Just a week or so ago, The W Austin Hotel in downtown Austin held it’s grand opening. Boy, that place is nice. Jude and I visited the lounge areas and had dinner at Trace (link to Yelp reviews) on our visit. The decor is swank, and the menu is trendy. The dinner menu is separated into five categories: foraged, farmed, crafted, hunted, or shared, and the hotel restaurant has even hired an official forager, Valerie Broussard, to select local produce for the plates.
A little pricey for some plates and a little small on the portion sizes (which, honestly – is to be expected, this is a *fancy* hotel restaurant, after all), but delicious overall. I had the Winter’s Garden salad, the Pumpkin Agnolotti, a basket of fries (from the bar menu – which I don’t have), and a glass of Merlot, all wonderful – the cost was about $35 + tip. Here are the menus – breakfast, lunch, and dinner (they apparently change fairly frequently, maybe seasonally?, – but this should give an idea on food type and price range) To enlarge each image, click once on the image to get to the image page, then click the image again. More after the jump.
Perhaps inspired by the new hotel, or perhaps just the new year, La Condesa has launched a new lunch menu. I was fortunate enough to be invited to a menu tasting on 12/14, and was very fortunate to sit across from Beth and Logan, the dynamic couple behind the Boots In the Oven food/travel blog (check it out – the pictures on the site are really great). Perhaps it was the good company, or the fantastic daylight vibe (the natural light in this restaurant has to be one of the top reasons for the great ambiance there, in my opinion), or maybe (just maybe) it was the food – but I rather enjoyed the tasting. I was limited in what I was able to eat (I don’t eat meat – and most of the offerings had pork in them), but I enjoyed every bite. AND, each of the bloggers got a bag of the La Condesa House Blend coffee to take home and try – I would DEFINITELY recommend getting a cup when you visit the restaurant – it is delicious. Below is the menu of new lunch items and a couple of shots of the tasting and the food – note that this menu only has the new items, the full lunch menu will have much more on it and can be found here: http://www.lacondesaaustin.com/menu.html.
I had the grilled brisket steak for lunch the other day, I highly recommend it.