Bar Review: High Road Deli & Bar, Austin

I love an elevated cocktail bar as much as anyone, but there’s a time and place for such extravagance. On the other hand, your trusted local may be a great option to grab a beer — but that can get a little stale and predictable if quality cocktails aren’t on the menu.

Austin‘s High Road Deli & Bar manages to successfully blur the boundaries between these two, not just serving up unique, craft cocktails in a cozy neighborhood setting (pets and children are welcome) but also turning out some solid bar food to give you a reason to wash it all down.

In fairness, High Road feels like a deli first, a bar second. The food menu is stacked with hearty but casual fare, including a beloved Italian sandwich (stacked with meats, stracciatella cheese, and veggies, and smeared with ample pecan pesto mayo) which I required a dozen napkins during its messy consumption. Even better: The piled-high cheesy fries topped with miso cheese sauce and housemade chili crunch were literally impossible to put down, the earthy miso in the cheese sauce pairing beautifully with the flavorful but not overly spicy chili crunch topper. I didn’t intend to eat all of those fries, but somehow that’s what happened.

High Road includes a diverse beer list (with five on tap), including five canned N/A options. (No wine here.) Ten cocktails — two frozen — are the main attraction, however, and I sampled three on a recent visit.

My far and away favorite was the Miso-Ginger Bees Knees (miso seems to be a theme at High Road), a relatively simple mix of Tanqueray, lemon, and miso ginger honey syrup. Served over a large cube, this was a fantastic pairing of savory misco and herbal gin, finishing clean while evoking a strongly Asian vibe.

Also strong was the FFRNC (Fuckin’ Fancy Rum ‘n’ Coke), which serves up Zacapa rum, Montenegro, cola syrup, and Angostura and Bitterman’s mole bitters. The up drink is intense with flavors of coffee and dark chocolate, with a sweetly rummy underbelly. There’s no soda in this drink, so the “Coke” element may be misleading to first-timers, but push past that and enjoy what I would better term as a wickedly delicious alternative to an espresso martini.

High Road also brought out its signature cocktail, the West Texas Daddy. This intense combination of Union mezcal, cucumber, lime, and cilantro-jalapeno syrup, served tall over lots of crushed ice, tastes exactly how you think it will based on the ingredient list — bold and wild, with cucumber the most forward element in the glass. There’s no shortage of flavor here, but after two focused, balanced offerings, I found it to be a bit much.

Conveniently located in Austin’s historic Bouldin Creek neighborhood, High Road is easy to get to from just about anywhere in town, with ample street parking available. Naturally, though, it’s the kind of place where it’s ideal if you live close enough to just walk here.

915 W Mary St, Austin, TX 78704
highroaddeli.com

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