Austin Monthly’s Review
It’s not a stretch to expect food that’s akin to fine art when you dine out, though I’d wager you’ll find few restaurants so similar to a gallery as COUNTER 3. FIVE. VII, Austin’s newest tasting menu-only spot. Tucked under Swift’s Attic on Congress Avenue,
COUNTER first welcomes diners into its dark and lounge-like front wine bar. Here, you can wait for dinner or just stop in before an evening on the town and fill up on bar snacks like blue point oysters, koshihikari arancini or some of the charcuterie for which Executive Chef–Partner Lawrence Kocurek, most recently the chef de cuisine at Trace, is known. (After this review was conducted, Kocurek left the restaurant to spend more time with his family. Chef de Cuisine Damien Brockway is now executive chef.) But you’ll find the real art—and artists—once you step into the brightly lit dining area anchored by a 25-seat U-shaped counter arranged around a kitchen with neat stations and gleaming pots hanging from the ceiling.
Of course, COUNTER’s not the first tasting menu restaurant in Austin, but it is the only one to offer a choice of courses—three, five or seven—with each meal completely distinct from the others. (For that reason, reservation times are determined by course.) The chefs don’t tack extra courses onto a base for a longer-course meal. Each meal is unique and planned out, an entity unto itself.
The approach to service is different, too. COUNTER has no waitstaff. Your wine may be delivered by sommelier Jason Huerta (named Texas’ Best Sommelier in 2010 at TexSom, an annual wine-education conference), and the chefs themselves serve and explain each course, which you’ve just seen them prepare and plate. Kocurek and owner Eric Earthman (most recently executive chef at Stephen F. Austin Intercontinental Hotel) set up COUNTER so the experience is as much about the process of preparing your meal as it is about you enjoying it. They call it front-row dining. And how.
The setup not only allows but encourages interaction with the chefs. It’s an enthusiast’s boon, because each dish, reverently and expertly prepared, begs further exploration. For instance, just how do they render the beef tongue so complex and smoky? Well, after being marinated in pickling spices, such as coriander, thyme and bay, it’s braised for eight hours, smoked for 16 and then finished on the grill. It comes to you brushed with tamari and topped with green chimichurri, a gently cooked blue point oyster and charred cucumber—and it’s exquisite, as were many of the dishes we tried during our three- and five-course meals.
Such access to the chefs also allows you to learn that in addition to smoked pork jowl, you’ll also get to try cockscomb in your koshihikari rice because the supplier happened into some unexpectedly and asked if the chefs would like to try it. Of course! Tasting somewhat like a tender and gelatinous bite of chicken, the interplay of the cockscomb (the fleshy red part on top of a rooster’s head) and smoked pork with the rice (a Japanese short-grained variety with a sweet flavor), studded with fresh peas and pea tendrils and made rich with creme fraiche, combined for a delightful textural tumult halfway between congee and risotto.
The wine list is superb and the pairings artfully chosen—don’t skip them. The pairing for our incomparably tender soy-glazed octopus came with a story as fascinating and luscious as the dish itself. Though the octopus is served with Asian accompaniments—Japanese sweet potato, bok choy and housemade lap cheong—it’s paired with a Greek Assyrtikos, perhaps a reference to octopus as a common Mediterranean ingredient. The white wine, whose grapes grow in nestlike formations on the cliffs of Santorini, battered by ocean winds, delivers a saline-citrus note that melds beautifully with the dish. Pairings aren’t limited to wine when other choices prove opportune, such as a Hitachino Nest red rice ale with the koshihikari rice or the Rihaku Dreamy Clouds Nigori, a dry, unfiltered sake with the khao mahk, a lovely take on a traditional Thai fermented rice dessert served with a pineapple sorbet and a kind of cream soda sauce.
Little details matter at COUNTER, from the layering of flavors to the extras, such as our end-of-meal gift of apricot-coconut granola to enjoy the next morning. There’s enough variation in the ingredients and style among the meals that you’ll likely want to try all three menus, which vary seasonally, sometimes daily, so there’s always a reason to go back. And, yes, they will accommodate special diets.
Though you get to choose your meal by the amount of courses, COUNTER 3. FIVE. VII does discourage diners from mixing courses in one sitting. And while that may chafe those who can’t stand eating the exact same thing as their dining companions (as, I confess, it does me), go ahead and relinquish control. Let this talented crew feed you as they see fit. You won’t be sorry. After all, you don’t tell an artist how to create. You just sit back and savor the result.