Foreign & Domestic
Gruyere and black pepper popovers have outlasted two owners here, and one of the reasons is a clause in the sale.1
Why go
Ned and Jodi Elliot opened this room on East 53rd Street in 2010. In September 2017 Ned Elliott sold it to Nathan Lemley and Sarah Heard. He wanted to work on projects in Houston and Cincinnati.1 Lemley had cooked three years in Elliott's kitchen. Then he moved to Parkside, where Heard also worked. They bought it because they did not want to watch it close. An established room with a point of view they already shared beat opening cold.1 The kitchen states its own rule in three phrases: nose to tail, farm to table, root to fruit. The four-course offal menu is where the cooks test it.54 The pair opened Commerce Cafe in 2020. The same cooks run two rooms now.5
Order this / avoid
- The gruyere and black pepper popovers. Two to an order, light through the middle, buried in shaved gruyere.4
- The crispy beef tongue, braised then flash fried, cut with pickled onion, mint and horseradish. It is one of three dishes the sale contract obliged the new owners to keep.1
- The mafaldine with braised goat neck. The Infatuation calls the goat
slightly gamey but incredibly tender
, and the ribbon shape does the sauce-carrying.4 - The four-course nose-to-tail menu if the table will eat offal. It has run veal sweetbreads and pork blood spaghetti with goat heart bolognese.4
- At brunch, the fried chicken biscuit, whose sausage gravy carries smoked paprika and cayenne and finishes with confit lemon.1
- Avoid: the Parisian gnocchi. The Infatuation calls it a well-executed version of its style and still prefers the potato version, which makes it the weakest course on a menu carrying a goat neck pasta.4
What locals & experts say
- Matthew Odam, restaurant critic at the Austin American-Statesman, on the reboot in June 2018:
labels don't really matter when the food is this good and this honest.
1 - Fifteenth in Austin on Odam's 2024 Statesman dining guide. The 2025 edition keeps it inside the 40 best restaurants in the city, in the alphabetical group behind the top fifteen, so that number belongs to 2024 alone. The 2025 write-up on the cooking:
The food at Foreign & Domestic is unapologetically rich, but it's also well-crafted.
23 - Nicolai McCrary scored it 8.2 for The Infatuation on 29 October 2024:
everything feels like it was cooked in some rustic cottage on a farm where absolutely nothing goes to waste.
4 - No MICHELIN standing and no James Beard nod. It is absent from Austin's 2024 and 2025 Michelin selections, and neither chef appears in any Austin semifinalist or finalist list for 2024, 2025 or 2026.7
Good to know
- Booking: a day or two ahead is enough most of the week. Tuesday is the exception, because that is the happy hour with dollar East Coast oysters and half-price bottles.4
- Getting there: 306 E 53rd St in North Loop. The dining room is small and the counter sits a couple of arm lengths from the grill.3
- Hygiene: nothing to disclose. Austin Public Health scored this address 88 on 11 December 2025 and 98 on 21 December 2023. Nothing below 70, and no co-tenant shares the permit.6
Verdict
should-visit — Book it, and take a counter seat if you can. Order the offal menu only when the whole table is in for it, and build a la carte when it is not.