Food: Bryce Gilmore - From Odd Duck To Barley Swine

Bryce Gilmore had quite a year in 2010. In December 2009, Gilmore opened The Odd Duck, a South Lamar-based food trailer with the mission of cooking with 100% locally-sourced produce, cheeses, and proteins. He also wisely added the caveat "please keep in mind, this is a trailer." Gilmore's food and philosophy seemed to capture the zeitgeist of a city in the midst of a local and seasonal movement. Lines were long, and reviews were fantastic (Fearless Critic dropped a 9.1 on them.) In the summer, when heat sometimes leaves trailer sales sagging, Gilmore caught a stroke of luck: the trailer was featured during a segment on Anthony Bourdain's "No Reservations," which sent sales soaring for months to come. The trailer's continued success allowed Gilmore to put together one of his dream projects, a bar with a focus on pork - which came to life last week in the form of Barley Swine on South Lamar.

A few days prior to the 12/29 opening, we stopped by Barley Swine and spoke with Bryce Gilmore about the differences between the trailer and the pub, the realities of seasonal cooking, and more.

Austinist: You are definitely known for being the local and seasonal guy. What made you decide to translate that success into a gastropub concept?

Bryce Gilmore: It's a concept that I've been wanting to do ever since I got into this business. I saw myself doing something like this. This is almost like a dream come true, I guess you could say. I just think the whole atmosphere behind what a gastropub is - it's fun and casual, but it can be really serious with the food. That's what I'm all about - we put a lot of work and thought into not only sourcing our ingredients but how we prepare and plate them...but there's no reason why it has to be in a stuffy, fine dining atmosphere. It could be anything, whether it's outside in front of a trailer or in a fun bar. So that's what I wanted to do. And obviously having a restaurant, a physical structure with four walls and no wheels underneath it gives you a little more freedom to do what you want to do, really. The trailer was just us doing the best we could with what we had - limited space and limited storage.

It can be really difficult to create a local menu. Things happen - like you find out that the farmer's crops just died because of the freeze. So [Odd Duck] was the concept where we could just create what we can and do the best we could and here we have a little more freedom to have fun, and bring a little bit of that mentality. We are still limited with the size of our restaurant, but we do have more equipment and more storage, and we don't have to deal with the elements as much as the trailer. People can sit inside all year-round.

There's been gastropub-mania in past years in places like Chicago and Philadelphia, but despite Austin's laid-back style, there really hasn't been much of that developed in Austin. Why do you think that is?

I'm actually kind of surprised. Personally, it is also hard to say what a gastropub is, but in my opinion - [Barley Swine] will be what a gastropub is. It's essentially a bar that serves really good food. A lot of gastropubs, or what they are calling gastropubs, in my opinion are just restaurants that really aren't bars. Sometimes I see or read that they're a gastropub and then I go in and if they didn't say that they were "a gastropub," I would think of it as just a regular restaurant. So to me, it's just a bar that kind of takes bar food to the next level. And Austin really likes bars! I think people that are going out to eat in Austin really look for a place that has a great atmosphere. I think that is one of the first things that appeals to them. A lot of restaurants think food is the most important thing, and the atmosphere doesn't matter. People are going to come in here! People in Austin want to have fun and enjoy their experience, and that means not feeling like you have to get dressed up all the time. You can walk in with sandals and jeans and have foie gras! So frankly, I'm surprised there isn't a place like this already in Austin.

Are you worried about the space not being able to handle the crowd that you may attract?

I almost hope that. There will be about 35 seats, and we are doing all communal seats so that way we can maximize capacity. That will also add to the atmosphere - to share tables. Everyone's going to have to share their experiences. You'll pass big bottles of beers to strangers sitting next to you. I envision us getting to the point where we will have people who come up and there are no seats open, so they will have to go on a waiting list. We'll probably have a seat available in 20 minutes. We'll probably put some seating outside, so you could wait and have a beer out there. Obviously I wish we were a little bigger, but we're doing what we can in moving and I hope we can fill all the seats every night and all the time. I do want to expand the hours to get people a little more flexibility - something like five till midnight. So that'll help a little bit to spread it out.

