Josephine House — Restaurant in Austin

Went here for Valentine’s Day and my husband got food poisoning from this place. I felt fine and figured I would give it one more try, so I went here with my friends to celebrate one of my milestones a few months later. You cannot beat the central Austin, prime location, and this place is beautiful, trendy, and classy. I wanted to love this place. But this second time, I got sick from my meal. All of the food was underwhelming for all guests both times, and the food poisoning twice can not be a coincidence. So sad it did not work out because this place is charming and the location is unparalleled. Also the easy street parking was my favorite. Overall, it is very expensive, and consistent in that multiple people got sick multiple times from Josephine House. No bueno. (I suspect it has to do with the way they are storing their food, as during my meal, it looked like employees were going to the storage room which is built into the parking lot and getting the meat and fish from there. I am assuming this can be fixed, so I really hope my review helps change things!

Lastly - customer service was not great both times, and the last time I came it was not as busy as V day of course. Employees did not seem happy to be there, were not positive or attentive which is sad especially for a higher end restaurant. :( Have been here for dinner and brunch - ordered appetizers, entrees, desert, alcoholic beverages as well as tea...

West Lynn is a pretty part of Austin. Josephine house is a pretty restaurant in a pretty part of Austin. I felt pretty just sitting there sipping my golden milk tea ( which has no milk nor tea.)

The food was hit or miss for me, but overall enjoyable. It’s an excellent place to come and have a cup of wine, a nice cocktail or one of their many decaffeinated herbal drinks.

I had the brussels sprouts and shishito peppers to start. I loved it as a Shishito pepper dish. I could’ve done without the Brussels. I didn’t think they added anything, for me.

I had the curry octopus as my main. I love the curry, the roasted tomatoes, the salad, and the butter that it came with. The flavor on the octopus was great, but for me, the texture was off. There is something oddly fatty about this octopus to me (that may be a “me” thing, though.) I would eat the roast tomato curry salad with butter that I had every day - that was exquisite.

I feel like this place would shine at brunch.

The service was fine, but that’s all I could say about it. Frankly it was a little bit beneath what I was expecting given the area, ambience, and the price point. If I were at the local coffee shop across the street or even the galaxy Café, the service would’ve made more sense to me.

There is no parking to speak of only four seats at the bar maybe 20 inside 30 if you’re being generous. The outside seating makes up for 2/3...

Very cute place, but disappointed with how they handle reservations and their wait list.

I called ahead to see if it would be possible to be seated as a walk in- the individual stated that reservations are full, but there is currently no wait list.

We showed up and we’re told that the wait list is 2 hours long .Now this is a restaurant group- so it sounded like the individual on the phone was at an HQ office if some sort and not at the restaurant. So perhaps that explains the disconnect. But as out of towners- this was a major inconvenience because we ubered here.

We would have loved to have a table but they were able to fit us in at the bar that’s a little cramped and by the crowded entrance. But what really disappointed us was that two individuals came in right after us without reservations. The hostess explained they have a wait list- but to give her one minute. Lo and behold she comes back and says that they can fit these two individuals outside at a table.

The absolute last thing I want to do is pull the race card- but I couldn’t help that notice that these were two white women who they were able to accommodate, whereas me and my partner of color were denied an actual table.

I sincerely hope this was just a mix up on their part. On the bright side- out bartender was excellent. It’s just unfortunate that the blatant unfairness left a bad taste...