The Restaurant
The phrase "farm-to-table" has been diluted by overuse. Dai Due refuses that dilution. Chef and author Jesse Griffiths — whose book Afield: A Chef's Guide to Preparing and Cooking Wild Game and Fish is a foundational text in the American hunting and cooking movement — built his restaurant on a premise so straightforward it borders on radical: every ingredient on the table comes from Texas. Not most of it, or the best of it, or the parts worth sourcing locally. All of it. Wild boar hunted from Texas Hill Country ranches. Antelope. Gulf shrimp. Honey from Austin-area hives. Hill Country olive oil. Texas wine. All of it sourced with the same rigor Griffiths applies to the preparation.
Dai Due at 2406 Manor Road operates as both a butcher shop and a supper club — the front of the house sells the same wild game, charcuterie, and prepared foods available in the dining room, which opens Tuesday through Sunday for dinner and on Friday through Sunday for lunch. The dining room is warm without being precious; a neighborhood spot that happens to have earned a Michelin Bib Gourmand and a Green Star. The Green Star is for sustainability practices that predate the award's existence by many years. Griffiths was doing this before it was recognized.
The menu changes with what Texas produces. In fall, wild game dominates; in summer, Gulf seafood and garden vegetables. The cold meat boards — antelope salami, wild boar and dill pickle terrine, house-cured charcuterie — are among the finest of their kind in Austin. The Wagyu burgers from Texas-raised cattle have their own devoted following. The cheese grits appear in some form on nearly every service; they are a reason to visit on their own terms.
Why It's Perfect for a Team Dinner
Dai Due's sharing format makes it the ideal team dinner venue for groups who want to eat meaningfully without the formality of a tasting menu. The charcuterie boards, the sharing plates, the roaming nature of a menu that encourages the table to order widely — all of this creates the kind of communal eating that builds rather than merely feeds a team. There is always something to discuss at Dai Due: the provenance of the boar, the region of the shrimp, the specific Texas olive oil in the salad dressing. The food is a conversation starter in the most literal sense.
For teams that travel to Austin and want to understand what the city is actually about — not the tech-bro steakhouse or the Instagram tasting menu, but the specific character of the place — Dai Due offers something those venues cannot. This is cooking that could not exist anywhere other than Texas, served in a room that reflects Austin's genuine identity rather than a branding exercise. Teams come back from Dai Due dinners with a different understanding of where they've been.
The price point — Michelin Bib Gourmand at $60–80 per person — means the budget stretch required by Hestia or Garrison is unnecessary here. The quality is Michelin-recognized. The value is exceptional. Book a long table in the main dining room and tell the kitchen how many are coming.
Signature Dishes
The cold meat board is Dai Due's most requested preparation and the correct entry point for first-time visitors. Antelope salami made in-house from Texas-hunted animals; wild boar and dill pickle terrine that demonstrates what happens when the whole animal is used with intelligence; house-cured coppa and lardo that taste of the specific diet and life of their source animals. Served with mustard, pickles, and bread from the kitchen's own program, the board tells the story of the restaurant before a word is spoken.
The smoked pork Porterhouse chop — sourced from Texas heritage breed hogs — arrives with sauerkraut fermented in-house, Bavarian-style mustard, and a chutney that provides the acid and sweetness the richness demands. It is a dish of genuine substance: large, deeply flavored, and built on an understanding of how pork tastes when the animal has been raised correctly and the cook has matched its character with equivalent intelligence.
The Wagyu burgers, available at lunch and on some dinner services, have their own devoted constituency. Texas-raised, properly seasoned, served with accompaniments that do not distract from the meat. The cheese grits — made from stone-milled Texas corn with aged Texas dairy — are the dish that converts skeptics about the seriousness of this kitchen.