FOOD & DRINK

Former Driskill chef find new challenges with UT hotel's dining rooms

Josh Watkins likes bigger horizons of recently opened facilities

By Addie Broyles
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Only a chef with Josh Watkins' energy and excitement could pull off in a short time the opening of multiple dining facilities at the new AT&T Executive Education and Conference Center on the south edge of the University of Texas campus.

Watkins, who made a name for himself in Austin as the executive chef at the Driskill Hotel downtown, left the historic hotel in March of last year and signed on to the UT hotel under construction a few months later. Then he began the task of planning the spaces, the menus and how his staff of nearly 50 would feed thousands of hotel guests and visiting diners in the hotel's four restaurants.

The Carillon is the hotel's fine-dining destination, and served its first dinner two weeks ago. On the first floor of the center, table after perfectly set table accommodates more than 200 UT faculty and staff for buffet lunch ($16.95, before tax and — more peculiarly for a lunch buffet — a 20 percent service charge). But for dinner, which is open to the public, Watkins still has plans to put up dividers to cut off more than half the lunch seats. The result? An intimate dining area that seats about 60, where Watkins plans to spend most of his time and effort producing meals accessible in palate and price to Austinites.

"I want anyone to be able to come in here and dine," Watkins said this week, clad in black clogs and standard long white apron and white chef's coat emblazoned with his name. "With this new space, I could go in a lot of directions, but I wanted attainable fine dining," with a price point low enough that it's not just a place just for special occasions. Entrees range from a half-roasted chicken with lemon-thyme fingerling potatoes and garlic broccoli rabe ($22) to a macadamia pesto crusted salmon with toasted orzo risotto ($24). Watkins' favorite item on the menu is the pork tenderloin with cannellini beans, smoked tomatoes and cipollini onions ($24).

The current menu will be turned over in the next three months, and Watkins wants to change 80 percent of the menu every four months to adjust for seasonal ingredients and dishes.

Another feature of the Carillon, which is open Tuesday through Saturday for dinner, is seven private dining rooms that people can rent for a quiet, secluded dinner.

"With this new space, we have a new outlook on things," Watkins says. "I don't want to pull from what we've all done before."

Watkins, who was born in Aspen, Colo. and raised in Northern California, sharpened his chef skills at the California Culinary Academy in San Francisco and started at the Driskill in 2000. After he left the Driskill last year, he consulted at Mulberry, a wine bar that just opened in the 360 condo building downtown, before starting full-time at the conference center.

It wasn't that Watkins was unhappy at the Driskill; he just knew it was time to move on. For one, the inventive menu never matched the décor. But it was more about testing his limits as chef. "I can't settle for a 30-seat restaurant," he says. "I want to retire in a 30-seat space."

You'd think he'd be exhausted after months with hardly a day off (he did take a few days off in May to get married), but his mood is upbeat and his attitude optimistic about finally opening the Carillon's doors to the public.

"We've all felt overwhelmed," he says. "But no matter how I feel, I have to lead with a calm demeanor."

Up until the beginning of September, Watkins and his staff were still having to work with hard hats and vests because construction on the Carillon wasn't complete. The restaurant's opening was delayed for weeks.

"We brought food in three days before the first meals," Watkins says, which means there wasn't time for a typical soft opening to test the kitchen and staff.

One master kitchen serves all the hotel's dining facilities and room service for the hotel's 297 rooms and 21 suites. Parking for the hotel is available in an underground garage. You can find more information at meetattexas.com.

Even Watkins has a hard time not calling Gabriel's Cafe — with its always-on TVs and menu of burgers, wings, quesadillas and barbecue — a sports bar. Just about every item on the so-called casual cafe's menu is less than $10, and the big televisions and full bar mean it will likely be packed for this weekend's UT-Arkansas football game.

OneTwenty5 Café, on the building's second floor, is the third eatery open to the public in the UT hotel. The cafe, with informal lounge seating and no tableside service, serves breakfast, including what Watkins says is the best coffee in the city, and light afternoon and evening fare, including small cheese plates and wine. Another dining area called Tejas is open only to conferees.

There's still much work to be done. He hasn't yet hired a sous chef or pastry chef, and he's also in charge of the new cafe that will open inside the Blanton Museum of Art's second building later this year. And despite the fact that 80 percent of Watkins' meals will be at banquets and catered events, he hopes to soon be spending most of his time in the kitchen at the Carillon.

"My passion and past is in fine dining," Watkins says. After a long day coordinating the other facilities, "I can't stop saucing."

"I want to work every night in this restaurant and have it packed with happy people," Watkins says.

abroyles@statesman.com; 912-2504