Food-o-File
Cuisines editor Virginia B. Wood on the year that was in Austin's culinary life.
By Virginia B. Wood, Fri., Jan. 5, 2001
That Was the Year That Was
Whoo-oo-oo-sh, that was the year 2000 whizzing by, leaving in its wake a host of new Austin restaurants, well-deserved and long in coming national recognition for our local culinary scene, and higher restaurant prices everywhere we dined. Reviewing the top food stories of the past year, the biggest news still has to be the unprecedented growth in the number of local restaurants. There was the Italian/Mediterranean boom, a flurry of regional chain/franchise activity that brought everything from stone crab to doughnuts, and an even more diverse selection of ethnic cafes and markets. The last time we saw an expansion anywhere near this size was one sparked by the real estate boom of the early-to-mid-Eighties. Any restaurateur who has been in business 15 years or more remembers that growth spurt and can also tell you about the subsequent slump that saw restaurants closing all over town. I certainly don't want to inject a note of pessimism into the local business climate but having been raised in the classic "boom and bust" cycle of the West Texas oil patch, any prolonged expansion in a market always has me looking around the next corner for the sure-to-follow contraction. I am seriously concerned about just how many upscale restaurants the Austin market is capable of supporting. Does an all-time high in local real estate prices coupled with low unemployment figures and a national slowdown in tech stocks mean some new eateries will suffer or will it be older, more established places that fade as the public pursues new interests? Or could it be that I'm worrying needlessly and there's still plenty of business to support all comers? Let's all hope for the latter.
Enough of the perilous prognostications and on to much happier topics. 2000 will go down as the year the Austin culinary scene finally began to garner some much deserved national media attention. Stories in The New York Times touted Austin restaurants and our burgeoning wine scene. Television Food Network shows such as "Ready, Set, Cook" and "Bobby Flay's Cooking Across America" filmed segments in Austin. Both food and general interest magazines with national and regional audiences "discovered" Austin in 2000, with everyone from Gourmet, Bon Appetit, and Saveur to Kitchen Garden and Ladies' Home Journal featuring coverage of Austin food businesses. Our own beloved Boggy Creek Farm made Saveur's annual list of their 100 favorite food people, places, and things, garnered a mention in the final issue of Kitchen Garden, and will be hosting photographers from Southern Living any day now. Zoot, Jeffrey's, Vespaio, and Cisco's were named as some of the top restaurants in Texas in the annual Gourmet magazine restaurant poll. Though attention from Bon Appetit and a featured recipe in Ladies' Home Journal happened after Rather Sweet Bakery closed locally, the media attention made it possible for baker Rebecca Rather to keep her business name alive and successfully relocate it to Fredericksburg. The coming year should be another good one for national exposure. The editorial staff at Food & Wine was calling around town last month for information on the hottest new chefs in town and food editors from two large regional newspapers e-mailed me for lists of restaurants to check out on upcoming visits. And who knows, the national spotlight on Austin due to the Bush presidency may be very good for someone besides local political writers; it could benefit some Austin restaurants and caterers, as well. The buzz around town is that a local caterer/event planner will accompany the Bushes to Washington.
