Prolific Austin Hotel Group Is Opening a Live-Fire Restaurant Off South Congress

Now there are actual details about that restaurant within Hotel Magdalena, the long-awaited South Austin hotel from prolific hospitality group Bunkhouse. The Summer House on Music Lane will be found off South Congress on 1101 Music Lane in Travis Heights. It’s expected to open to the public in the spring.

The menu at Summer House will focus on live-fire, wood-grilled, and rotisserie cooking. Expect grilled meats and salads, among other dishes, for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and weekend brunch. Overseeing the kitchen is executive chef Jeffrey Hundelt, who had most recently been the culinary director of Launderette and Fresa’s.

Summer’s drinks menu will feature cocktails (including martinis) and emphasize wines, especially sparkling, organic, and biodynamic options. Bunkhouse’s food and beverage director Hannah Taylor-Noren is working on this menu.

The space will include an open kitchen, table and bar seating, and a patio. Elsewhere, there’s a pool with bar, various event spaces, and 89 guest rooms. It’s all being designed by Bunkhouse’s in-house team with a whole “lake house ethos of the 1970s,” according to the website.

Bunkhouse already has quite the footprint along South Congress. It operates Hotel San Jose, Austin Motel, Jo’s Coffee, and Hotel Saint Cecilia (which is actually right next door to Hotel Magdalena).

The hotel and restaurant are part of the whole Music Lane development that has taken over South Congress. That sprawling project will include Texas’s first Soho House, fancy salad chain Sweetgreen, Chicago hospitality group’s first Texas restaurant: an expansion of its Mediterranean spot Aba, among others.

Other hotel restaurants along South Congress include Austin Motel’s Joann’s Fine Foods; Hotel San Jose’s patio bar; Hotel South Congress’s Central Standard, Cafe No Se, and Otoko;

While the concept of live-fire cooking isn’t a new one, there have been a recent spurt of restaurants focused on the fiery preparation. There’s Emmer & Rye’s downtown grill restaurant Hestia and steakhouse chain Perry’s spin-off restaurant Carve American Grille, Bunkhouse cohort McGuire Moorman Hospitality’s downtown Mediterranean restaurant The Peacock, and its forthcoming Mexican poolside restaurant La Piscina, both found in the Austin Proper hotel.

Rendering: Cory Olsen

• Hotel Magdalena [Official]
• Summer House [Hotel Magdalena]