photo courtesy olivia website

Olivia opened in August to considerable anticipation among the Austin food cognoscenti, and counter to the usual conventional wisdom on checking out new restaurants, we showed up on their second night. Even then, the restaurant felt like a well-oiled machine that had been running for months; subsequent visits, for brunch and for a casual dinner at the bar, have since borne out that initial impression.

The food is quietly superb. The menu changes regularly, based on what's available and in season, and focusing in particular on the products of local producers like Boggy Creek Farm, Alexander Farm, and Pure Luck Dairy. Our first dinner included sauteed skate with brown butter sauce, a butternut squash and duck confit risotto, and a spaghetti alla chitarra with escargot. The risotto was perhaps a little heavy for a late summer dish, but that was about the only remotely negative thing we could think of from that evening.

The spaghetti—notable for the fact that one could actually taste the escargot, which is usually buried under a blanket of garlic and butter—and the fricasseed lamb's tongue appetizer are measures of where Olivia is willing to go out on a limb with more unusual ingredients; at the same time, bistro classics like hanger steak and fries —or steak frites, if you like—are also present and accounted for, and very well-executed. The summer menu also featured a "summer coq au vin," made with white wine instead of the usual red, and delicious.

The wine list undoubtedly owes a great deal to the curatorial hand of Jerry Reid, late of Hyde Park's Vino Vino. As with Vino Vino, you can be fairly certain that, while you might not have heard of many of the wines on the list, anything you choose will be good and selected with care. Though the bar only serves wine and beer, they do have a house cocktail of white port and soda that makes a refreshing pre-dinner drink, especially in the summer.

Olivia's brunch is especially worth note; we enjoyed everything we tried from the house-made granola, lemon curd, and marmalade up to the "Olivia Benedict," which features short ribs in lieu of the more traditional ham or canadian bacon. Special attention should also be called to the shrimp and grits, a Carolina Low Country favorite here served with enormous Gulf shrimp and Gouda-laced grits that are pale yellow and actually taste of the corn from which they're made, instead of the bland starchiness that one usually expects from grits.

Brunch is also an ideal time to appreciate Olivia's marvelous architecture. Michael Hsu, who also worked on Uchi, has created both an intimate, chummy bar space and an open, airy dining room that feels bigger than it is. There's a certain comic effect in the fact that the building is located next to a porn shop and a taxidermist, but there's also something quintessentially South Austin about it as well; you have to love it.

Fine dining is, of course, hardly the be-all and end-all of a city's culinary landscape, and indeed one of the great things about Austin is that you can get a terrific taco from an Airstream trailer just as easily as you can get sushi from a nationally-acclaimed chef. But as in many things, diversity in dining is a good thing, and so it's a happy event to see Olivia bringing more interesting, intelligent food to our city.