Techo Mezcaleria & Agave Bar
One bottle here is distilled with the nine botanicals that make gin, and another hangs a chicken breast above the clay pot still so the vapors cook it.5 You drink it upstairs by candlelight, out of a clay copita.1
Why go
The Torres family run this room above their own Mi Madre's on Manor Road, and the James Beard Foundation made it a 2025 semifinalist for Outstanding Bar, one of two Texas bars in the category that year.43 Adrienne White's account of the opening describes a mezcal list fifteen bottles deep in January 2016, spanning the Pierde Almas +9, distilled with the nine botanicals used to make gin, and the Del Maguey Pechuga, where a chicken breast hangs above the still. Edgar Torres puts that one plainly: All the vapors cook the chicken; the juices drip down. You get this savory and sweet
.5 I haven't found a bottle count published since. Nicolai McCrary's description of the room is the newest one anybody has published: The ceilings are low, the room is dark—minus the glow of prayer candles that are on each of the small, iron tables—and there's a cute rooftop patio that overlooks a relatively quiet side street from the second story.
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Order this / avoid
- The flight, in clay copitas, which is how the bar wants you to taste across the agave list.1
- The Pechuga, in a copita. The three-quarter-ounce pour is how you taste across the list without committing to full measures.5
- If you want it mixed: the Verdito, house basil-serrano-lime juice with St. George absinthe, mezcal and agave syrup, named for the cilantro-jalapeno chaser served with mezcal in Mexico.5
- Or the Crudo, a negroni pulled sideways with mezcal and Amaretto against the Campari and Carpano.5
- If you are not tasting neat, the card also runs watermelon mezcal daiquiris and maracuyu margaritas.1
- Avoid arriving hungry. There is no kitchen up here.
They'll let you order chips and queso from Tex-Mex spot Mi Madre's—which they also own—on the ground floor.
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What locals & experts say
- James Beard Foundation, 2025 semifinalist, Outstanding Bar, listed on the Foundation's own announcement alongside Roquette in Seattle and Scotch Lodge in Portland. Austin's only finalist that year was Arjav Ezekiel of Birdie's, so this did not advance.42
- Paula Forbes, reading the same list for Texas Monthly:
For bars, Apothecary, in Dallas, and Techo Mezcaleria & Agave Bar, in Austin, are up for Outstanding Bar, and Bar Collete, in Dallas, got recognized for Best New Bar.
3 - Adrienne White in the Austin Chronicle, January 2016: the owner's aim is to teach drinkers that mezcal is more than
the tequila with the worm
, and on the producers he buys from,These villages literally work on these mezcals to take care of the village.
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Good to know
- You get in through the side patio of Schoolhouse Pub, and up the stairs.1
- "Techo" means rooftop, and the ceiling is hand-painted Saltillo tile with jimador stained glass.5
- The only hours anybody has published are from January 2016, closed Sunday and Monday. Confirm before you go.5
- Off menu: the bar keeps limited-run and experimental bottles that never reach the list. Ask.5
- There is no public score for the bar. A room with no kitchen may sit outside the city's food-establishment permits. Mi Madre's downstairs scored 91 in May 2025, and that is the restaurant's number, not this one's.6
Jeff's take (his words)
- Note: "james beard 2025 semifinalist". Checked: the category he did not name is Outstanding Bar. The stage is semifinalist.
Verdict
should-visit — Nobody takes a booking. You get in up a staircase rooted in the School House Pub's patio, which the same family runs, so you walk through one bar to reach this one.