Loro
The oak-smoked brisket comes topped with chili gastrique and Thai herbs. It is the one plate where the Uchi half and the Franklin half of this kitchen both show up.1
Why go
The collaboration started because Uchiko was selling so much meat that Tyson Cole's partners asked whether Uchi could do barbecue. The search for a pitmaster ran six months, Houston included, before anyone said the obvious name out loud.2 Cole's own account of why it works with Aaron Franklin: him, smoking meats for 10 years, and me, making sushi for 10 years, there's a very similar skill set and aesthetic and drive to pull that off.
2 The rest of the menu leans meat: curry chicken over rice, large-format char siu pork belly, a cheeseburger under a mound of brisket.1
Order this / avoid
- Smoked beef brisket, under chili gastrique and Thai herbs. It is the best single argument for the whole idea.1
- Chicken kara-age to start, with chili aioli and Sichuan salt.1
- The oak smoked grilled steak if you want meat with some bite left, grilled to pink and served over rice with pickles.1
- To drink: the frozen gin and tonic or the mango sake slushy from the outdoor bar. Order one first; it arrives while you are still reading the board.1
- Avoid: the Malaysian chicken bo ssam. It puts Malaysian chicken curry where the pork belongs in a Korean framework, under yuzu vinaigrette and Thai herbs. Nicolai McCrary's own advice is to eat it without thinking too hard about it.1
What locals & experts say
- Nicolai McCrary rates it 8.2 for The Infatuation and puts a ceiling on the brisket, which is the useful half:
Loro's brisket is a nice workaround for avoiding the Franklin line, though it hits about 80% of the original's wow factor.
1 - The outlet also lists it in Where To Eat On South Lamar and The Best Happy Hours In Austin.1
Good to know
- Hygiene: Austin Public Health scores the kitchen at 2115 S Lamar Blvd 90 on 2 February 2026, 98 in July 2025 and 89 in February 2025. Austin's failing line is 70, so nothing here is a finding. The city lists one Loro premises and it is this one. So the score does not travel to the Domain outpost, which has its own thinner public record.3
Verdict
should-visit — Nobody takes a booking, and you order at a counter, so a group arriving in twos over an hour never has to split a check. Two Austin doors carry this name, and this is the South Lamar original, open since 2018.