Poeta — Restaurant in Austin

Sometimes I wish Google had a 3.5 stars option. I think the concept of July tasting menu is so great and I love the price - currently $65 for 5 courses is really a steal. The ambiance of where it's currently located at Swoop House and events is absolutely beautiful - the interior is intimate, low light in a little cute craftsman house and the outside garden area is just a beautiful area to explore while you wait for your table. The service was great (which I assume should be since 20% gratuity is automatically included on all checks). Parking is easy in this part of East Austin with free street parking/free gravel lot across from the restaurant. I loved they had a separate vegetarian tasting menu and so thankful I can enjoy the meal with my meat eating husband. Maybe I had higher expectations of the food, but I found out of the 5 dishes and the amuse bouche I had I genuinely only enjoyed 2/5 and one dish was almost inedible.

The July vegetarian menu consisted of amuse bouche with cracker with cambert cheese and cauliflower giardiniera, golden beet tartare with peach escabeche and fig leaf oil, heirloom tomato salad with melon, fermented hot sauce, and like cashew cheese sauce, ricotta ravioli served with smoked beet jus, cherry, and pumpkin seed, eggplant terrine and tiramisu for dessert. For my husband's meat menu the only difference was his tartare instead of being golden beet was salmon and instead of eggplant terrine he had lab shoulder.

The amuse bouche was wonderful, and the golden beet tartare was absolute perfection as it was served in a coconut brodo that lent a really nice and tropical flavor to the golden beet. So you can imagine why I had high expectation. The heirloom tomato salad was good - I really enjoyed the cashew cheese if you can call it that that came with it and the fermented hot sauce barely add a touch of spice so if you're afraid it's spicy don't. It wasn't spicy at all.

The ricotta ravioli was perfectly al dente and the smoked beet jus was definitely smoked, no doubt about it was very smoky. My husband couldn't quite decide if he liked it because the smoky element was little too strong, but I didn't mind it. It was nice to have the cherry with it. It's what I imagine if someone wanted to make a "dessert pasta" using ingredients that tend to be on the sweeter side (beet, cherry etc) but by adding smoky element it ensured that it remained a savory pasta dish.

The last two dishes were the biggest disappointment and why my rating is low. The eggplant terrine unfortunately was inedible due to the eggplant being like a shoe leather/tough texture and very fibrous. The eggplant was sliced thin and almost over way dehydrated/cooked to the point even using a knife it was difficult to slice through. I think of eggplant is either being silky smooth or meaty texture (like eggplant bacon), but definitely not this. The sauce it was served with was good and I loved the cucumber/labneh salad on the side of it. But I couldn't finish the dish which is saying something because I was hungry.

The tiramisu was also disappointing. No offense for an Italian restaurant, I would assume the tiramisu should be such an easy thing to make as it's one of the most famous Italian desserts. However the sponge cake, instead of being light and airy, was absolutely dense, dry, and not moist at all. Traditionally tiramisu is lady fingers soaked in espresso/amaretto so I figured it was their tiramisu with a twist but unfortunately it fell flat. The mascarpone cheese was good and though tiramisu doesn't usually have chocolate ganache, I did like the ganache. It came to the point we just ate the top of the tiramisu and left the cafe there uneaten.

Portion wise I found the portions to be a little smaller than preferred (as reference I am 4'8" 115 lbs), but I didn't find myself overly full after the meal.

So in summary could I recommend Poeta? For space/ambiance/service yes. But for food, their tasting menu would have to be completely different for me...

I've been putting off writing this review for so long because it's been difficult to continue thinking about the experience we had at the end of July. First, I would start off by saying if you are expecting food, service, or any aspect close to Intero - this does not meet the mark.

It takes me a long time to decide where to eat for my birthday as it only comes once a year. When I saw the people behind Intero opened a new restaurant, I knew this had to be the place to try this year. My birthday was on a Saturday and we expected to have trouble with parking, but parking was actually very easy to find as long as you follow the map and instructions on their website.

When we got inside to the restaurant, the host was friendly and they even placed a little Happy Birthday sign at the table. The second we sat down we knew it was not the best choice because of the absurd noise level. At the time I made the reservation no one had said anything about it on other reviews, but if you want to be able to have an intimate dinner and be able to hear your partner, this is not the place. We were practically yelling at each other to be heard.

When our waitress came over, my husband asked how many items people typically order as it was our first time here, and we weren't sure how large the portions were. The waitress thought he asked how much people spend. We were mortified as price was no issue to us; we just didn't want to order too little or too much. He clarified and asked about portion size and when she answered she still proceeded to tell us a dollar amount. It was so embarrassing because there was no need to tell us about a price when we clarified that we didn't ask that. It pretty much went downhill from there.

