Odd Duck
Cast-iron cornbread is permanently on the menu, usually under green onion butter, and the chicken hearts come glazed in mole and doused in masa gravy.2
Why go
In 2009 Bryce and Dylan Gilmore bought a Fleetwood Mallard trailer and drove to Wisconsin to collect it. They put about a hundred man-hours into rehabbing it and fitting a wood-burning grill. They called it Odd Duck, opened that December, and set one rule: only food from local Austin farms.1 Bryce started buying whole hogs. He runs them snout to tail through the week. By the restaurant's own account he still buys eggs from the same farmer.1 There is a farm now too, in its second year of cultivation as at January 2025.4
Gilmore kept a piece of that trailer on the host stand. He told Austin Monthly in 2014 that he does not miss the thing itself: I think back to the trailer days and everything that we were able to accomplish out of that little space, and I'm very proud of that. That opened up a lot of doors for us, and we were able to grow from that and get Barley Swine, and then we were able to grow from that and get this place.
8
He is unsentimental about the label that grew up around all this. He told the Austin Chronicle he had watched places take the local movement for purely marketing purposes without actually committing to the concept.
He expected fatigue to follow.4
On the plate it reads Texan with the passport out. A mole glaze on grilled chicken hearts. A salt foam over a tequila-spiked watermelon fresca. Summer peaches running from a pork belly Thai salad through to a marigold tart. A chicken-fried pork chop beside quail stuffed with dirty masa.3
Order this / avoid
- Order: the cast-iron cornbread, which is always on in some form and which Nicolai McCrary says you should always take. Then the chicken hearts if they are running, and whichever ceviche, aguachile or crudo is on that night. Past versions have come dressed in strawberry aguachile and in carrot leche de tigre.2
- If the group is hungry: the wagyu burger, whose topping list has included fried soft-shell crab, and the berbere-spiced fried cauliflower with collard greens.2
- The house bread, if it is still the same one: a levain loaf built on spent grain from Hops & Grain Brewery, baked in the stone hearth and served with housemade cultured butter. That is Austin Monthly's 2014 account, and I haven't found anything newer on it.8
- Avoid: building a visit around one dish somebody told you about. The menu is revamped at pace, and every plate is subject to change by season, by the chefs' whim or by how the wind is blowing.11
What locals & experts say
- Nicolai McCrary scored it 9.7 for The Infatuation and ranks it first in Austin. On the origin:
Odd Duck didn't just coast down the trailer-to-restaurant pipeline, it built it.
2 - Austin Monthly reviewed the restaurant when it opened and drew the line that keeps these two rooms apart. This Odd Duck
picks up where Barley Swine began, before Gilmore switched it to a planned, prix-fixe tasting menu
: shareable small plates on a local, seasonal and simple philosophy, in a 120-seat room built around a three-sided bar and a wood-burning stone oven.8 - Matthew Odam put it 10th of the 40 best restaurants in Austin for 2025:
Odd Duck was one of Austin's first trailer-to-restaurant successes and it has helped define a soulful but playful style that makes the city's scene unique.
3 - The MICHELIN inspector describes a room built around a large counter and a menu combining Southern ingredients with global flavors, in plates designed for sharing. It holds a Bib Gourmand, awarded in the inaugural 2024 Texas guide and held in 2025.5
- The awards, scoped: CultureMap named it Restaurant of the Year at its 2026 Tastemaker Awards on 9 April, from a shortlist its own judging panel chose, with reader voting confined to a separate Best New Restaurant bracket. The only account of that win is CultureMap's, which runs the program, so take it as reported and not corroborated.6 The Austin Chronicle's 2026 Best of Austin gave it Service, and Bryce Gilmore Chef, both in the Readers Poll, which is a public vote and not the paper's critics.7
- Gilmore's own record, which sits with him: four James Beard Best Chef: Southwest semifinalist nods by 2016, and finalist in 2015, 2014 and 2013, in a category reorganized when Texas split out for the 2020 cycle.12
Good to know
- Where to sit: the bar, if you can. McCrary's own picture of it is being wedged between off-duty chefs and out-of-towners on a farm-to-table pilgrimage.2
- Groups of seven or more have a separate enquiry route on the site.1
- Hygiene: three routine inspections on the city register, 90 in July 2025, 85 in August 2024 and a clean 100 in July 2023, all far above the ordinance's failing line at 70.9
- Getting there: 1201 S Lamar Blvd, in Evergreen Heights. If you are working off an older pin, note this is SOUTH Lamar in 78704; a common geocoding slip puts it on North Lamar in 78703, about 2.5 km away.5
Jeff's take (his words)
- His review (Jeff, first-hand, 5 stars, 3 January 2024): "Modern farm to table with an emphasis on local food cooked over fire. The chicken hearts were exceptional yakitori. Super rich and moist cornbread that is almost a pudding. Fun cocktails. A great casual special occasion restaurant."
- Google review, January 2024 (five stars): "Modern farm to table with an emphasis on local food cooked over fire. The chicken hearts were exceptional yakitori. Super rich and moist cornbread that is almost a pudding. Fun cocktails. A great casual special occasion restaurant."
Verdict
must-visit — Book it, and order in two rounds so the second can follow whatever the kitchen sends first. This is the room I would give somebody on their first night in Austin, and it is the one I have actually eaten in. If you want the same chef cooking a fixed menu, that is Barley Swine.