1886 Cafe & Bakery

1886 Cafe emerges on fine-dining plane

Many upscale hotels have a two-tier restaurant system. They offer an all-day, less expensive, something-for-everyone menu (which invariably includes burgers and sandwiches) in one venue and a trendier, high-end, limited menu in another spot aimed at the sophisticated-palate crowd.

The Driskill Hotel, the historical hotel in the.... More

1886 Cafe emerges on fine-dining plane

Many upscale hotels have a two-tier restaurant system. They offer an all-day, less expensive, something-for-everyone menu (which invariably includes burgers and sandwiches) in one venue and a trendier, high-end, limited menu in another spot aimed at the sophisticated-palate crowd.

The Driskill Hotel, the historical hotel in the heart of the Sixth Street entertainment district, took that approach following an extensive renovation by new owners a few years ago.

One of its two eateries, the five-star, dinner-only Driskill Grill, has been a culinary leader in Austin, presided over by young chefs who have produced cutting-edge cuisine and a luminous dining reputation for the hotel.

The other, 1886 Cafe & Bakery, took on more of the every-diner approach, with sandwiches and mid-brow versions of classics such as meatloaf. In the '70s and '80s, the café was run by the Heritage Society of Austin.

Now, after another major renovation of the café space (the ornate bar was moved from the front dining room to the back), the eatery is offering fine dining at dinnertime. A portion of its menu goes in that direction, while burgers remain on another part.

The best example of the finer side is the short-rib plate ($17), a dish that the café's new executive chef, Scott Halverson, brought with him from his California restaurant, Chive, where it was a hit. This item would be at home on the tables of the city's best restaurants.

Served in a large bowl, the boneless, lean and tender rib meat was presented in a pool of bourbon-coffee jus with a side of sautéed green beans and a crown of buttermilk-battered onion rings. It was lovely.

In another new addition to the menu, Halverson took the classic mac 'n' cheese up several notches with his baked, three-cheese crab macaroni ($18), which combined provolone, Gruyère and Parmesan cheeses with tubular pasta and crab and topped it sparingly with herbed breadcrumbs. For the presentation, it was served in a cast-iron skillet on an intricately folded napkin.

The duck leg confit ($16) was a hearty dish with two moist, tender duck legs accompanied by a vanilla-cinnamon-port wine reduction, spinach sautéed in brown butter and a molded sage-butternut squash bread pudding.

The salads also followed that upscale trend, with a deconstructed wedge ($8) offering iceberg slices drizzled (much too lightly, I might note) with blue-cheese dressing and surrounded by tomato chunks, bacon bits and marinated onions. In the small Caesar salad ($5), the whole romaine leaves were awash in a delightful caper-heavy dressing and were garnished with Parmesan crumbles and croutons.

Although the desserts don't represent a new step up, they continue the pattern established by former pastry chef Mark Chapman, who left last year. Tony Sansalone, formerly of the Four Seasons and one of the top pastry chefs of the past two decades in Austin, returned to the hotel industry after a stint in private business.

Sansalone's 1886 chocolate cake ($7) maintains a tradition: a confection "in the style of the Heritage Society of Austin's original recipe," accompanied by Tahitian vanilla-bean ice cream.

As good as that may be, Sansalone's talent was most evident in the lemon cheesecake ($7), the smoothest, creamiest cheesecake imaginable, and the warm apple cobbler ($7), an exquisite individual cobbler with a sour-cream cake base. They make 1886 Cafe a worthy stop just for dessert and coffee.

Although the service was attentive and friendly, the café needs to improve it in small ways to make the service commensurate with the quality of the food. For example, the café needs to stock sufficient menus so diners can be given one when seated, and the staff needs to automatically replenish the silverware with each course, rather than asking diners to keep their forks and knives.

One drawback to the recent renovation is that some tables are too close to the open kitchen. That area can be very noisy, especially when cooks and servers are speaking loudly to each other about orders and requests.

Overall, though, 1886 Cafe has emerged as another important downtown dining spot with fare that competes strongly with many other upscale central-city venues.

drice@statesman.com; 445-3859

Brief