Wine Spectator Award-Winning Restaurants in Austin

Apt 115

Austin, United States

Wine Spectator Award of Excellence

A Michelin Plate-recognised fusion address on East 7th Street, Apt 115 sits at the more experimental end of Austin's $$$$ dining tier. Consecutive Plate distinctions in 2024 and 2025 signal consistent kitchen output in a corridor that has become one of the city's most competitive for chef-driven concepts. The price point and format place it squarely in the date-night and special-occasion bracket.

Birdie's

Austin, United States

Wine Spectator Award of Excellence

Birdie's Austin pioneers "fine-casual" dining where Chef Tracy Malechek-Ezekiel and James Beard Award-winning sommelier Arjav Ezekiel serve Michelin-quality contemporary American cuisine through an innovative counter-service model, earning recognition as Food & Wine's 2023 Restaurant of the Year.

Also recognized by Esquire, James Beard Award, Robb Report, World's Best Wine Lists Awards

Ciclo

Austin, United States

Wine Spectator Award of Excellence

Ciclo sits at 98 San Jacinto Blvd in downtown Austin, occupying a stretch of the city where serious dining ambition and the Congress Avenue corridor intersect. The address places it within reach of Austin's most-discussed restaurant tier, where the question isn't whether the kitchen is capable but what kind of evening you're committing to. Expect a room that takes its cues from the wider shift in Texas fine dining toward deliberate, atmosphere-led experiences.

Dean's Italian Steakhouse

Austin, United States

Wine Spectator Best of Award of Excellence

Dean's Italian Steakhouse occupies a downtown Austin address at 110 E 2nd St, where the city's appetite for red-meat dining meets Italian-American tradition. Positioned in the lower Congress corridor, it sits inside Austin's ongoing conversation about what upscale comfort dining looks like in a rapidly evolving restaurant market. Check current hours and booking availability directly before visiting.

El Raval

Austin, United States

Wine Spectator Award of Excellence

El Raval occupies a South Lamar address in a city where Spanish and Catalan cooking rarely earn the same serious attention as the Texas barbecue and New American tasting menus that dominate Austin's upper tier.

Emmer & Rye

Austin, United States

Wine Spectator Award of Excellence

On Rainey Street's increasingly competitive dining strip, Emmer & Rye holds a position built on consistency rather than novelty. The farm-to-table format here runs deeper than the label suggests, with a 650-bottle wine inventory, Michelin Bib Gourmand recognition in 2025, and sustained rankings across multiple Opinionated About Dining cycles placing it among Austin's most reliable mid-price dinner destinations.

Also recognized by Opinionated About Dining

Garrison

Austin, United States

Wine Spectator Award of Excellence

Inside the Fairmont Austin, Garrison operates as one of the city's more considered hotel dining rooms — a Michelin Plate recipient serving New American cooking anchored in Central Texas produce. Prime cuts, hearth-roasted vegetables, and a 3,000-bottle wine cellar position it well above standard hotel fare, competing directly with Austin's standalone fine-dining tier.

Also recognized by Forbes

Geraldine's

Austin, United States

Wine Spectator Best of Award of Excellence

Geraldine's occupies a steady position in Austin's mid-to-upper dining tier, offering a progression through local ingredients and Southern-inflected technique at 605 Davis St. The room draws a crowd that ranges from hotel guests to deliberate destination diners, placing it alongside the city's more considered casual-to-formal crossover addresses. For Austin, it represents the kind of kitchen that treats the arc of a meal as a structure worth designing.

Also recognized by Opinionated About Dining

Haywire

Austin, United States

Wine Spectator Award of Excellence

Haywire sits at 11501 Rock Rose Ave in Austin's North Lamar corridor, drawing a repeat crowd that has quietly made it part of the area's dining rhythm. The venue occupies a bracket of Austin restaurants where the atmosphere does as much work as the menu, and where regulars tend to self-select early. For visitors trying to read the city's current dining character, it belongs on the itinerary.

