This small south Austin restaurant opened in December 2010, and all that time I had zealously avoided paying a visit despite its vaunted reputation. Why? Because (a) Barley Swine takes no reservations after 6:30 and (b) it offers only “communal” seating. On this trip, however, I bit the bullet and snagged a 6:30 reservation with a friend. We eyed the menu, which read at the bottom, “Menu by: Bryce, Carlos, Sam, Kyle, Jon, Kevin, Mark, Bradley, Parker, Charles.” A sly rebuke to celebrity culture, a paean to Austin weirdness.

So is Barley Swine’s location, in a former ramshackle shopping center in downscale baja Austin. Its shotgun-shack layout, tatted-up servers, indie-rock soundtrack and beverage list’s focus on beers rather than wines foretold a dining exercise in reverse snobbery. At the same time, the restaurant’s compulsory $60-per-person tasting menu puts you firmly in the hands of its multiple chefs. As the moniker suggests, Barley Swine principally celebrates the union of ale and pig. We therefore began our order with a couple of IPAs, which we wedded with the green chile bacon mousse. What impressed me about this and other plates was the distinct but nonaggressive flavors, a Gregorian chant rather than a diva competition. The presence of fiery secondary flavors came off as resourceful rather than the obligatory nod to Southwestern roots. Only the smoky and colorful rabbit nachos with chorizo struck me as being somewhat forced, insofar as one can’t go around calling just anything that tastes good a nacho, even if the two are often one and the same.

Throughout our communal meal, my Austin friend and I shared details of our personal lives, unbothered by the couple seated adjacent to us. Only when our dessert of blue cheese and Fig Newtons arrived did their dialogue cease and their eyes turn our way. “Hey, get your own!” I told them. They laughed, and did.

Barley Swine, 2024 South Lamar Boulevard; barleyswine.com. Tasting-menu dinner for two without drinks or tips, $120.

Uchi

You know you’re in Austin when you pull into a restaurant’s valet lane and the attendant points and exclaims, “Dude, there’s one free parking space right over there!” This was my introduction one Saturday night to Austin’s famed sushi-centric restaurant Uchi.

It was exactly a decade ago when Tyson Cole turned Texas audaciousness on its Stetson by opening the state’s first cutting-edge restaurant primarily dedicated to raw fish, and doing so in an unprepossessing south Austin bungalow. At 7 p.m., Uchi was filled with sake-slurping and incorrigibly T-shirt-clad locals. Reliance on exquisite ingredients (23 different fish when I visited) is paramount, and service is stellar but not showy. Twice I’ve enjoyed Uchi’s sassy kid sister Uchiko, but the experience there of having seven or eight servers explaining and presenting and whisking away your plates can feel a little like standing onstage in the center of a ballet performance. One other sign of maturity: Uchi takes reservations at all hours, confident that only an idiot would fail to show up at the appointed time for one of its hard-to-get tables.