At Lenoir, a chic little south-side bistro, Todd Duplechan’s self-styled “hot climate” cuisine traces the links between Texas and other sunbaked regions like North Africa, Spain, India, and Southeast Asia. The idea is to serve food suited for sultry locales: lighter, spicier, brightly acidic dishes, prepared with a minimum of butter, cream, and gluten. In Duplechan’s cooking, far- fetched flavors accent near-fetched ingredients, from a jerk quail with pecan butter and persimmon to an Indian dosa with seared antelope heart and Ethiopian berbere. It’s fusion cooking, essentially, executed with rigor, restraint, and a clear sense of purpose.
Actually, that part about Austin being an island in the sea of Texas? Never really true, says Ben Edgerton, co-owner of Contigo. “Austin is the only place in the country where I can wear my cowboy hat into a hipster bar and not get a second look,” he says. “Anywhere else? They’d laugh me right out of the joint.” The San Antonio native spent five years in the New York advertising world before returning to Austin to try his luck in restaurants. “My East Coast friends would all say, ‘Oh, I love Austin! But it’s not really Texas.’ So I had to set them straight,” he says. “Because Texas is exactly why Austin is what it is—that frontier mentality, that connection to the hills and the plains, the Panhandle and the Gulf. You couldn’t just transplant it to Oregon or upstate New York.”
Certainly Contigo could only exist here. Tucked away in a suburban enclave off Manor Road, it feels like a portal to the Texas Brush Country. (The name is shared with the Edgerton family’s hunting ranch, near Corpus Christi.) Shrouded by cedar elms, warmed by a fire pit, aglow with twinkling lights, Contigo’s backyard is the scene for a nightly urban ranch party. Chef-partner Andrew Wiseheart’s cooking fits the setting to a T-for-Texas, with small plates that go big on lusty, offal-y goodness (house-cured coppa, pork-liver pâté), livened with higher-pitched, unexpected accents. There are crisp-fried green beans to dip in spicy sambal aioli; superb ox-tongue sliders offset with pickled green tomatoes; and a chili-dusted chicharrón paired with bracing kimchi. The ear-shattering crrrrrruuunnnncchh of the pork cracklings is so loud you feel almost embarrassed to take another bite. Catch the rest of Peter Jon Lindberg’s article at Travel + Leasure.
Article source: Peter Jon Lindberg for Travel + Leasure
Photo source: J. KENJI LÓPEZ-ALTP