Hestia

Austin, United States

1 Michelin star · Wine Spectator Best of Award of Excellence

Hestia holds a Michelin star for consecutive years and sits at the summit of Austin's live-fire dining tier, where wood smoke and precise technique define a menu built on American ingredients with deep European and regional influences. Wine Director Ali Schmidt oversees a 480-selection list weighted toward France and California, with 1,800 bottles in inventory. Dinner runs Tuesday through Sunday from 5:30 PM at 607 W 3rd St in downtown Austin.

Also recognized by Esquire, Opinionated About Dining

Jeffrey's

Austin, United States

Wine Spectator Best of Award of Excellence

Few Austin restaurants have held their position across five decades the way Jeffrey's has. Operating from a restored 1930s cottage in Clarksville since 1975, and reimagined in 2013, the restaurant pairs a Michelin Plate-recognised kitchen with one of the city's most serious wine programmes: 700 selections, 4,000 bottles in inventory, with deep verticals across Bordeaux, Burgundy, and Napa Cabernet.

Also recognized by OpenTable, Opinionated About Dining, World's Best Steaks, World's Best Wine Lists Awards

Kappo Kappo

Austin, United States

Wine Spectator Best of Award of Excellence

Kappo Kappo brings the counter-seated, chef-directed kappo format to downtown Austin at 600 W 2nd St, placing an intimate Japanese tasting menu tradition inside one of the country's least expected cities for it. The format sits above casual omakase and below the full kaiseki theatrical register, occupying a middle tier that rewards guests who want technique and seasonal discipline without the ceremony of a formal multi-hour production.

Ling Kitchen

Austin, United States

Wine Spectator Award of Excellence

Ling Kitchen holds consecutive Michelin Plate recognition for 2024 and 2025, making it one of the few Chinese restaurants in Austin to earn sustained Michelin attention. Located on Research Boulevard, it operates at the summit of the city's Chinese dining tier, where the price point and award pedigree place it in a different bracket from the neighborhood spots that dominate the category across Austin.

Qi

Austin, United States

Wine Spectator Award of Excellence

QUI Restaurant operates on West 6th Street in Austin, occupying a position at the sharper end of the city's fine-dining conversation. The address places it in one of Austin's most active dining corridors, where competition for attention runs high and the room itself does considerable work before a single plate arrives. For visitors tracking the city's ambitious restaurant tier, it belongs on the shortlist.

Sammie's Italian

Austin, United States

Wine Spectator Best of Award of Excellence

Sammie's Italian plants a red-sauce flag on West 6th Street, drawing on the Italian-American dining tradition that shaped neighborhood restaurants across the American Northeast and Midwest. The menu reads as a deliberate throwback: the kind of food that arrived with immigrant families and stayed because it worked. Named for the matriarch of the Joseph family, it sits in Austin's growing roster of restaurants that trade in comfort and nostalgia rather than innovation.

Also recognized by OpenTable

Siena Restaurant

Austin, United States

Wine Spectator Award of Excellence

Siena Restaurant occupies a notable address on North Capital of Texas Highway, positioning itself within Austin's maturing fine-dining tier rather than its celebrated barbecue circuit. For a city increasingly measured against coastal peers, Siena represents the quieter, European-inflected current running beneath Austin's louder culinary reputation. Reservations and planning intelligence are covered below.

The Lonesome Dove Western Bistro

Austin, United States

Wine Spectator Best of Award of Excellence

On West 6th Street, Lonesome Dove Western Bistro occupies a specific position in Austin's upscale dining tier: a wine-serious restaurant with a Star Wine List White Star designation that points to a cellar program treated with editorial rigour. The kitchen draws on the American West as a culinary reference point, making it a counterpoint to the city's smoke-driven barbecue tradition and its newer New American wave.

Also recognized by Star Wine List