Emmer & Rye

Great service but food was quite a bit more expensive than it should have been given portion sizes and quality. Overall it’s a very “insta-friendly” restaurant but misses the mark a bit when it comes to actual substance and taste.

Love the food and the service is excellent but it is so loud in there it’s deafening.

We had an amazing experience at Emmer and Rye!

Great food! I wasn’t a huge fan of the Caribbean menu personally. I like the previous style. Just preference.

We had a reservation right at opening, arrived on time, and was sat 20 mins late with zero explanation. Our waiter was great and so was the food. Drinks are very tasty but they are not strong so plan on playing much more than the meal on booze.

The food was innovative and, for the most part, fabulous. Some of the dishes were amazing, and others were very good. The ambiance is contemporary without being cold, and the noise level is manageable. The servers were friendly and helpful. The pacing of the dishes was a little off—the early dishes all came out together, and we waited a bit for the later ones. Also, it would have been nice to get fresh plates between courses. Still a great experience: I’ll be back!

May be one of the best restaurants in the US. The menu may change daily depending on what is provided by farmers. The staff is well versed in what is in every dish. This was our second visit. Truly amazing!

Service was exceptional. However, we found the good to be a little disappointing.

Ethereal. Damn, these motherfuckers know how to cook.

The food and format were great. Really liked having a mix of ordered and “surprise” dim sum dishes. The beets with mandarin, cacio e Pepe and the trumpet mushrooms were standouts. The waygu beef sausage dish had too much going on and the sausage was mealy and too sour. A few pieces of bread for $8? That was a bit much.
Service was so-so. Our waitperson was not really focused on us. His mind seemed to be elsewhere. Maybe it was because we were the last seating of the night. The guy with the dim sum carts was really good.

Great server. Overpriced though. 8$ for bread 4$ for butter

Very good food but brunch menu lacks veggies to round out meal. Very noisy too.

This visit, we enjoyed a Caribbean brunch menu designed by the pastry chef (I believe) who is from Guyana. I was told by our dining partners that this "themed" brunch was a change from what had previously been a small plate brunch menu. Our table thoroughly enjoyed the Caribbean Beef Patties and Cod Fish Johnny Cakes for shared starters. The entrees were equally delicious, we had the Oxtail, Sweet Potato Hash, and Coconut French Toast. For dinners, we've always enjoyed the small plate/dim sum concept. Service is wonderful, the wait staff are very well coordinated. Reserve early, this is a very popular place!

We were there for the Caribbean Brunch and MUST go back again for dinner!

Wonderful brunch experience, delicious food, great service, lively and light-filled ambience. Love the brunch concept of a different theme every three months - look at their website to see what theme they are exploring before you go - or not, and be surprised. Highly recommend this restaurant for both dinner and brunch, have never been disappointed.

Had brunch here with my son who attends UT. Had no trouble getting in. Service was pretty good but not excellent. Very limited menu but what we had was good. We really wanted something on Rainey and there
are few places there that will take a reservation. There are better places in Austin for Brunch.

Our experience was amazing! Will definitely be back next time we are in town. A must visit for Austin!

Excellent food and service from start to finish. The "dim sum" cart is a nice touch.

This was the most special spot to eat dinner. It's right on Rainey street, so you can walk to all the night life in Austin or to a walk by the river. Lightning and decor within the restaurant are organic and natural.

All that and the food was truly special. I spent more on this meal that I've ever spent on myself, but it was worth it for the unique flavors, experience and service. I'd recommend possibly ignoring the main dishes towards the bottom of the menu and focus on all of the dim sum service options instead. Not knocking the main course at all, but you're going to see all of this beautiful food roll by and will want to try it. By the time the main course had arrived, I'd chosen so much dim sum that I was pretty full.

Excellent interesting food well prepared and artfully plated. Great service. Great wine list.

The dim sum option seemed like a great concept, but the carts and the service ultimately failed and left us with a poor experience. There are 3 dim sum carts traveling around the restaurant, each with different options meant to complement your meal. We ordered a few dishes off the menu, excited to see what interesting bites there were. After receiving both of our small plates from the menu we finally saw the first cart, which had oysters ($4) and rice crackers ($3 for a tiny rice cracker with diced radish). This was underwhelming so we figured there had to be something else more interesting. During a 30-minute gap between our small plates and our large courses a second dim sum cart came by, offering a quarter loaf of bread for $8. At this point in the meal, we definitely didn't want bread, looking forward to the pasta and short rib entrees we picked out, so we passed.
Finally our mains arrived, and they were tasty, but the portion size (especially of the pasta) was quite small and the pasta needed 1-2 more minutes, it was quite hard. At no point during our 90 minutes did we see the 3rd dim sum cart, which we assumed might offer more interesting options, and only once throughout the meal did our waiter check on us. The entire timing of the meal was totally off, and the pricing seemed way out of proportion for the quantity and quality. We definitely won't be back, and emerged after a $100 bill for 4 dishes and no drinks quite hungry.