We ordered mozzarella and mortadella to start but only received mozzarella. At first we thought the mortadella would come next, but we were still finishing the mozzarella when the fried artichokes arrived so at that point we didn't want to bring up the mortadella because we didn't want to switch back to antipasti after eating an appetizer. We also noticed all the other people that ordered antipasti received bread. We did not receive any.

We are italian and have had fresh mozzarella so many times, and this was not good. It was thick, dry, and covered in mushrooms in some type of vinegar. The fried artichokes tasted like fry oil which was a shame because the texture was good. The gnocchi with braised lamb was fine, but the marjoram left bitter unpleasant notes in each bite.

When it came time for our final course, the branzino, we received a pork chop. We told our server we didn't order that and she looked so confused and suggested we have that instead. We just wanted what we ordered. We eventually got the branzino and our server apologized but at that point we were ready to leave. I guess maybe we should've just ate the pork chop because the branzino filet was one of the worst dishes I've ever eaten in my life. The saffron brodo was saturating everything on the plate and tasted somehow bitter, acidic, and very heavy at the same time. It took everything in our power to eat it because we don't like wasting food. Our server then asked us about dessert and said it was on them because it was my birthday. At that point, we just really wanted to leave but she insisted, so we got tiramisu to go. The tiramisu was fine, nothing to rave about. Someone else had brought us out chocolates which were very good and gave a hint that Intero was in there somewhere, but unfortunately not during our entire dining experience. I will be back to Intero some day, but will definitely not...

Intero has long been one of my favorite restaurants in Austin, so I was super excited to hear that their team was opening a new spot. I was finally able to make it out for dinner. Had a reservation and so getting seated was no problem.

Our waitress was friendly and on first impressions it was a pretty nice spot.

We ordered a couple of cocktails to start...I can't remember the names but they were both fine, a little pricey.

For food, we had the chicken liver mousse, the arancini, the beet salad, the cappelletti, and the pork chop.

The mousse came first and the arancini shortly after. The mousse was really tasty and had a great smooth texture. The saltiness of the mousse was offset very well by the golden raisin mostarda that came with it. I also appreciated that the waitress offered us more bread without us having to ask, as it comes with only 3 half slices of ciabatta for a fairly good portion of mousse.

The arancini came next, and this was also a success. They were fried really well, not greasy, and were not too big so that you got a good ratio of crispy outside to rice inside. The pine nut ragu was a really nice accompaniment.

At this point is when things started to go downhill. We waited for quite awhile before any more food came out. At first I thought, "maybe they're coursing the two mains and beet salad together so the salad is kind of a side dish." But no, after what felt like a good 20 minutes the beet salad finally came out alone. It was tasty but unremarkable. Somewhere during this time we had also ordered another drink which by the time the salad had been basically finished, had not arrived. The waitress came to check on us and asked if we needed anything and I asked about the cocktail. Turns out she forgot to put in the order so she comped it for us, which was nice.

Again another fairly decent wait for the mains. At this point the restaurant seemed pretty busy. It made me think that the kitchen was probably understaffed/in the weeds. We noticed the tables around us were waiting for quite awhile to get food as well.

Finally the pork chop and cappelletti arrived. The good news first, the cappelletti was fantastic. It was very generously filled with crab and super flavorful. Definitely the better of the two mains.

The pork chop on the other hand tasted like it had been brined too long...it was really salty and the texture of the meat was unpleasantly kind of mushy (probably from being brined too long). It was also overcooked and served almost room temp like it had sat on the pass for awhile before being served.

For dessert, we had the coconut sorbet. And again, we had to wait for what felt like a really long time. We actually were about to tell them not to bother and just give us the check, but it finally did come. It was pretty good, not too sweet. It tasted like it could have been a Thai-style dessert.

We finally got our check. Our sorbet had been comped too, I assume because they realized how long it took for it to get served? But no one mentioned anything to us.

Finally, the place is REALLY loud when it's busy. I could barely hear my own conversation, and could clearly hear the convos of the two tables sitting on either side of me. The acoustics of the place just aren't the best if you're looking for a quite or intimate night out. If you are, I'd suggest somewhere else.

Overall I have to say I was disappointed. I LOVE Intero, so I wanted this place to be an extension of that. As it stands I'd go back to try their lunch/brunch menu, but if it comes to dinner, I'd rather just...