Restaurants in Austin

Chef Jam Sanitchat’s cooking career began at 5 years old, when she began following her grandmother around their kitchen in Thailand. After journeying to Austin for graduate school, she opened Thai Fresh delicatessen, where she began teaching classes and cooking. Thrice Cafe is her newest culinary undertaking—an expansion of Thai Fresh that pairs coffee drinks with innovative Thai-inspired dishes, all cooked fresh when customers order.

Sanitchat and her crew cobble together local meats, eggs, and vegetables into light and healthful breakfasts, sandwiches, and salads. They also concoct vegan and gluten-free baked goods, which pair with specialty beverages brewed from Casa Brasil coffee or selections from the lengthy wine and beer list.

Cushy couches and tables populate the interior, and umbrellas shade a verdant outdoor patio. Throughout the week, the café hosts live music and open-mic nights, where guests can showcase their talents to a receptive audience instead of a collection of unresponsive sock monkeys.

The sustainable Thai cooking classes at Thai Fresh have an edge on any cooking course looking to compete: their instructor is co-owner Jam Sanitchat, who developed her skill set over countless hours spent in her grandmother’s kitchen in Thailand. The fully stocked market not only hosts classes where students learn how to cook, but supplies them with the ingredients they need to make their own Thai meals. The deli area serves up inspiration with an extensive menu featuring classic Thai dishes and samples of dishes currently being taught in Sanitchat’s classes. Sanitchat brings an extra kick to her authentic recipes with local, seasonal, and sustainable ingredients such as free-range eggs, grass-fed beef, and rice noodles shaped by local document shredders.

Thrice, the neighboring café, serves fresh-baked pastries and sandwiches made onsite daily. A schedule of singers and folk artists entertains diners as they sip coffee, wine, or give themselves suds mustaches with local beers on tap.

When Ben Googins met Rio de Janeiro native Elias Martins while teaching English in Brazil in 1998, he couldn't have guessed that the two would wind up making pão de queijo—cheese bread—on an episode of the Cooking Channel's FoodCrafters with celebrity chef Aida Mollenkamp. Their journey began as Googins learned more and more about the Portuguese language and the generous, hospitable Brazilian culture via Martins's family and their flavorful cooking. The duo eventually moved to Austin in 2006, bent on realizing their dream of opening their own restaurant. After their handmade foods gained popularity at the downtown farmers' market, their all-natural malagueta sauces appeared in Austin's flagship Whole Foods store. They finally opened Rio's Brazilian Café in 2010, where Googins now makes caipirinhas and Martins creates contemporary and traditional Brazilian recipes from scratch. The last Saturday of every month, Martins treats diners to feijoada, a classic Brazilian stew made with pork, beef, sausage, black beans, and the juice of one soccer ball.

He still, of course, makes the restaurant's renowned cheese bread. The basil variety was the favorite of Fearless Critic, which noted that the restaurant is "one of the few places where carnivores, vegetarians, and gluten-intolerant diners can all happily coexist." The restaurant was also a Critics' Pick for Most Charming Brazilian Outpost in the Austin Chronicle's Best of Austin 2011, and has appeared in numerous publications and on TV shows such as Good Day Austin and Fox 7 News. According to Eater Austin, celebrities Ryan Gosling and Rooney Mara have noshed at the cozy eatery, whose bright yellow and green exterior and outdoor patio give way to a similarly vibrant and eclectic dining area.

Praised by the Austin Chronicle, Dolce Vita beckons taste buds with fresh paninis, mini-waffles, and a variety of beverages. Aside from punishing baristas with overtime shifts clapping the erasers, the chalkboard menu's rotating list of items encourages constant creativity, inspiring the staff to scoop out seasonal gelato flavors and craft unique food and drink items. Decorated with sienna-toned diamonds on the wallpaper, the cozy interior provides a genial place to chat or sip a latte, and an outdoor patio encourages photosynthetic patrons to soak up the sunshine.

Flames spotlight the stage at Tokyo Steak House and Sushi Bar, where skilled chefs twirl their knives and prepare Japanese teppanyaki dishes in front of eaters. Using tabletop grills, they cook succulent morsels of filet mignon, lobster, chicken, and shrimp alongside an assortment of crisp veggies. During the process, they sometimes perform eye-catching tricks, such as drawing designs on the grill with the yolk from a delicately cracked egg, flipping food into eaters' mouths, and magically making incriminating tax documents disappear over an open flame. The kitchen staff sculpts specialty sushi rolls away from the grills, and waiters fill table glasses with wine, sake, and imported beer.