My Goto Downtown ATX Breakfast, Lunch and Dinner Spots

Before we moved downtown, my wife and I lived on the west side of Austin, about eight miles from downtown. We would drive downtown once a month for a special dinner out and visit most weekends to use Butler Trail. We looked on the 'cool' downtown restaurants from afar and relied on Yelp heavily in order to select our monthly dinner spot. Although we enjoyed our visits, we felt like visitors in our own city. Fast forward to today and we have been living downtown for two and a half months. Now we can try out the places that have borderline Yelp reviews and find places we did not know were there because we happen to walk by them on the way to somewhere else. In this post, I will review our favorite breakfast, lunch and dinner spots. Places we keep going back to, time and time again.

Breakfast: Magnolia Café (2304 Lake Austin Boulevard)

Open 24/7

Magnolia Cafe is at the center of the tasty no-nonsense breakfast universe. If you are looking for the basics done very well then look no further, this is your place and it is open 24 hours a day. I almost hesitated to include Magnolia Cafe as I could not imagine anyone who lives in Austin who has not already visited. Given there are hundreds of people arriving in Austin every day, however, I decided to include it just in case. I also happen to be craving pancakes when I put this post together.

The style is fast casual and the wait staff personify Austin in their outlook and style. If you get there early at the weekends (8:30 am or earlier) you can get in, get a cooked breakfast and coffee and be out within 20 minutes. Get there after 9 am on the weekend and prepare yourself for a 20 minute plus wait outside. On a nice day this can be enjoyable as long as you were not already hungry when you got there.

The omelets at Magnolia Cafe are tasty, hearty and come in twelve standard varieties. They come with a choice of two sides which all adds up to what I call 'a big boy breakfast'. My favorite is the Spanish Omelet with fruit and wheat toast, I especially like to Rojas sauce which balances the egg perfectly.

The pancakes at Magnolia Cafe are fluffy, delicious and all you could ask for in a sweet breakfast treat. The trick is to never go to Magnolia alone, that way one of you can get the savory item and the other can get the pancakes providing the best of both worlds! Of course if you do go alone and have an omelet and pancakes you can always hit the trail again for another four mile loop!

Yes that is President Obama

Coffee re-fills comes fast and flow freely. The coffee is not quite Cafe Medici quality but it is perfectly drinkable and delivers the requisite caffeine perfectly well.

On a side note, Magnolia is one of the only places that serve orange marmalade as a condiment to toast. Coming from the United Kingdom, breakfast can not be declared complete until you have finished it off with toast and marmalade.

For me, there is no better way to spend a weekend morning than to take a four mile walk on Butler Trail followed by an omelet, a chunk of one of my wife's blueberry buttermilk pancakes and a gallon of coffee from Magnolia Cafe. If for some strange reason you have not done this yet then please do it this weekend!

Lunch: Whole Foods (525 N Lamar)

Say what? You have got to be kidding me, you can't call Whole Foods a restaurant! I am sorry but the downtown Whole Foods more than qualifies as a legit lunch spot. I look for great food and a lively atmosphere in the restaurants I visit and the downtown Whole Food has them both (in spades).

The food runs the board in terms of choice. They have separate, dedicated mini-restaurants for sushi, BBQ, tacos, deli, bakery, sandwiches, pizza and seafood. In addition, there are all kinds of foods on offer at the buffet and salad bar. Now, variety alone does not make a great place to eat, after all, Golden Corral has plenty of variety. What sets Whole Food apart is the quality of the ingredients they use and the way the food is presented to you. All of the ingredients are natural or organic and as many as possible are locally grown.

The Flagship Whole Foods Store

Believe it or not, the downtown Whole Foods does have a great atmosphere. During the week it is brimming with busy workers looking for a quick bite and there is a hum of productive minds plotting their afternoon assault on the corporate world. At the weekends, the pace is brought down a couple of notches, along with the dress code. Whole Foods is almost as famous for it's concentration of spandex as it's collection of organic produce. The weekend offers a perfect spot to sit, drink coffee, eat a muffin and a green smoothie (smoothie negates muffin) and see how much human flesh can be crammed into a pair of spandex pants. I should warn you that I am not a qualified nutritionist so it may not be true that a green smoothie negates a muffin from a nutritional perspective.

My go-to lunches are the rainbow sushi roll or the chicken fun soup (in the winter). The sushi is fresh and the soup is made to order with fresh ingredients. This brings me to the intangible Whole Foods feel good factor. After leaving Whole Foods, with either a full bag of groceries or a full belly, you feel like you have done good for your body. It's as if the Cinnamon Rolls are made from kale and the Tres Leches cake has the same nutritional content as a fresh fruit salad. Of course this is not the case, but somehow Whole Foods makes you feel like whatever you eat, it is doing you some good.

Dinner: ABGB (1305 W. Oltorf)

Austin Beer Garden Brewing (ABGB) is fast becoming my go to spot for pizza and beer. It is a one and a half mile walk from my condo which is just enough to feel like I have earned some of the pizza and beer I am about to enjoy. Another great example of Austin casual dining, ABGB is a great hang out spot to sit and talk with friends whilst sharing great pizza and fantastic beer.

All the seating at ABGB is bench style and first come first served, so be prepared to cozy up to another group. For a Brit, sitting next to people you don't know is intimidating and certainly takes some getting used to. After a couple of Big Mama Red beers, however, your inhibitions disappear and you wonder why the Capital Grill doesn't have bench seating! It really is a lot of fun. I once visited Munich for work and spent some time in the Bierkellers there. ABGB brings back fond memories of that trip and it seems to me was inspired by these Bavarian drinking halls.

ABGB has five 'Always' beers which run the gamut from light and crisp lagers to heavy weight stouts. In addition, they have the 'Sometimes' list which comes and goes to make sure the beer selection never seems stale. I never did understand people who have the same beer every single time. Beer is something that should be explored, there is always another great beer out there if you keep looking!

ABGB, Hmm Beer Good

The pizza at ABGB, to my mind, is exceptional. After having just said that you should experiment with beer, I should say my outlook on pizza is the opposite. Once you find that one special pizza, stick to it. Mine is the House Made Sausage pizza from ABGB. A crisp but not brittle crust combined with a hearty sauce and killer sausage make for the perfect beer accompaniment. In the spirit of full disclosure, I should say at this point, that I have never been to ABGB without having at least one beer before having a pizza. In view of this, my pizza review may be tainted by beer colored goggles.

And there's more... What else is there but beer and pizza? Well, ABGB also hosts up to six bands a week on a stage at the end of the hall so there is also live music!

A Word of Caution: Alcohol by volume (ABV) of the beers at ABGB ranges from around 4 to 10 or more so be careful what you are drinking, especially if you are going there for a few beers (Welsh for a lot). As always, please please please drink responsibly. If in any doubt, walk or use Uber.

Parting Thoughts

Austin has a diverse and generally excellent restaurant scene. TexMex and BBQ dominate the outside world's view of Austin dining but there is much much more to it than just that. Coming from the UK I understand very well that people tend to stamp countries and cities with a certain style of cuisine. Austin (and the UK for that matter) do not deserve to be stamped with one or two types of specialty cuisines. Downtown Austin offers a plethora of choice for every palette, so go out and chow down Austin.