So - the cornerstone of the bar is beer. Tell us about the selection.

Well, we're starting with eight taps and a few bottles. If I had the storage, I'd so so many taps you could'nt even imagine! Roughly half of the taps will be local. To start with, Texas beers are on five of the eight taps. And we're doing as many big bottles as we can get, because I think that's fun. We're trying to stick with domestic beer only - I don't think you need to go outsides of the States to get great beer now. We're working with some of the new breweries coming online. We're talking to Jester King. They're going to start doing big bottles. We like those guys, and went out to their brewery last month and checked it out. And you know, I think they're gonna start doing small, slim kegs which would be cool. We can only fit slim kegs in here, so they're gonna start doing that.

I think the South Austin brewing guys are doing big bottles as well...but there's so much going on, it's hard to actually keep track of what's happening.

I know. But we're really lucky in Austin, it's awesome to have this local beer. It's just incredible. That [Independence] Stash IPA is amazing.

Yeah, there's a lot of good beer popping up. Hopefully with all of these new entrants coming in, the game will get raised all around. There's going to be a lot more complexity.

It's awesome.

You have a wine list as well, but no cocktails. With wine, how many bottles do you plan on having, and what kind of a list are you putting together?

The wine right now - to open with, we're pretty small. I think we're doing 13 or so bottles to start. We want to get up to about 20 eventually. You know, we're not as domestic with the wine as we are with the beer. We do have some domestic wines. With that we're pretty open. The wine is a different thing. It needs to pair with our food. Whether it's from France or Australia or wherever. And some of the European wines and South American wines go a little bit better with some of the stuff we're doing. With the beer, we haven't really found a reason to go anywhere else other than America. But the wine - we want to keep simple for now. We don't have five Pinot Noirs. It's pretty much one per varietal. And try to do what we like to drink. We're trying to hit good price points.

So - tight, and value-focused?

Yes, exactly.

There's definitely a big pork focus on the menu. Are you trying to source from Texas for that pork or is the quantity of the food such that you're going to have to look elsewhere?

We will have to look elsewhere. I strongly believe in locally sourcing food...and for various reasons. It helps the economy, and it's fresh. But my main thing with sourcing meat, it's not necessarily the distance it has to travel to get to me. But it's knowing exactly where the farm is. Knowing that the farmer takes care of his animals and raises them humanely. And does everything correctly. We're getting things from California. We know where it's from. It's just hard to source everything locally for a restaurant. It's like with pork - if I want to do some items, there's just not enough supply here. There's also things with some of the rules and regulations that are enforced - for example, Richardson Farms, he has to take his pigs to a butcher, and basically from there he has no control over what he does to it. So - we want to put pigs' feet on the menu. So if we want to use pigs' feet from him we have to buy the whole pig, which only gives us four feet, you know. I can't buy 10 pigs a day. So, we will eventually start getting in the whole pigs again, like with the trailer at the beginning. We'll start doing that, but if we want to put pigs' feet on the menu we've got to bring in pigs' feet from somewhere else. And [Richardson] can't supply us with pigs' feet that have the skin on it, because the butcher takes the skin off. So - things like that. I want pig tails on the menu, but he only slaughters perhaps 20 pigs a week. That's 20 tails. That's one night's worth.

We see what you're saying.

Things like that we do have to source. And it's difficult. Finding what you want from a respectable farmer can be tough and can limit you. If we can't find pig tails anymore, we just won't put them on the menu. As for beef, we're getting some Niman Ranch beef. We know it's a good product. And the price is right, but it's also very, very good beef. It tastes really good. I have a small issue with some of the beef around here. It's great to use local restaurant beef, if it's awesome, but to me, some of it doesn't have the flavor that we're looking for.

Barley Swine is now open at 2024 South Lamar from 5pm to midnight Mon-Sat. Plate prices range from $7-$18.