Has fine dining finally come to Austin?
You can’t help but have high expectations of a restaurant in the swankiest new residence tower in Austin, with an executive chef with an Iron Chef appearance on his resume, and a price tag that that rivals your car payment.
The road to hell is paved with good intentions. We originally intended to only visit Bar Congress and save Congress proper for a special occasion, but we allowed ourselves to get excited by the menu next door and made a reservation on the fly for 45 min later. We sat in Bar Congress with a cocktail until our 8:30 reservation. Surprisingly when 8:30 came and went, we didn’t hear from anyone at Congress. We stepped over about 8:50 and were told our table wasn’t quite ready – would we like to have a cocktail in the bar while we waited? After we explained that we had just come from there, the hostess re-checked on our table and sat us promptly.
When you enter Congress restaurant from Bar Congress, the atmosphere immediately changes. You don’t feel like you are in Austin anymore - it actually felt more like Las Vegas based on the hostess in the silver sequined short shorts and black tights. The room is inviting and simple, with soft white tweed booths and comfortable chairs. The high ceilings and modern chandeliers give the room and elegant feel without becoming stuffy. The noise level is a touch louder than I’d like for this experience and we didn’t hear the background music until much later in the evening when the room cleared out.
After being seated at a booth, our server asked if we wanted a cocktail or to see the wine list. I requested the wine list and a bottle of sparkling water. She dropped the wine list by and we perused that for 10 minutes or so before she reappeared and asked if we’d found a bottle we’d like to order. To me, ordering a bottle of wine before knowing what you are going to order to eat is kind of like salting your food before you try it. We had actually already decided in the Bar that we would do the big dog tasting menu with wine pairings, but at this point she hadn’t even offered the menu yet.
I get giddy over great menus. The tasting with wine pairings was our obvious choice, but the 3-course option has so many intriguing items on it that even with Ben and I sharing different items, we couldn’t have tried everything that jumped out at us. What really got us in trouble were the “add-on” items. As if $145 apiece wasn’t enough, we just had to order an add-on of fresh Santa Barbara uni with two glasses of sake to start. That little starter combo cost us about $42 extra.
The amuse bouche arrived before we had any wine or sake which was unfortunate, but the amuse bouche was beautiful. A parsnip custard with a delicate foam on top. The custard was creamy and savory, and the foam had just the right amount of salt to balance out the richness. A wonderful indicator of the food to come.
The sake and uni arrived next. Congress has Divine Droplets by the glass on their menu which is arguably one of the best sakes with a beautiful noise and great balance. In the first few bites of the uni dish, the uni was overwhelmed by a sweetness that I couldn’t pinpoint. That sweetness also wiped out the fruit in the sakes which negated that pairing. A few more bites in, we discovered that the sweetness was coming from the uni meringue, not the cauliflower panna cotta underneath. The panna cotta and sake were much better pairings once we were beyond the meringue.
The next course was the first official course in the tasting. American ossetra on a carrot citrus mousse. The mousse was fabulous and the caviar was generous portion. However I would prefer them separately. After tasting it together as intended, we both determined that the sweetness of the carrot was a bit much for the caviar. I give Chef credit for trying a new combination, but the ossetra was better on its own or perhaps with a more traditional pairing. Personally I think the carrot mousse would be an incredible backdrop for Chef Bull’s short ribs which are available several ways on his menus.
So in the first three courses we had a custard, a panna cotta, and a mousse. All amazing on their own, but perhaps not paired in a way that showed off the star of the dish (the uni and caviar). And that is where my criticisms of Chef’s dishes stop. From here on out, his dishes and flavor pairings were beyond reproach. In fact, utterly incredible.
The second tasting course was a deconstructed avocado tomato salad with burrata cheese. This dish really showcased the quality of the individual ingredients and put them together in a way where they were truly more than the sum of their parts. Even my husband, who rarely gets excited about salads in a restaurant, especially not as part of fine dining, couldn’t stop talking about how impressed he was with this dish. A Gruner Veltliner was poured with this salad and the crisp wine worked nicely with the acid of the tomatoes and creaminess of the avocado. Admittedly, although I’m a truffle fiend, I never got any hint of the truffled vinaigrette and I never missed it.
Course three was salmon belly tataki. I don’t know when I’ve had salmon so tender and flavorful. I loved this preparation. Each bite literally melted in your mouth. This was plated with red Thai chiles. A word to the wise – avoid the chiles at all costs! They look pretty on the plate but are hot enough to ruin your palate for the remainder of the dish. Unfortunately this dish was paired with a white Burgundy that wasn’t quite a match. The wine was too stark and acidic. A fuller, rounder Burgundy like a Montrachet would have been a better choice.
