Now on Resy: Teddy’s, Uptown Sports Club, and More Local Favorites

Famed barbecue bossman Aaron Franklin and local music biz entrepreneur James Moody have breathed new life into this 1949-vintage Eastside hangout: It’s an all-day bar and restaurant serving quality classic cocktails and no-nonsense food with Texas and Louisiana accents (think oysters, po’boys, and gumbo) that you won’t be able to resist.

At this self-styled Cajun joint in the Buda Mill & Grain Co. complex, everything from po’boy to gumbo awaits. Don’t miss out on the Saturday and Sunday “frunch,” featuring creations like the Lakeview Benedict, which comes with blackened alligator and fried green tomatoes.

As a bar veteran with over two decades of experience (and host of the Food Network’s “On the Rocks” bar show), John Green knows the bar scene inside out. Now he’s putting his expertise to use in his own establishment in Round Rock, featuring upscale bar food (including a burger you’re not going to want to miss), plenty of high-def sports screens, and a lineup of cocktails worth a detour. 

Austin mourned when the original location of James Beard Best Chef winner Iliana de la Vega’s soulful Mexican restaurant closed some time ago. But the South Lamar offshoot of El Naranjo is still going strong — do start with the made-to-order guacamole and do not skip the housemade moles with either chicken or duck. 

Read more about El Naranjo here. 

Chef Ling Wu has won fans all over Austin for her restaurants serving richly flavored Chinese fare, and this must-visit Oakmont Heights establishment vividly demonstrates her skills. Whatever else you order, don’t miss the dim sum — Wu’s specialty — which is varied, innovative, and sometimes, even gluten-free. 

Elegant but unpretentious, with an American-international menu ranging from BBQ bacon sliders to hamachi crudo to 40-day dry-aged bone-in ribeye, this downtown essential from the New Waterloo group (La Condesa, Sway, etc.) is a perfect date-night choice — but you can also come here just to enjoy the first-rate food and the easy-going setting.

Cowboys and aliens? Not exactly. But the interior of this one-of-a-kind restaurant blends the Wild West with Outer Space, and the Texas-international fare (from Juan Diego Solombrino, ex–Rosedale Kitchen & Bar and North Italia) is brought to you in part by “spaceship bots” — robotic servers on a track — adding a whole new layer of fun.

The original RedFarm (opened in Manhattan in 2011 by Chinese-food maven Ed Schoenfeld and master dim sum chef Joe Ng) thrilled diners with its playful takes on dim sum, and now, it’s doing the same in Austin. Look for their unforgettable signatures, like Ed’s pastrami egg roll, yuzu-wasabi shrimp, and applewood-smoked bacon fried rice.

Lots of places tout their locavore credentials, but few deliver like this one does. A rustic-chic restaurant with an in-house butcher shop, Dai Due is seriously regional and seasonal in sourcing its ingredients, even specializing in Texas wines and beers. Do look for Texas-raised antelope, quail, and Wagyu beef on the ever-changing, meat-centric menu.

Here’s a tasty reminder that Hill Country dining is about more than barbecue — a Tuscan-accented trattoria at the Mandola Estate & Vineyard in Driftwood, where Damian and Trina Mandola draw on generations-old family recipes (like Mamma Grace’s meatballs), and fill out the menu with plenty of familiar Italian favorites.

In the converted “back space” behind his thriving Parkside, chef Shawn Cirkiel serves a scattering of antipasti and salads, plus a curated selection of thin crust Neapolitan-style pizzas, which cook magically in just 90 seconds in the heroic-scale wood-burning brick pizza oven. Just so you know, some say it’s the best pizza in town.

Here’s something different for date night — an intimate Argentinian-themed hideaway with a vintage speakeasy vibe, downstairs from Buenos Aires Café, where the empanadas are unforgettable, and the cocktails celebrate the bittersweet virtues of amaro.

This small-scale speakeasy-style cocktail lounge (unmarked door, chiaroscuro lighting) from Christopher Crow, who ran the bar at Here Nor There, offers a tranquil getaway from busy 6th Street, fueled by Biblical-themed libations like the Fruit of the Forbidden (Plymouth gin, Grey Goose vodka, St. Germain, and pomegranate syrup, in case you were wondering).