
Every calendar year, we have the honor of celebrating Austin’s dynamic culinary scene at our yearly CultureMap Tastemaker Awards.

In the course of the spring, we have introduced you to our gifted group of 2022 nominees, who have been chosen by marketplace specialists and earlier winners, and who signify the best of the city’s cafe and bar choices right now. Just after months of anticipation (and a heated Greatest New Restaurant match), it’s time to unveil this year’s winners.

On April 28, we gathered with nominees, marketplace specialists, and the Austin group for the 2022 CultureMap Tastemaker Awards at Truthful Market place. Visitors savored specialty bites from taking part nominees, sipped an array of delightful drinks, and then tuned in for the coveted awards ceremony exactly where Alamo Drafthouse legend Tim League discovered this year’s winners.

Join us in boosting a toast to the 2022 CultureMap Austin Tastemaker Awards winners. Satisfy them under.
Restaurant of the 12 months: Cuantos Tacos

There are few points Austinites cherish far more than a straightforward, scrumptious taco — and this eye-catching yellow foods truck parked on the east facet is absolutely delivering the merchandise. With a mouthwatering menu of Mexico Metropolis-style avenue tacos, Cuantos Tacos does not hold again when it comes to exacting seasoning, meaty ingredients, and basic Mexican flavors. Popular favorites like barbacoa, brisket, and carnitas tacos are must-haves, but a lot of a community taco connoisseur has identified themselves seduced by Cuantos Tacos’ most likely unfamiliar nevertheless tantalizing tacos featuring delicacies like pork stomach (buche), Mexican chorizo (longaniza), and beef cheek (cachete), and rightfully so. Each individual dish on this tiny but delightful menu is worth devouring.
Chef of the Yr: Edgar Rico, Nixta Taqueria

If there’s been 1 chef’s identify on Austinites’ lips for the previous pair many years, it is surely Edgar Rico. With the opening of his vital east aspect taqueria, Nixta, in 2019, the Culinary Institute of The united states-properly trained chef launched this taco-obsessed town to the historic corn-tortilla-earning approach of nixtamalization (which has considering that grow to be all the rage at several a Cash City taco household) and made an speedy splash in a town that was by now property to dozens of taquerias. He says Nixta is the end result of what food items usually means to him: “imaginative creations that are steeped in technique, background, custom, and finesse.” People finessed creations have not gone unnoticed by Austin taco lovers or extolled culinary establishments, which include the James Beard Basis, which lately named Rico a James Beard Award finalist in the Rising Chef category.
Bar of the Calendar year: Tiki Tatsu-Ya

If the island life is your jam and you embrace the life’s-a-beach mentality, there’s no will need to swim towards the tide, as Austin is property to what we’ll deem the best tiki bar this facet of Polynesia. But what else would you anticipate from the ground breaking culinary professionals at the rear of the universally liked Tatsu-Ya cafe group? Delight in some rum-ahead concoctions, or dive right on in to the kitschy tiki cocktails, like the Slurping Bastard — served in a wonderful chalice that bears a placing resemblance to any Ramen Tatsu-Ya consumer in mid ramen slurp — or the Stranded on Saturn gin cocktail, the Cobra Kai, or the banana-ahead Forbidden Grog. Or make the whole table delighted with a Banzai Boat of shooters.
Climbing Star Chef of the Year: Amanda Turner, Olamaie

If you have dined out in this city in the earlier ten years or so, you’ve very likely had the pleasure of devouring any number of chef Amanda Turner’s beautiful dishes. A maestro of a selection of cuisines, from Italian, modern day American, and even Japanese (she interned at dining establishments in Japan for quite a few months), Turner slice her tooth at celebrated Austin institutions like Juniper, Odd Duck, Uchi and Uchiko, and Jester King. But it is her placement as chef de cuisine at lauded eatery Olamaie that has catapulted her into a new culinary realm. She was even not long ago named a James Beard Award semifinalist in the Emerging Chef class for her get the job done at Olamaie. With the restaurant’s seasonal menu of gorgeously introduced New American fare, Turner is in her culinary factor — and will no question proceed to accumulate a lot more accolades — and Austin diners get to reap the delectable rewards.
Pastry Chef of the 12 months: Susana Querejazu, Lutie’s