The salmon was followed by a short rib ravioli. I adore short ribs period. Simply presented without a heavy sauce and with brioche breadcrumbs on top, which brought a beautiful sweetness to the ravioli. This dish was served with a red wine from the Douro. When this wine was initially poured, we agonized over whether it had oxidized, or if it was just the style of the wine. The server accommodated us and opened a fresh bottle which initially presented much better. Sadly as it opened, it began to exhibit the same undesirable characteristics as the first pour. Again, not a great pairing and not a great wine. The ravioli deserved better.
The final savory course of the tasting menu was an espresso rubbed ribeye cap with a potato puree and caramel sauce. The spice rub on the meat was phenomenal – dark and smoky. The ribeye was cooked perfectly (we learned later it was done sous vide) and was extremely tender. The caramel sauce was a fun match to the steak (kind of a “caramel macchiato” with the espresso rub), but did interfere with the wine a bit. The potatoes were buttery and well seasoned. I also appreciate that this was not the typical huge hunk of meat you tend to get at the end of a tasting menu. The portion was consistent with other dishes and made sense for the amount of courses presented.
Two dessert courses were scheduled to follow. This is where we went off the board - we were enjoying the food so much we just weren’t quite ready for dessert. We had seen Chef Bull in the dining room and were able to say hello earlier in the meal. At this point in the evening the dining room was beginning to empty out, so we asked our server if Chef could insert an extra savory course in for us. Chef came out, and we talked a bit about some of the other items on the 3-course menu that sounded interesting such as the veal, the sweetbreads, and some of the fishes. He agreed to make something additional and soon out came two dishes that may have been some of the best and most creative of the evening.
I was served the veal steak and the veal cheek over veal sweetbreads. The cheek pulled apart easily with my fork and was simply incredible with the sweetbreads. I sometimes find veal steak to be boring or bland, but this one was cooked rare and was flavorful and rich. A wonderful dish.
Ben was served a massive piece of seared foie gras, a piece of escolar wrapped in chicken skin (how fun is that?!) with what appeared to be a side of Israeli couscous. The fish was tender and moist, and the seared foie…well, it’s seared foie which is by definition decadent. The team also pulled together a quick wine pairing for each. A Rhone for my veal, which was quite good, and a Dolcetto for the fish and foie – not such a great match or great wine. Kudos and thanks to Chef for pulling together two items off menu that really topped off our meal.
As we were quite stuffed at that point, we opted to get only one of each dessert course and share versus the two that the tasting menu included. The first was the cheese with lavender accompaniments paired with a Madeira, and the second a strawberry shortcake and ice cream paired with a light Piedmont dessert wine. Both petite in size but a beautiful ending to the meal.
From a food standpoint, Bull has mastered fine dining. What keeps Congress from elevating to the status of fine dining restaurants in established food cities is the service and execution. A few comments to illustrate: First, kudos to the water and bread guy. He kept our water glasses full and brought bread quickly every time we asked. The problem was that we had to keep asking. The bread was a small buttery muffin accompanied by a small dish of butter (soft butter, thank goodness!). Gone in a few bites and leaving you wanting more. But no more appeared until we asked. On three separate occasions. Hint – we like the bread. Keep it coming! And once the expediter did pour still water into my sparkling.
As foodies, one of the things we really enjoy about dining is learning about what we are eating, what we are drinking, and how/why they are put together. The server was sparse in her descriptions of the dishes she brought – pretty much regurgitating what was on the menu. She also poured the wine. On a Saturday night I’d have expected a sommelier or wine steward to be handling the wine and talking about it. Apparently the som was sick that evening with no backup, so therefore we got the bare minimum of information about what we were drinking. Often not even the dominant grape in a blend was known or communicated, and certainly nothing relating to characteristics or what the pairing was supposed to achieve. On one occasion, the server even poured the wine and left without saying a word. We had to call her back and specifically ask her to bring the bottle so we could see what we were drinking. Also, the pours were a bit scant. I appreciate the restaurant not wanting to get their clientele overly drunk during a seven plus course meal, but I hate feeling like I have to take ultra tiny sips to avoid running out of wine before my course is finished.
Interestingly at the end of the evening we had the opportunity to chat with a gentleman in a hat that we had seen working the room. He was a managing partner and spent about 20 minutes and a glass of rose sparkling with us at the conclusion of our meal. He was very receptive to our feedback and expressed his challenges. Although I appreciate the potential obstacles of fine dining in a casual town like Austin where professional servers are virtually nonexistent, if you are charging a couple well over $300-400 for a meal, I think we have the right to expect the service to be as high of quality as the food. The server should pay attention and adapt their behavior to the needs of the table, rather than doing the bare minimum consistently. In my opinion, the best restaurants have waitstaff that anticipate their customers’ needs and adapt their style to their patrons.
In summary, Congress is an experience worth your time and perhaps even worth the money based on Chef Bull’s food prowess. However it still has some kinks to work out on the service side and in the wine execution. Fine dining in Austin? Close.
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