ATXReview
photo credit: Richard Casteel
Fonda San Miguel
Included In
It’s easy to forget where you are when you first walk through the large, carved wooden doors at the entrance to Fonda San Miguel—an entryway that feels more like you’re walking into an epic scene from Pixar’s Coco than a Mexican restaurant just a stone’s throw away from a CVS in Allandale. An Austin institution that opened up a full year before the events of Dazed and Confused took place in 1976, it predates the original Whole Foods downtown. During an era where “Mexican food” and “Tex-Mex” were practically synonymous, Fonda San Miguel was an early introduction of “Interior Mexican food” in Austin. It’s not just one of the oldest restaurants in the city, it’s one of the cornerstones of Mexican fine dining in Austin.
photo credit: Richard Casteel
If you can enter the large foyer with the tall, vaulted glass ceiling without a semi-audible “wow” that would make Owen Wilson proud, we can only imagine you grew up in a luxurious Mexican villa or are unable to process wonder. It’s one of the most beautiful dining rooms in Austin, complete with commissioned paintings by Oaxacan artists and a hand-carved bar. The dining room is broken into a few different sections—we like to grab one of the small tables along the outer corridors for a more intimate date, or one of the bigger tables in the casual and expansive dining room when we want to impress our parents visiting from out of town. Either way, you’ll have access to the full menu of dishes pulled mostly from Oaxaca, Veracruz, and Yucatan regional specialties.
photo credit: Richard Casteel
The food here takes a more casual approach to fine dining—don’t come here for tweezered greens or habanero foams—with an execution that ranges from pretty good to great. This is where we’ve had some of the best mole in Austin—sweet, bitter, and earthy—over a bed of warm, cheesy enchiladas. Get an order of cochinita pibil, and unpack the tightly-wrapped banana leaf to reveal a bed of tender pork that smells almost as good as it tastes. And the carne asada takes the rare form of a splayed-out beef tenderloin that’s rich, savory, and among the most tender you’ve ever had. But some things, like the queso fundido, can be fairly bland and lackluster.
Dishes here feel like they’ve been worked on for decades, and many of them probably have. It’s not a place that feels like it’s trying to innovate with new dishes every week. It’s a place that feels like it decided to innovate once, 50 years ago, and just kept running with it. And that’s OK, because sometimes we don’t want a weekly changing seasonal menu. Sometimes we just want to come back to revisit some old favorites in a beautiful dining room. Fortunately for us, Fonda San Miguel isn’t going anywhere anytime soon.
Food Rundown
photo credit: Richard Casteel
Silver Coin Margarita
photo credit: Richard Casteel
Ancho Relleno San Miguel
photo credit: Richard Casteel
Carne Asada
photo credit: Richard Casteel
Cochinita Pibil
photo credit: Richard Casteel