Austin Monthly Drops Best New Restaurants; Pat Sharpe Loved Bullfight

Austin Monthly chimed in with its picks for the best new restaurants of 2015. This is on the heels of Matthew Odam’s annual dining guide published on the Statesman yesterday. Gardner and the red fish dish is featured on the cover. While text for the piece isn’t available yet, the publication dropped the unranked list of nine places:

• Alcomar
• Apis
• Counter 3.Five.VII
• Fixe
• Gardner
• Launderette
• Monger’s
• Via 313
• Vox Table

Pat Sharpe visited an Austin-version of Spain through Shawn Cirkiel’s latest venture, Bullfight, and found herself happy with the trips.. Aside from the paella, which was missing the layer of burnt, crispy rice crust that she hoped for, the rest of the affordable small plates, snacks, and desserts worked wonderfully together. One of the winners included the roasted mushrooms:

Made up of an international cast—hen of the woods, trumpet royale, oyster, beech—the garlicky mix came off meaty, like duck confit, but what made it so stunning was a trio of egg treatments: a fresh yolk for swishing around with the fungi, a luxurious hollandaise-like sauce, and salty shavings of ham-infused cured egg. No wonder the dish is already a signature.

THE BLOGS: South Austin Foodie declared Gus’s Fried Chicken as the best in Austin, Forks Up lunched at Monger’s, Dine with Shaya caught Voodoo Doughnut’s sporadic soft opening, and Mike Sutter taco’ed more tacos.