BBQ
Central Texas BBQ — beef, post oak, salt and pepper, no sauce required — is the region's most important culinary export, and several of its landmarks sit within an hour of Austin.
Driftwood
The Salt Lick
Open pits burning in the middle of the room, long communal tables, family-style plates, and a bring-your-own-beer policy. A Texas institution, and it sits right in the middle of the Driftwood wineries.
Near Fredericksburg
Junebug's BBQ
Backyard-style Hill Country BBQ with outdoor seating and live music. The stop we build into our Fredericksburg Wine & Smoke day.
Lockhart, southeast of Austin
The Lockhart BBQ trail
The Barbecue Capital of Texas by act of the legislature, with several of the oldest and most revered joints in the state within a few blocks of each other. Not Hill Country geographically, but essential to any Central Texas eating trip.
Llano
Cooper's Old Time Pit Bar-B-Que
Direct-heat mesquite pits out front where you point at what you want. A different tradition from the Lockhart indirect-heat style and worth the drive northwest.
German and old-world, in Fredericksburg
- Otto's German Bistro — the most interesting cooking in Fredericksburg; German technique and Texas ingredients. The reservation to make first.
- Der Lindenbaum — schnitzel, rouladen, and red cabbage in a limestone building on Main Street.
- Auslander — a biergarten and restaurant with a long beer list and live music.
- Altdorf Biergarten — shaded outdoor tables in the historic German district. The right place to land at five in the afternoon.
- Old German Bakery & Restaurant — strudel, kolaches, and the breakfast to eat before a wine day.
Destination dinners
Dripping Springs
Tillie's at Camp Lucy
Set in a reassembled nineteenth-century Vietnamese building on the Camp Lucy grounds. Ambitious seasonal cooking in a genuinely striking room, and the best dinner in the Dripping Springs area by a distance.
Fredericksburg
Cabernet Grill
An all-Texas wine list of remarkable depth — hundreds of bottles — with straightforward Hill Country cooking alongside it. The restaurant for anyone who spent the day getting interested in Texas wine.
Fredericksburg
Vaudeville Bistro
A design store and gallery upstairs, a refined seasonal bistro downstairs. The most contemporary room in town.
Driftwood
Trattoria Lisina
Handmade pasta on a terrace, on the same property as Duchman Family Winery. The most civilized lunch on a Driftwood wine day.
Fredericksburg
Hill & Vine
Modern Texas cooking in a converted house with a patio, and easier to get into on short notice than Otto's.
Austin Wine Car
Wine and a meal, built into one day
Our Wine & Smoke and Wine & Biergarten days pair three wineries with a proper stop — BBQ at Junebug's or The Salt Lick, or an afternoon at Altdorf.
Not ready to book?
Brewery and distillery kitchens
- Jester King, near Dripping Springs — wood-fired pizza and farmhouse ales on a ranch with goats and long views.
- Vista Brewing, Driftwood — a genuinely serious kitchen and the best lawn in the area.
- Treaty Oak Distilling, Dripping Springs — a restaurant, a lawn, live music, and whiskey made on site.
- Garrison Brothers, Hye — bourbon rather than food, but a good tour and a beautiful property.
- Desert Door, Driftwood — sotol in a beautifully designed room, usually with food trucks outside.
In the towns
Dripping Springs
Rolling in Thyme & Dough for pastries and breakfast, Homespun Kitchen for a comfortable sit-down, Mazama for coffee.
Wimberley
Several good options around the square, and the best of the Hill Country small-town cafe scene.
Johnson City
A downtown that has quietly gotten good, and the most reliable lunch stop at the eastern end of the 290 corridor.
Gruene and New Braunfels
The Gristmill River Restaurant beneath Gruene Hall, plus German cooking in New Braunfels' Czech and German tradition.
Boerne and Comfort
Two of the prettiest downtowns in Texas, both with a better restaurant scene than their size suggests.
Roadside and seasonal
- Peach stands on US-290 east of Fredericksburg, May through August — Das Peach Haus, Vogel Orchard, Burg's Corner. Fruit, cobbler, ice cream, and preserves.
- Fredericksburg Pie Company — exactly what the name says, peach in season.
- Emma + Ollie, Fredericksburg — a bakery and cafe with a weekend-morning line that is worth it.
- Farm stands and farmers markets across the region, particularly in Dripping Springs and Wimberley.
Practical notes on eating out here
- Book weekend dinners. The good rooms in small towns are small, and they fill.
- Kitchens close early. In many Hill Country towns, last seating is nine or earlier, and on Sundays much earlier.
- Several places close Monday and Tuesday entirely.
- Carry cash. Roadside stands and some BBQ places are cheerfully rural about card readers.
- The 290 wine corridor is thin on lunch — plan the middle of a wine day before you leave.