Dai Due
The tartare is dry-aged nilgai antelope, and the butchers behind the counter work wild boar, antelope and goat.1
Why go
Jesse Griffiths started Dai Due in 2006 as an underground supper club, ran it as a farmers market stall, and turned it into a butcher shop and restaurant on Manor Road.1 The rule he cooks to is published in the restaurant's own words on its MICHELIN listing: At Dai Due preservation is key; we dry, can, pickle, ferment, smoke, candy and freeze. We are seed oil-free and cook predominately with Texas olive oil, animal fats from hogs, beef, chicken and duck, and butter. We deep-fry in beef tallow. We do not use vegetables and fruit grown far away, meats from factory farms, fish that are not from our waters, or foreign cheeses.
3 The game is the part that could not be copied. Texas holds native deer in public trust and no restaurant may sell them, so any venison on a Texas menu is exotic, and Griffiths has bought his from Broken Arrow Ranch in the Hill Country since 2008, when this was a pop-up serving venison sausage with biscuits and gravy.5 It holds a MICHELIN Green Star and a Bib Gourmand from the inaugural 2024 Texas guide, two of only four Green Stars in the state that year going to Austin.9
Order this / avoid
- Order: the dry-aged nilgai antelope tartare. It arrives differently on different visits, sometimes minced in a shallow pool of tangy broth, more recently over house-baked bread with herbs and fried onion against the gamey edge.1
- Then the wild boar confit, shredded and reformed into a block, sitting in a sweet and spicy chile bone broth with fresh herbs on top.1
- The pork chop is the plainest thing here and one of the best: marinated in local honey, grilled to a dark semi-sweet caramelized crust, and served on a white plate with no sauce, side or garnish at all.1
- From the butcher counter on the way in: the cold meat board with antelope salami and a wild boar and dill pickle terrine, or the smoked pork Porterhouse chop with sauerkraut, Bavarian mustard and chutney.3
- Drink: the wine and beer list is Texan, same rule as the plate.4
- Avoid: the dry-aged wagyu double cheeseburger. McCrary's verdict is that
the (double) patties occasionally feel a bit overworked and tough,
and on a menu this deep that is an easy skip.1
What locals & experts say
- The Infatuation, Nicolai McCrary (on-page 17 April 2025), 9.6:
By offering a daily changing menu made entirely from local meats, produce, grains, and drinks, Dai Due just might be the most 'Texan' restaurant in Austin.
His Top 25 guide ranks it third in the city.1 - MICHELIN Guide Texas, Green Star and Bib Gourmand, 2024. Griffiths, asked what his most impactful initiative is, answers feral hogs and argues it as arithmetic:
Every pound of feral hog that we can serve is one less pound that might need to be taken out of a more broken food system.
2 - The Austin Chronicle, Brandon Watson (16 January 2025). Griffiths on kitchens that print local sourcing they do not do:
Falsely advertising that your sourcing is local on a menu degrades the trust customers have in the integrity of restaurant verbiage, unfairly demeans the hard work of restaurants that do, and blatantly cheats farmers and producers in the area that aren't actually making that sale.
4
Good to know
- When: closed Monday. Tuesday to Thursday 5pm to 10pm. Friday and Saturday 10am to 3pm and 5pm to 10pm. Sunday 10am to 3pm and 5pm to 9pm.3
- Booking: reservations are highly recommended, and the kitchen has stopped offering to-go orders entirely.6
- The seasons bite here in a way they do not elsewhere. Produce comes off Central Texas farms on Central Texas timing, so an ingredient can have a three-week window. The 2024 Thanksgiving turkey order was capped by a bobcat working its way through the flock.4
- Butchery classes: on select Mondays, three hours, game-focused and led by Griffiths himself, covering start-to-finish butchery, cuts, cooking concepts and sausage-making. He also runs the New School of Traditional Cookery, built around hunting and fishing.10
- Hygiene: the restaurant has its own record, filed as Dai Due Butcher Shop & Supper Club at 2406 Manor Rd Ste A, scoring 91 on 5 June 2025 and 90 and 93 before that. Nothing below 70 and nothing to disclose. Three other businesses share the street number in other suites and none of their records belongs here.8
Verdict
must-visit — Dai Due holds a MICHELIN Green Star and a Bib Gourmand from the same inaugural 2024 Texas guide, and The Infatuation scores it 9.6 and ranks it third in the city. Jesse Griffiths built it out of a 2006 supper club and a farmers market stall, and the rule he cooks to is stated plainly: everything from Texas, no seed oils, animal fats and Texas olive oil instead, deep-frying in beef tallow, nothing preserved that they did not preserve themselves. The wild game is the reason to make the trip, dry-aged nilgai antelope tartare and wild boar confit and a butcher counter working antelope, boar and goat, and Griffiths has been buying his venison from Broken Arrow Ranch in the Hill Country since 2008. He runs a hunting and butchery school out of the same building on Mondays. Reserve, and go for dinner rather than brunch.