The Room
Apothecary opened in Crestview in 2010 — a small wine-bar-and-cafe operation that has aged into the neighbourhood's most-enduring evening dining counter. The room runs all day from 11am to 11pm, with the format shifting from a casual-cafe lunch through an afternoon glass-of-wine programme into a serious evening cocktail-and-small-plates service.
The Austin Chronicle has named Apothecary in its top-twenty Crestview dining rooms across multiple list cycles. The wine programme — small-producer, low-intervention, weighted toward Loire and Italy — has earned the room a regular-rotation address for the neighbourhood-wine crowd.
The Food
The small-plates menu runs Mediterranean-leaning — a charcuterie board, a daily-changing salad, a small pasta, a seasonal vegetable plate. The Sunday supper at $35 per person — a single-format three-course menu — is the order for a first visit. The cheese programme is the way in.
Wine programme is the room's centre of gravity. Two hundred bottles, almost entirely small-producer, with an honest by-the-glass programme rotated weekly. Cocktail bench is short and aperitivi-led.
Best Occasion Fit
Solo Dining: The bar at Apothecary is one of the better Austin solo-dining seats for the casual register. The bartender will run the wine programme without ceremony, the small-plates menu fills the meal, the bill at $40 a head reads as honest.
First Date: The bar at Apothecary is one of Crestview's most-reliable first-date seats. The wine programme is the conversation, the small-plates menu shares well, and the room's neighbourhood-wine-bar register reads as warm without becoming pretentious.
Birthday: Birthdays at Apothecary are wine-led, small-plates-friendly, neighbourhood-wine-bar affairs the room handles with the practiced ease of a fifteen-year-old wine-bar operation.