You don’t think “fine dining” when you think of Austin. The town has always prided itself on being a place where you can dine almost everywhere in shorts and flip flops — a place where burgers and barbecue race to mind faster than truffles and lobster thermidor.
While the disdain of pretense and the appreciation of comfort in aesthetic, cuisine and attire make Austin one of the most relaxing places to live, sometimes folks want a special night out, a splurge, an opportunity to get dressed up and expect a heightened level of service, a bit of decadence on the plate and in the experience, and the chance to dine next to someone not wearing a baseball hat (no promises).
What follows is a list of the best fine dining in Austin, for when you want to treat yourself or someone else. “Fine dining” can be hard to define, but I kept the list to places where you’d feel comfortable being dressed in cocktail attire, restaurants where you’re going to spend at least $100 per person. Not all of these places have white tablecloths or uniformed employees, but they allfeel of a piece.
The list does not include any of Austin’s sushi omakases (a list for another time), and just because a restaurant is gorgeous and serves thoughtful cuisine — like Top 40 restaurant Comedor or Statesman restaurant Hall of Famer Fonda San Miguel — that doesn’t necessarily make it “fine dining” in terms of this list, or what I think those restaurants are trying to be.
1. Barley Swine
Akaushi ribeye tartare from Barley Swine. (Sara Diggins/Austin American-Statesman)
Reclaimed materials and a farm-art aesthetic infuse a country home warmth into this restaurant that defies fine dining stereotypes and defines local excellence. The plating dazzles, from the dainty to the deconstructed; the service, from a staff that includes some members with more than a decade of tenure, personalizes and informs the experience; and the food has a strong point of view and soul.
Carnitas, rich with head and shoulder meat, folded together and seared to a crunchy finish and served atop a warming eggplant mole, prove that Mexico is never far from the heart of chef Bryce Gilmore’s kitchen. And while this may not be a steakhouse, there’s no better beef dish in town than the quartet of Akaushi presentations: creamy tartare on a chorizo-spiced cracker, tender grilled ribeye surrounded by lithe poblano crema, a skewer of rib cap meat glazed with ancho barbecue sauce, and a cloud of beef belly soubise hiding burnt end jam.
6555 Burnet Road, Suite 400, 512-394-8150, barleyswine.com.
RELATED: Why Barley Swine was the #1 restaurant in the Statesman’s 2025 Dining Guide
2. Olamaie
Plating elegance at Olamaie matches the sophisticated mood of the modern Southern restaurant. (AARON E. MARTINEZ)
This refined Southern restaurant has earned the top spot in the Statesman’s Dining Guide multiple times thanks to its gorgeous setting in a renovated historic home, precise and respectful service, and bold dishes rooted in the story of Southern cooking.
Olamaie moved to a prix fixe menu in 2025, but all of the kitchen’s hallmarks remain under the direction of chef de cuisine Amanda Turner. A geometric cube of chicken liver mousse topped with apple gelée and served with a golden hash brown says French fine dining while whispering Waffle House; tuna crudo enriched with watermelon dashi ties Southern land and sea; and chicken and dumplings made with dough from the restaurant’s unmatchable biscuits are packed with Southern soul. Muscular but nuanced cocktails, elegant wine pairings and artful but nostalgic desserts complete the experience.
1610 San Antonio St. 512-474-2796, olamaieaustin.com.
RELATED: 25 Iconic Austin Dishes: Biscuits at Olamaie
3. Hestia
The live fire cooking at Hestia in downtown Austin has drawn national acclaim. (Ricardo Brazziell, Ricardo B. Brazziell)
If you’re looking for an Austin restaurant opening of the past 10 years that speaks to the kind of ambition and sophistication generally reserved for America’s dining capitals, it’s this sleek and sexy live-fire restaurant from the Emmer & Rye Hospitality group.
