Gina's on Congress
Housemade mafaldine cooked al dente and rabbit rillettes under blackcurrant mostarda, at a downtown bistro that is now permanently closed.1
Why go
Gina's is permanently closed. The Infatuation's page for the room, which scored it 8.4 in September 2024, now states plainly: This spot is Permanently Closed.
1 I haven't found a closing date. What the kitchen at 314 Congress Ave was doing is worth knowing anyway: a French-Italian menu with handmade pasta, charcuterie work, and a cocktail list organized around variations on one drink.
Order this / avoid
- Rabbit rillettes,
with tender, shredded rabbit meat that still retains a bit of bite. It's served with a dollop of blackcurrant mostarda.
1 - Lardon salad.
The egg is perfectly poached, the lardons are thick, savory, and crispy.
1 - Mafaldine.
housemade mafaldine is cooked al dente, and all those nooks and crannies in the noodle shape
do the work.1 - Avoid: routing a night around it. The room is gone.
What locals & experts say
- Nicolai McCrary, The Infatuation Austin, 8.4, page dated 6 September 2024:
Gina's is the type of pocket-sized neighborhood bistro you might expect to find on a quiet corner in a much older, larger city.
1 - The same page, now:
This spot is Permanently Closed.
1
Good to know
- Hygiene: no finding, and the rows do not mean the room is trading. Austin Public Health scored this premises 90 on 9 May 2025, 96 in September 2024 and 88 in April 2024 (314 Congress Ave). Nothing below 70. Austin Public Health publishes a rolling three years of past inspections and never records whether a business is still trading, so those scores say nothing about the doors.3
Verdict
listed — Permanently closed, per the outlet that scored it 8.4. While it ran it was a small French-Italian bistro at 314 Congress in a historic downtown building: rabbit rillettes with blackcurrant mostarda, a lardon salad with a properly poached egg, housemade mafaldine cooked al dente, mussels in a rich creamy sauce with shoestring fries, and a cocktail list built around Negroni variations. Kept on the list as a record and a warning, not as a recommendation.