Aba Austin
The shawarma-spiced prime skirt steak arrives at a precise medium and tastes of no shawarma.1
Why go
For the patio and not for the plate. Aba sits in the Music Lane development at the north end of South Congress, past Hermès and Soho House, and the room prices accordingly: a paloma runs $25.1 Nicolai McCrary scored it 6.1 for The Infatuation in January 2025 and found two things he would order again, the warm fluffy pita and the ultra-smooth whipped hummus under it, and a longer list he would not: dry chicken kebabs, falafel, underseasoned lamb chops. Book for the courtyard, which sits under a hundred-year-old oak.
Order this / avoid
- Order: the pita and whipped hummus, and the shawarma-spiced skirt steak if you want a piece of meat cooked properly.1
- Avoid: the falafel, the chicken kebabs and the lamb chops, which McCrary describes in turn as dry, wimpy and underseasoned. If the craving is for punchy Mediterranean cooking he sends you to Ezov or The Peacock instead.1
What locals & experts say
- Nicolai McCrary, The Infatuation, 6.1 (January 2025):
Aba is a boring Mediterranean restaurant with an admittedly beautiful patio.
1 - On the price:
slapping a $25 price tag on a paloma might make it sound like a premium product, but it doesn't make it taste like one.
1 - The kitchen's own account is missing. No approved desk has interviewed anyone who cooks here, and the room publishes no statement of what it is trying to be, so the entry cannot weigh the food against its own aim. The only aim legible from the outside is the positioning, and the review's complaint is precisely that the cooking does not meet it.
- One desk, one visit. No second approved Austin source has assessed this room, so the whole judgment above rests on a page now nineteen months old.
Good to know
- Booking: reservations generally need a month or two of lead time, though walk-in patio tables do turn up, and the patio is the part worth having.1
- Hygiene: Austin Public Health scores the kitchen 90, inspected 28 January 2026, at 1011 South Congress Avenue. The two readings before it are 88 and 85. Nothing approaches Austin's failing line of 70. Five other permits trade at the same address, including three Soho House rooms, and none of their records is this one.2
- Getting there: Music Lane, at the top of South Congress.
Verdict
listed — Aba cooks Mediterranean in the Music Lane development on South Congress, with a patio under a hundred-year-old oak and a $25 paloma. The Infatuation scores it 6.1 and the headline says the quiet part: the food is boring and the patio is beautiful. The pita and the whipped hummus are worth having, the skirt steak is cooked correctly, and the kebabs, falafel and lamb chops are where it falls down. Go for the tree, and if the craving is actually for Mediterranean cooking the reviewer points at Ezov and The Peacock instead.