The dark wood, black furniture and brick look like something from a modernist mansion or serious European restaurant, the kind of place you might also find the team service and artful series of small plates that begin a meal here. The trout roe tarts and well appointed crudos in the approximately $200 tasting menu give way to bolder dishes like a fat scallop in beef tallow or dry-aged Texas wagyu ribeye with chanterelle mushrooms. Dinner at the restaurant that is home to one of the best wine lists in Austin can also be ordered a la carte.
607 W. Third St. #105, 512-333-0737, hestiaaustin.com.
RELATED: How 7 Austin restaurants are doing after a year with a Michelin star
4. Jeffrey’s
Nobody does opulence like Jeffrey’s. (PROVIDED BY JUSTIN COOK)
If someone asks me where they should go for dinner to get dressed up, feel fancy, and be treated like someone who might own one of the six-figure cars stationed out front by the uniformed valet, the answer is easy.
Jeffrey’s cradles guests in luxury, from the velvet bar furniture to the servicewear, original artwork and architecture that feels more like a home plucked from the pages of Architectural Digest. The delicate finger foods, like escargot feuilletes and deviled eggs laced with truffles, are like passed apps at a Manhattan cocktail party, but the hulking dry-aged steaks from across the Lone Star State make clear you’re in Texas. If your wealthy friend (or her expense account) is paying, ask for the sommelier to lead you through the tony tome.
1204 W. Lynn St. 512-477-5584, jeffreysofaustin.com.
RELATED: Austin steakhouse vaults to no. 3 on North America’s best steakhouses list
5. Uchi and Uchiko
Chef Tyson Cole opened Uchi in 2003. (Ricardo B. Brazziell/AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
Some might wonder if a restaurant where you’re almost certain to always find a guest in flip flops or a ball cap (admission: I’ve been the dude in the cap before) should be considered fine dining, but there’s no arguing that Uchi changed what fine dining can be in Austin. And dinner at both Uchi and Uchiko still feels special.
That sense of occasion, even if it’s just an early Tuesday dinner, comes from the informed and attentive service, born from founding chef Tyson Cole’s desire to bring the sushi bar experience to the entire dining room. Cole and his crew of chefs — more than two dozen of whom have gone on to lead their own kitchens — popularized the idea that a perfect bite could include flavors and textures not normally paired with raw fish, like apples and goat cheese.
That culinary creativity, delivered with precision and excitement, has led Uchi to become arguably the most successful and recognizable sushi brand in America, with locations from Los Angeles to Miami. Even with the growth, the cozy bungalow and modernist spaces on South and North Lamar will always feel like Austin.
801 S. Lamar Blvd. 512-916-4808; 4200 N. Lamar Blvd. 512-916-4808, uchirestaurants.com.
From 2023: Interview with Tyson Cole, as Uchi joins Statesman restaurant Hall of Fame
6. Wink
Lamb chop with quinoa at Wink. (MATTHEW ODAM/AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
Wink pulls off a very hard trick: it’s both a place where you want to celebrate a special occasion and the kind of restaurant you wish could be your weekly hang (that’s what the adjacent Wink wine bar is for). Maybe that’s because much of the staff, in the dining room and kitchen, has been around long enough to make you feel like a regular even if you’re not, and the fact that chef-owners Mark Paul and Stewart Scruggs are almost always patrolling the floor at their restaurant that is somehow part Montana chalet white tablecloth destination and Cheers.
Wink, which opened in the summer of 2001 and has survived Austin’s changes and challenges with more grace than almost anyone in town, was a trailblazer in the farm-to-table scene. Those ranch and farm partners are still visible on a menu that always seems to have beautifully executed game, sweetbreads, and scallops, brightened with seasonal produce and the purees they color.
Time has stood still at Wink, and in a town that slips through our fingers each year, that’s comforting to know.
1014 N. Lamar Blvd. 512-482-8868, winkrestaurant.com.
From 2022: Wink joins Statesman Restaurant Hall of Fame
7. Fabrik
Charred scallion tortellini at Fabrik. (MATTHEW ODAM/AMERICAN-STATESMAN)
I don’t know what’s more unexpected, a fine dining restaurant that feels like it was plucked from a European city being located in an apartment building in East Austin, or the fact that said elegant restaurant serves a vegan tasting menu.
