What you see is what you get at the Spicewood barbecue joint. The giant pit that greets you when you enter is full of succulent, fatty, and delightfully seasoned brisket. Or perhaps it’s the enormous pork chops, jalapeno-cheese sausages, or tender pork ribs that are more appealing. Whatever you order, pick up a few sides to go with it: a heaping serving of spicy corn, tater tot casserole, and the off-menu Coca-Cola cake. The restaurant is open for takeout and indoor dine-in services.

While the address’s original parent restaurant, the fine-dining destination Apis, closed permanently, its younger sibling pizzeria remains open on the six-acre property backed by the Pedernales River. The focus is wood-fired Neapolitan pizza with toppings ranging from house-cured wild boar salumi, loads of vegetables, melty cheeses, and more. Accompanying the pies are nice plates like oven-roasted cauliflower, nicoise salad, and pastas. Takeout orders can be placed online, and there are indoor and outdoor dine-in services.

On top of cuisine heavily influenced by Austin’s neighbors to the south, the Texas Hill Country has an overlay of German heritage thanks to the Old World immigrants who settled in this region in the mid-1800s. Get a taste of that Central Texas-German cuisine at the Fredericksburg restaurant, which boasts Ingrid Hohmann, a European-trained chef known for cooking up traditional German recipes like schnitzel, bratwurst, and made-from-scratch strudels and Black Forest cake. The restaurant is open for indoor dine-in service.

The social hub on the main square of the historic town of Blanco (a city featured in the Coen Brothers’s True Grit remake), the cafe satisfies its patrons with everything from burgers on jalapeno sourdough buns to wraps filled with roasted red pepper hummus and kalamata olives. Take time to browse through the adjacent gift shop, which sells pottery and products from the Redbud owners Jon and Jan Brieger’s family lavender farm. Takeout orders can be placed online or over the phone; there are indoor and outdoor dine-in services.

This romantic eatery is a popular lunchtime spot, tucked on a quiet corner of downtown Wimberley along Cypress Creek. Fill up on sandwiches like the BBLT — applewood-smoked bacon, lettuce, tomato, and double-creamed French brie on toasted sourdough — and wood-fired pizzas, or heartier dishes like meatloaf with scallion mashed potatoes and roasted chicken with green chile-bacon grits. Takeout orders can be placed online; there are indoor and outdoor dine-in services.

The revitalized longtime German beer hall and restaurant in New Braunfels serves up plentiful draft beers, schnitzels, and sandwiches in its lively mostly alfresco space. The restaurant is open for indoor and outdoor dine-in services.

There must be a wormhole in Utopia because this no-frills cafe recalls a simpler decade. Housed in a historic building (built sometime before 1904), the place has been serving comfort food since 1986. An expansive menu has everything from patty melts on Texas toast to cheese enchiladas to big slices of fudge pecan pie.

Upscale food from a Le Cordon Bleu-trained chef puts the utopia in small-town Utopia. The restaurant is set in a charming stone building amid 400+-year-old oak trees. Utilizing a European-style “guest table” service, chef Laurel Waters’s prix fixe restaurant is BYOB and only open on Saturdays for lunch and dinner. The menu often changes but expect dishes like chicken with mushrooms and artichoke hearts in puff pastry, served with fresh vegetables like pesto scalloped potatoes. The restaurant is open for reservations-only lunch and dinner dine-in services.