Lamberts — Restaurant in Austin

A Sunday night at Lambert’s will require a reservation, however the bar upstairs and downstairs is first come first serve. The entire menu is available at the bar. Both upstairs and downstairs.

The bar has beer both on tap, local brews and well made drinks. The bartender had a very long beard so make sure you don’t end with hair in your glass.

The wait was over an hour but we decided on beers and margaritas while we waited so if you’re with good company it’s a good time to catch up.

The star at Lambert’s are the sides, the potato salad is memorable perfectly chunky and seasoned. I am a potato salad maniac and the one at Lambert’s is good.

The collard greens were also delicious, perfectly seasoned and a glorious texture.

Lambert’s also makes 3 types of sauces that are brought to your table in cute little bottles, a house sauce, a hot sauce and another sauce which I can’t remember, you will need the sauces as the brisket was dry, except for the big chunky fat piece at the bottom of the plate. They come with a little side of “curtido” a type of Mexican fermented, pickled carrots and jalapeños, I was excited about these , also really delicious. This is a staple at some Mexican restaurants, it was a pleasure to see this here. It was delicious. For the pork ribs I chose a blend of sauces because they also were a bit dry, it could have been that it was the end of the day. I did order bread and was brought a piece of white bread. Lol, that was interesting.

A must try is the banana rum pudding cake. It was perfect, the top of the rum pudding cake was lightly torched and the inside texture was heavenly, it wasn’t soggy, the texture was heavenly, try it with a cup of coffee.

Our waitress was nice and made the experience a pleasure, she was attentive without being overbearing.

Overall I would recommend, Lambert’s for the sides and dessert, maybe sit at the bar and order sides. I read they have a happy hour and would maybe come...

My friends and I went to Lamberts on our first night in Austin, in search of a great entry to barbecue in Texas! I'm a little bummed to say Lamberts missed the mark for us.

As far as the location itself, it was a generally nice building and it was really great that they had reservations available (when many barbecue places often don't). However... when arriving at the restaurant, our table wasn't ready at our reservation time so we ended up waiting for 15-20 minutes. Not really the end of the world, but it was a little disappointing, and the staff recommended that we get drinks at the bar... which would be great if there was space to hang out by the bar or in the waiting area.

Onto the actual food & drink experience: the drinks were solid and we all tried various cocktails and didn't have any bad experiences there. The food itself is one of my bigger qualms with Lamberts -- quality is OK but quantity is really not there for what you're paying. I understand the appeal of an upscale barbecue restaurant, where the ambiance is nice and you can get a table indoors, but it just didn't seem like you were remotely getting your value for money here with the food (both the main dishes and the entrees). Portions are small, and the quality is just ok, especially compared to some of the more notorious barbecue spots in Austin (which provide better taste and quantity for less $$).

Service was solid and the staff was nice overall -- they made their best efforts to overcome any challenges of the evening.

In general, I'll say you can probably find a better barbecue spot in Austin than Lamberts if you're really looking for good taste and good value for money. if you're really looking to get the ambiance of a cozy restaurant and get some decent (but expensive) barbecue, Lamberts could work just fine for...

We brought a group to Lamberts and were excited to try "bougie BBQ". What we received were small portions, high prices, mediocre quality and bad service. We ordered a bottle with orange juice on the side after the waitress insisted that the mimosas were served with champagne, but the bartender showed us that they were served with a not great sparkling wine. No problem at all - mimosas are typically served like that - but the fact that the waitress had zero knowledge of the wine menu was disappointing. Then, I went to the bar to chat with the bartender and he looked like he REALLY hated his life and didn't want to be there. We settled on a $95 bottle of better sparkling wine, which is still very expensive for not a true champagne, and since the tip was auto added due to the size of our group, the waitress decided somehow that she could add 8 "glasses" of OJ, equaling FOURTY dollars, to our tab for OJ for the mimosas. THAT WAS ONE PINT GLASS FULL OF OJ. I'm 100% not joking you - I wish I had a photo. A single pint glass. I'm sorry but that's not justifiable. Asked for the manager, she argued with me instead of just taking the silly charge off. And was really rude about it. She ended up taking 6 of the 8 off (better, but still very petty to even leave it on).

They took 45 mins to take our food order, 30 mins to bring drinks. They served all of our food except for one person who didn't get their food until right before the check came when all they had was a basic frittata (another group that was visiting at the same time - the exact same thing happened to them as well). All sides are charged al la carte. If you are going to do bougie BBQ, do it right and do it well. Don't do it...