The Room
Foreign & Domestic opened on East 53rd Street in 2010 — Ned and Jodi Elliott building the room as a small chef-driven dining room with an unusually serious commitment to comfort food cooked at fine-dining technique. Sarah Heard and Nathan Lemley took over the kitchen in 2017, renamed the menu while keeping its DNA, and have run the room ever since. The Michelin Texas guide assigned a Bib Gourmand on the inaugural list.
The dining room is small, intentional, and arranged around an open kitchen at the back wall. Twenty-eight seats. A small bar at the front. The North Loop neighbourhood has its own register — independent, art-school, low-volume — and Foreign & Domestic is the dining-room expression of it. The room books out at 7pm on Saturdays a fortnight in advance; the bar runs walk-in until about six on most evenings.
The Food
The popovers are the menu's calling card — three to a basket, served warm with a small ramekin of smoked-trout butter, the dish that has been on the menu since opening and that the kitchen will not allow to leave. Every diner gets popovers. The seasonal vegetable plates, the rotating pasta, the wood-fired entrées — all read as comfort food cooked with the discipline of a tasting-menu kitchen. The Sunday supper at $55 per person, a single entrée plus three sides, is the order for a first visit.
Wine programme is small and considered, weighted toward Loire, Italy and Texas Hill Country, with an honest by-the-glass programme. Cocktail bench is short — three classics, two rotating — and the bartenders make every drink to specification. Service is informed without being scripted. The kitchen will make adjustments for dietary restrictions without making them a performance.
Best Occasion Fit
Birthday: Birthdays at Foreign & Domestic are warm, popover-led, neighbourhood-Italian-in-spirit affairs that the room handles with the rare grace of a dining room that is not pretending to be more than it is. The corner two-top is the seat to request. The kitchen will sign the menu and present a small dessert without ceremony.
First Date: The bar at Foreign & Domestic is one of North Loop's most reliable first-date seats. The popover programme is the natural opener, the by-the-glass wine list is interesting enough to extend the conversation, and the room's neighbourhood register makes the bill at $80 a head feel honest.
Solo Dining: The bar at Foreign & Domestic is one of the better Austin solo-dining seats. The kitchen's view from the bar is the conversation, the popovers arrive without being asked for, and the staff treat the diner of one with the same care a four-top receives.