Intero Restaurant
The bucatini comes with grilled kale, aged cheddar, chili oil and chives, and it is the one dish The Infatuation would keep if it could only order one.1
Why go
This is a small East Cesar Chavez Italian room. It makes chocolate on site, so the last course is house-made.1 The kitchen's own line for what it does is contemporary Italian with a particular eye for whole product usage and seasonal fare.
3 Build the meal around the pastas and small plates and it holds up. Wagyu carpaccio comes first. So does sourdough focaccia with ricotta and wildflower honey, and charred cabbage under hot mustard.1
Order this / avoid
- The bucatini. Aged cheddar for the nuttiness, chili oil for the heat, and Nicolai McCrary calls it a nearly perfect plate of pasta.1
- Sourdough focaccia with ricotta, finished with wildflower honey and garden thyme.1
- Gulf redfish if you want to skip a pasta course: crisp skin, seasonal vegetables, mushroom broth.1
- The chocolates, which McCrary is emphatic are part of the meal and not a souvenir.1
- Avoid: loading up on the wood-fired pizzas. They are
chewy and floppy in all of the right places, if occasionally a bit overloaded with toppings.
1
What locals & experts say
- Nicolai McCrary rated it 8.6 for The Infatuation, on the pasta:
If we had to pick only one dish to order, it would be this bucatini with grilled kale, aged cheddar, chili oil, and chives. The cheese adds a nuttiness, and the chili oil brings just a hint of spice. It's a nearly perfect plate of pasta.
1 - The Austin Chronicle's farm-to-table feature, January 2025, carries Nadia Chaudhury naming Intero among the restaurants carrying that torch now,
with Italian foods using ingredients and meats from Central Texas farms and ranches.
That is a quoted speaker inside Brandon Watson's piece and not the paper's own judgment.2
Good to know
- Book through the restaurant's own site. No walk-in policy is published anywhere.3
- Hours: I haven't found published hours for this room, so check before you go.
- Hygiene: no finding. Austin Public Health scored the kitchen at 2612 E Cesar Chavez St Unit 105 a 97 on 23 July 2025, then 85 in March 2025, 84 in January 2024 and 92 in September 2023. Nothing below the 70 threshold, and the trajectory runs upward.4
Verdict
should-visit — Book it, and book small. Order the bucatini first and let the rest of the table follow it.