Fabrik stands alone at Austin’s vegetarian high end. Chef Je Wallerstein, who worked and staged in Australia, Berlin and Copenhagen before opening her East Austin restaurant, creates in her tiny open kitchen an eight-course vegan tasting menu that pulls flavors from Mexico (trumpet mushroom ceviche tostada with salsa macha), Italy (charred scallion tortellini) and Japan (ponzu-compressed watermelon that sits in a refreshing peach gazpacho) while keeping all sourcing local and seasonal. The small restaurant has become one of the hardest reservations in town, so plan ahead.
1701 E. Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd. Suite 102, 512-222-9816, fabrikatx.com.
RELATED: Fabrik among Top 40 restaurants in Austin
8. J. Carver’s Oyster Bar & Chop House
J. Carver’s downtown offers clubby steakhouse vibes. (PROVIDED BY RONNY GALDÁMEZ )
Restaurateur John Carver transports you to a clubby New York steakhouse when you step beyond the black curtain separating the dining room from the debauchery of the West Sixth Street bar district.
A massive centerpiece bar, a glimmering bed of iced oysters, an illuminated wall of wine, white tablecloths and vested bartenders all add to the vibes. And while the restaurant from the chef behind the wildly popular Red Ash is one of the city’s top steakhouses, the seafood dishes often steal the show.
The plancha leaves a golden crust on a perfectly cooked raft of North Atlantic halibut, with wild mushroom risotto serving as an earthy bed, and the Dover sole in brown butter is as decadent as the crimson slabs of sliced ribeye.
509 Rio Grande St. 512-782-0650, jcarveratx.com.
9. Pasta | Bar
Many dishes at Pasta | Bar are sauced tableside. (PROVIDED BY SARAH BLOCK PHOTOGRAPHY)
A nicely toasted diner celebrating his anniversary next to me at Pasta | Bar one visit commented that the culinary proceedings reminded him of “The Menu,” a dark satire spoofing fine dining culture and late-stage capitalism. But he was just having fun. We all were.
He meant the remark as a compliment, and a nod to the elements of a certain type of fine dining: there’s the welcome cocktail at the bar before being ushered into a small black box stage where the dozen or so guests sit at a horseshoe bar bordering an open kitchen, the smartly dressed chefs working in military precision with luxe ingredients, spooning sauces tableside, as a sommelier describes the elevated wine pairings.
The $235 tasting menu is one of the most expensive in town, which accounts for the 1:2 diner-to-staff ratio, and all of those hands are kept busy perfecting dishes like tender rigatoni with maitake mushroom puree, petit lasagna enriched with anchovy and summer truffles, and cobia poached in beef fat.
As an added bit of personalized service and exclusivity, guests are ushered into another private room for an after-dinner drink and treat. Nobody dies.
1017 E. Sixth St. 512-360-8207, exploretock.com/pastabaraustin.
10. The Kimberly
Beef Wellington at The Kimberly. (PROVIDED BY RONNY GALDÁMEZ )
John Carver has done so well with the pasta and steaks at Red Ash and the beef and seafood at J. Carver’s, that it only makes sense that the chef and restaurateur would find a way to blend the two and reframe them for his third downtown hit.
The Kimberly, part Gatsby, part mid-century modern, looks like the kind of steakhouse you’d expect to find in a four-star hotel in downtown Chicago. And the menu has that same old-school, big city boldness, with roasted lobster tails, sumptuous with bone marrow, duck confit, cappelletti with braised beef, and hand-cut, dry-aged steaks sourced from Fred Linz in, yep, Chicago.
The Kimberly is the kind of locally owned, straightforward, decadent, metropolitan steakhouse many Austinites had been longing for.
200 W. Sixth St. Suite 100, 512-628-8258, thekimberly.com.