Just one of Eater’s former Youthful Guns, Susana Querejazu has definitely shot forward among the ranks of pastry cooks in Austin. The government pastry chef at the Commodore Perry Estate and its back garden cafe, Lutie’s, has contributed to some of the city’s most influential restaurants: Enoteca Vespaio and Vespaio Ristorante, Uchi and Uchiko, Odd Duck and Barley Swine. Querejazu left Austin in 2017 on a temporary hiatus with her spouse, govt chef Bradley Nicholson, to branch out creatively in the kitchen area. As Nicholson adjusted jobs, so as well did the multitalented Querejazu, who labored as an assistant sommelier and pastry sous chef (including some time at Michelin-starred cafe Saison in San Francisco). No make any difference exactly where she is, Querejazu is an authority on the excellent lamination of croissants, and she loves implementing that knowledge to very good results in by organizing charity bake gross sales.
Bartender of the 12 months: Cory Starr, Tiki Tatsu-Ya

When Tiki Tatsu-Ya arrived in Austin final October, this topic park of a bar designed its individual area of interest. Our Bar of the Year winner in its first yr, it in no way misses an prospect to dazzle in the campiest way feasible. Beverage manager Cory Starr dove straight into that excess with 200 bottles of rum, reported the Austin Chronicle. Tackling maybe the most extensively acknowledged (and large handed) genre in mixology, Starr’s solid feeling of tiki whimsy is well balanced by impeccable recipe-creating competencies honed around five many years in Hualalai.
Best New Restaurant: Wax Myrtle’s

Wax Myrtle’s, the new indoor-outdoor cafe and bar at Austin’s Thompson Lodge house, presents anything a summer time pool lounger calls for: coated cabanas, an oversized fire, regular monthly programming, a menu of up to date American delicacies, and loads of curated cocktails. The Wax Myrtle’s menu incorporates fantastic pool treats (we’re seeking at you, charred octopus skewer), as effectively as heartier fare like burgers, pork chops, and beef ribs. And with an considerable menu of cocktails, beer, and wine, Wax Myrtle’s supplies every thing you need to whilst absent an afternoon by the pool.
Community Restaurant of the Yr: Greater Half Espresso & Cocktails

Parked squarely amid the hustle and bustle of downtown Austin, this West Fifth Avenue warm location could have effortlessly light into its noisy surroundings and develop into just an additional flash in the pan. Thankfully, for neighborhood locals who value both a energetic early morning meal and a lip-smacking night burger with a aspect of pastrami-loaded queso and a handful of rigid cocktails, this all-day cafe is below to continue to be. This neighborhood joint not long ago up-to-date its menu, rolling out tempting new dishes like crispy pork tummy with refried black-eyed peas, and shrimp and crab-finger orzotto, a must-have risotto-type plate. Of training course, we won’t fault you if you opt for the traditional jalapeño-honey-butter-drenched hen biscuit.
Wine Program of the Yr: Birdie’s

This new East Austin cafe and natural wine bar has experienced locals buzzing given that it opened in the summer time of 2021, many thanks in component to its amazing wine listing, which contains a mix of classics and new producers with an emphasis on “mindful farming and negligible intervention in the cellar.” Created to evolve with chef Tracy Malechek-Ezekiel’s European-motivated foods menu, the wine list operates the gamut from sparkling wines and Champagnes to an array of whites, oranges, rosés, and tons of luscious reds. This family members-run neighborhood place also serves up an abundance of off-checklist wine gems showcasing really hard-to-obtain bottles, so be sure to interact the enlightened employees about the many offered selections.
Brewery of the Year: Meanwhile Brewing Co.

This neighborhood-oriented South Austin brewery and taproom debuted in the Cash City in late 2020, and in spite of acquiring its roots in the Portland beer realm, Meanwhile has entrenched by itself in the Austin scene, becoming a go-to place for locals trying to find a planet-course beer to swig amongst a sweeping out of doors house that features a stage and gatherings location, a soccer field, and loads of shady places to kick again with a several buddies and a pint. Indeed, the Meanwhile taproom features a selection of 20 rotating beers, wines, and low-proof cocktails, so there’s usually the possibility to verify out a new preferred. Meanwhile’s coffee and bites from many onsite food items vans insert to the attract. Fair warning: It is terribly effortless to when away an afternoon listed here, so cancel your evening designs and continue to be awhile.
Best Vegan Cafe: Counter Society

1 of Austin’s most talked-about vegan dining establishments attained its standing more than more than a 10 years in enterprise, starting off as a meals truck and settling in its iconic retro turquoise haven curated by owner and DJ Sue Purr. Counter Society works by using create from community farmers and evokes a lot of grateful raving about vegetarians’ and vegans’ location in barbecue, thanks to their jackfruit choices. The cashew cheesecakes also draw in both of those practiced vegans and omnivores looking at cutting back. There is a prolonged drink record of smoothies, juices, beers, and wines, generating Counter Society a fantastic area to expend an complete afternoon.

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Chantal Rice and Brianna Caleri contributed to this tale.