CHOW Tour Handmade
AUSTIN
2/14 - 2/27 OAKLAND
2/28 - 3/13 PORTLAND
3/14 - 3/25
See Where We've Eaten!

At Austin’s Barley Swine, Fancy Food Without the Fuss

Published on Wednesday, February 16, 2011, by Roxanne Webber / Edit Post

After scoping out Barley Swine while interviewing Chef Bryce Gilmore about his trailer Odd Duck, we wanted to go back and actually eat dinner at the month-old restaurant.

Barley Swine is in South Austin, in a low-key brown brick building—we missed it the first time we drove by. The interior is also simple, with high wooden tables and a little bit of a pub feel. Definitely seemed like a natural extension of Gilmore's trailer ethos of cooking locally sourced stuff with a few fancier presentations, but serving it in a nonfussy environment and keeping it affordable.

The man sure knows how to cook a perfect egg. Just like at Odd Duck, Gilmore serves small dishes, including one featuring a soft-boiled egg. Instead of the simpler polenta and vegetable accompaniment he does at the trailer, he serves the egg at Barley Swine with a crispy pig trotter cake, mushrooms, and a little bit of mustard (pictured). Another big hit: the sweetbreads, cooked supercrispy on the outside, tender and custardy on the inside, without that spongy texture they can sometimes get.

Also of note: one of the better craft beer lists we ran into on our trip, with local beers like Real Ale's ESB, and most of the all-stars of American craft beer, such as Dogfish Head, Allagash, North Coast, and Brooklyn Brewery.

Barley Swine
2024 S. Lamar Boulevard, Austin
512-394-8150

ALLAustin
POST A COMMENT |3 Comments

COMMENT

  • That's not polenta accompanying the duck egg at Odd Duck Farm, it's cheese grits.

  • Honestly, none of that sounds very appealing.

  • I supped at Barley Swine on opening night and again last weekend, and while the food is mostly done well, I'm just not that caught up in the hype that seems to be surrounding this place. The preparations are fairly uncomplicated (see safe) and tend to be a bit mild in flavor. And on my last visit, the one dish I'd most looked forward to - the trotter croquette (which wasn't available on opening...+READ

    I supped at Barley Swine on opening night and again last weekend, and while the food is mostly done well, I'm just not that caught up in the hype that seems to be surrounding this place. The preparations are fairly uncomplicated (see safe) and tend to be a bit mild in flavor. And on my last visit, the one dish I'd most looked forward to - the trotter croquette (which wasn't available on opening night) - had a breading that was absolutely saturated with oil. A nearly identical dish that I had at Chang's Momofuku Saam and is one of the standouts in my food memory utterly shames Gilmore's attempt. Either I've just been one unlucky bastard at BS, or there's an overabundance of praise for a noble, if less-than-spectacular effort.-COLLAPSE