Texas Culinary Academy. Now affiliated with Le Cordon Bleu, TCA has become a powerhouse of professional instruction in this region, with more than 1,000 students in training. A decade ago, chefs frequently complained to me that they couldn't find qualified workers in Austin. Not so any more.

Twenty-five years ago, a local wine industry was little more than a dream, and few aficionados ever expected to see more than a passable table wine produced nearby. Now there are two dozen wineries within a two-hour drive of Austin, and their products are winning gold medals in respected international competition.

That Hill Country wine is one measure of our improving reputation in food and wine circles. The late Robert Mondavi raved about the Becker Vineyards Viognier, and Fall Creek is on the wine lists at several well-known restaurants in New York City. Becker, Fall Creek and another 20 area wineries have racked up hundreds of medals, helping the appellation make a name for itself inside and outside Texas.

But the most high-profile notches in our culinary belt belong to the three Austin chefs who, in a five-year period, made Food & Wine magazine's annual list of the Top 10 chefs in the United States. Those kudos went to Will Packwood, who was executive chef of the now-defunct Emilia's; David Bull, who was executive chef of the Driskill Grill; and Tyson Cole, chef-owner of Uchi.

When I asked the editor of Food & Wine to put that remarkable feat in perspective, she said that her staff was constantly dining in Houston, Dallas and other cities in the state and the most interesting things were consistently happening in Austin.

That speaks not to the number of new places, but to the creativity and artistry occurring in those kitchens. And that's the growth that is the most profound but the hardest to measure.

The quality of dining in Austin has increased exponentially over the 24 years that I have lived here. That is primarily the result of two forces: young, talented chefs who have arrived in Austin ready to showcase their cutting-edge cuisine and the established chefs who were not about to cede the culinary mantle to the newcomers.

The past seven years in particular have been marked by astounding raise-the-bar cycles, with the quality of the fare, the presentation and the service improving each year.

As restaurant critic for the Austin American-Statesman, I have had one of the best seats in town to observe that culinary blossoming. I have repeatedly made the rounds of new and old restaurants alike, and have watched the competition produce a veritable field of winners.

That's why, as I look around Austin today, I see food. Our cuisine represents the best of what we've become — an innovative, thriving place that has developed its own tastes and expectations. We are a dining destination with a national reputation. And that's a delicious treat.