We celebrated my mother-in-law’s birthday. Fabulous food and service! Awesome experience.

What a fun and cool dining experience on Rainey Street in Austin! I’m not normally an adventurous diner but I wanted to try something new and went with 3 friends (4 of us total) and it was amazing! All the food is locally sourced and DELICIOUS! Each plate is meant to be shared and we ordered 6-9 dishes with the amazing waitstaff’s help and then I also played ‘Russian Roulette’ with the bartender (a recommendation) and had delicious drinks as well. The added bit of fun are the 3 dim sum carts that come around during your meal and allow you to try little bites of different foods as well. Overall I’d highly recommend Emmer & Rye for both the experience AND the food!

This was one of my favorite experiences at a restaurant I have ever had. Everything we ate was delicious, and made me wish I could order everything on the menu. The service staff was incredibly knowledgeable and friendly. Even the bill was lower than I anticipated. This was truly phenomenal.

We sat at the bar and the gentleman and woman working were personable, attentive and made great cocktails. Glad we snuck it in the last day of the trip but sad we didnt go sooner. Look forward to a return

We enjoyed Emmer and Rye but it wasn’t for everyone. With our large group the Caribbean inspired menu didn’t cater to their wants as the previous menu did although many of the dishes were delicious. Service was slow although they did go out of their way and served the cake I’d brought to celebrate my 60th. Noise level was fairly high making it harder to talk which was hard enough with a large group. It was a fun vibe though with the island music.

We were on a birthday trip to Austin and had an incredible experience at E&R. We sat at the chef’s table, enjoyed some interaction with Chef/Owner Kevin Fink, and loved every one of our 10 dishes (all completely new to us). The dim sung-style service was a lot of fun, too, and the restaurant is very vegan friendly.

We arrived early for our reservation. After one drink at the bar, they seated us in VIP seating that had unexpectedly opened up. We chose three entries and the rest dim sum. Food was wonderful! Service was great! Highly recommend.

We were disappointed that the brunch menu had been changed without any warning. It was a Carribean menu for brunch, which felt somewhat limited. It was not at all what we were expecting.

Loved the concept of small plates & dim sun. A few of the dishes were the best thing ever(Cabbage/Carrots/Bread with Bone Marrow Butter/Candied Beets). I’d go back

Not sure the dim sum cart service works with the menu set up. Seems pretentious. Food was very good but Austin has even better. Overall A- in my book.

Innovative and interesting food. The daily menu makes you want to try it all. Wine list was hard for me to gauge whether it was well-priced because I hadn't heard of any of the wines, perhaps small producers. Since I and my fellow guests were adventurous eaters, everything sounded good enough to try and turned out to better than expected. The small plate approach makes this kind of menu easier to cover more ground. Beware the "dim sum" carts with appetizers, bread etc., if you are on a budget. If not, it just makes it more fun to try more things. At the bar, we let the bartender know what we liked and let him be creative, just like the chefs. This is a serious FOOD restaurant that feels casual and unpretentious, like Austin, but if one comes with an appetite for food and drink, the tab can escalate like Austin real estate........

While they are trying unique combinations of flavors, they don’t work. The prices are too high, the decor is boring and the place is noisy. Definitely, not worth it.

Every dish was flawless; excellent service too. One of Austin’s best, for sure.

The food was outstanding! We especially loved the pasta and the cauliflower dish, and the dim sum was so fun. They come around with a cart three times during the meal, each with 3-4 bites and small plates to choose from. Their cheese was fantastic off the dim sum cart.

Fantastic small plates. Service was attentive and knowledgeable. Cocktails great too with well curated wine list. On the edge of Rainey Street scene but a world apart.

Enjoyed a great meal at Emmer & Rye. Love the way they tailor the menu offerings to only foods that are fresh and in season. Dim Sum is a fun way to try small portions of inventive tastes without committing to a full plate. The Dim Sum does add to the price of the meal so pay attention to what you are ordering. Staff was knowledgeable and helpful. Highly recommend.

Small plates and dim sum not a good mix. Family style requires fresh settings which we had to ask for. Food only so so.

I found this place through raving internet write ups, but was disappointed. Bottom line this place is all concept but the execution left a lot to be desired. The ambiance was bland, as was the food. Except those bite-fills of pickled ingredients (and they are a plenty). It was explained that pickling is used to extend the farm to table seasonal ingredients. Again great in theory. Even desserts included pickled ingredients. The portions are small and expensive. The menu is limited. The dim sum feature is meant to extend that scale but we passed on all but one offering. The pork infused gin was unpalatable. Like drinking pork rinds. They were helpful with our friend’s gluten allergy but there were scant item he could have. Overall would not return here.

I’ll keep it short........................Amazing.