16-05-2025
All of Austin's Award-Winning Restaurants Seem to Have a Special Dinner in the Works
In a bustling city like Austin, it can be tough to keep up with all the changes at local restaurants — noteworthy specials, limited-time deals, pop-ups, and menu changes abound. This weekly guide highlights the coolest things, major changes, and exciting events at some of Austin's best restaurants. Emmer & Rye celebrates 90 years of chef Jacques Pépin
The legendary French chef Jacques Pépin celebrates turning 90 this year, and as part of the worldwide campaign to honor his legacy, Emmer & Rye will host a dinner called Breaking Bread. The hospitality group's partners and chefs, Kevin Fink and Tavel Bristol-Joseph, will take to the kitchen to produce dishes that draw from Pépin's 2012 cookbook, Complete Techniques , but interpreted via the restaurant's lens. The one-off dinner's menu will include goujonnettes (crispy strips of red snapper marinated in Texas Keeper Cider, coated in buckwheat and rouge de bordeaux grain, and paired with a classic sauce tartare), gnocchi Parisienne (a Sonoran wheat dumpling gratin finished with Parmesan), and pain de ménage (a rustic country loaf served with chicken skin cracklings, chicken liver pate, and cultured butter flowers). And those are just the options for starters. For entrees, choose from fish en papillote (parchment-baked Gulf grouper with braised celtuce and a fennel nage) and ficeler la volaille (a trussed and deboned stuffed chicken served with traditional sauce chasseur).
The dinner is on Thursday, May 22, with various seating times, and dishes will be served a la carte. Reservations are available on OpenTable, and walk-ins will be seated if space allows. Had your crawfish fix yet this season?
If not, Sign Bar is holding a crawfish boil on Saturday, May 17, from 2 p.m. until it sells out. In addition to crawfish, the boil will include shrimp and crab, plus all the fixings — potatoes, corn, and more. Get one pound for $11, three pounds for $30, and four for $45. The more you eat, the more you save. The Peached Tortilla and Ming Da's Cambodian Kitchen come together
Now this is a cool collaboration: Asian-meets-Southern comfort food spot the Peached Tortilla and the pop-up Ming Da Cambodian Kitchen are throwing a family-style dinner. Highlights include salaw machu krueng (a Cambodian sour soup with tamarind, krueng, Thai eggplants and morning glory); misoyaki sea bass with nori brown butter, and wasabi mashed potatoes; and saich ko chaka (a grilled beef stick on a skewer marinated in krueng, a Cambodian lemongrass paste with garlic, Thai peppers, galangal, and makrut lime leaves). There will be cocktails to accompany each course.
The dinner is on Monday, May 19, at 6:30 p.m., and tickets are available for $100 each. Uchiko and Garrison Brothers Distillery host an omakase in Hye, Texas
Digging the omakase scene, but wish it was a lot more rustic? This is the dinner for you.
Uchiko chef de cuisine Steven Attwood and the folks at Garrison Brothers Distillery are teaming up for a night of sushi and whiskey at an event they're calling Hai (Hospitality) takes Hye (Texas). Some highlights from the 10-course menu include blackened cod with a spiced miso marinade, charred snow pea leaves, and xo beurre monte; smoked pork jowl with chicken fat hot sauce, compressed celery, and koji cream; and hirame crudo with chayote squash, pickled strawberries, and rhubarb zu. There will also be six courses of drinks from the distillery.
The omakase takes place Thursday, May 22, at 6:45 p.m. Tickets are on sale now for $250 per person, with a two-person minimum booking.
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