The Room
Eberly is the most architecturally distinct dining-bar in Austin and one of the most-historic dining-room objects in the American South. The mahogany bar at the centre of the room — a forty-foot, two-tier, brass-railed nineteenth-century object — was reassembled from the original Cedar Tavern at 24 University Place in Greenwich Village, the bar that hosted the New York School painters Pollock, de Kooning and Kline through the late 1950s. When the Cedar Tavern closed in 2006, the bar was disassembled, crated, shipped to Austin and rebuilt inside a 1940s former tire warehouse on South Lamar.
The result is a two-room property: the Cedar Tavern Room at the front, dominated by the historic bar and operating as a serious cocktail-and-small-plates room, and the Jeffrey Whyte Dining Room at the back, a more formal dining space running the kitchen's modern-American carte. Eberly opened in 2016 and has since become the South Lamar address that visiting writers and historians make pilgrimage to. The kitchen has earned its share of attention separately.
The Food
The kitchen runs a modern-American carte built on Texas Hill Country sourcing — a wood-grilled half-chicken with seasonal vegetables, a pan-roasted Gulf snapper with Hill Country tomato, a 28-day-aged ribeye with bone marrow that has been on the menu since opening. The crudo and oyster programmes at the Cedar Tavern bar handle the small-plate end. The seasonal four-course at $85 per person is the order for a first visit and rotates monthly with the Texas farm calendar.
The cocktail programme at the historic bar runs a serious classic-cocktail bench — a working Manhattan, a properly built Sazerac, a Negroni programme that runs eight variations on the form — and the bar's history is its own argument. Wine list is American-heavy with a serious California Pinot bench. Service is informed about both the kitchen and the bar's history; the staff will narrate the bar's provenance if asked and run the kitchen's seasonal at the right pace.
Best Occasion Fit
First Date: The Cedar Tavern bar at Eberly is one of South Lamar's most architecturally interesting first-date seats. The bar's history is the conversation, the small-plates programme at the bar shares well, and the room's lighting reads as warm without becoming theatrical. Plan to walk to the back dining room for the second course if the night extends.
Birthday: Birthdays in the Jeffrey Whyte Dining Room are formal-but-warm, four-course-led affairs that the room handles with the practiced ease of a kitchen running the seasonal at the right register. The corner two-top is the seat to request. The kitchen will sign the menu without ceremony.
Close a Deal: The Jeffrey Whyte Dining Room is the South Lamar deal-dinner alternative for the meeting that wants the room to read as historic-American rather than steakhouse-classic. The bar's provenance is the introduction, the four-course tasting closes the deal, and the wine programme is the closer.