Loro Asian Smokehouse & Bar – Austin, Texas

An average person spends 52 days of their life standing in line (queueing) and that not just at the Department of Motor Vehicles (DMV). The most notorious offenders are, of course, supermarket lines, public transportation, the post office, airports and barbecue joints in the great state of Texas.  Okay, that last one may not be true though it certainly feels that way.  Franklin BBQ in Austin has nothing short of a cult following–and probably the longest lines of any barbecue joint in Texas.  Standing in line is part of the Franklin BBQ experience.  Online sites advise that “wait times during the week at Franklin Barbecue are typically 2-3 hours and on weekends closer to 4 or 5 hours.”  Smoked meat savants recommend showing up even earlier.  Female Foodie recommends “be willing to spend the better part of your day (or at least the first half) waiting in line and making an experience out of it.”

Since its launch in 2009, Franklin Bbq has sold out of brisket every single day.  That lengendary brisket is credited for much of the great success of Franklin Bbq.  In 2013 and 2017, Franklin BBQ captured the number one and number two spots, respectively, on Texas Monthly Magazine’s Top 50 list.  In its most recent instantiation, the Magazine rated Franklin BBQ seventh in its pantheon of outstanding Texas barbecue joints.   Then in 2024 when Michelin came calling, Franklin BBQ was not among the three barbecue restaurants in Austin to earn a coveted Michelin star.  Instead Franklin earned a Bib Gourmand honor, designating “good quality, good value cooking restaurant”  in the 2024 MICHELIN Guide USA.

Don’t you dare tell Franklin devotees that their favorite barbecue restaurant has lost a step or two or that the “Bib Gourmand” award is like Miss Congeniality.  The loyalty accorded Franklin BBQ is akin to Hindus making a pilgrimage to the Ganges River.  Devotees–and there are tens of thousands–love Franklin BBQ, especially the transformative brisket.  If you’re expecting your roving gastronome to be among them, I’m sorry to disappoint.  Much as I would love to try that life-altering brisket, I’m no longer a spring chicken (39 years young) who can stand in line for hours upon hours.  Even the notion makes me tired.

Besides, as my pre-trip research revealed, there’s a way to get Franklin BBQ’s brisket without standing in lines that snake around the block.  That not-so-secret way is to visit one of Austin’s two Loro Asian Smokehouse & Bar establishments (there are also two locations in the Houston area and two locations in the Dallas metroplex).  Loro is the collaboration between two James Beard award-winning chefs: Aaron Franklin of Franklin BBQ and Tyson Cole of Uchi.  Loro’s website explains the concept: “originally created by the award-winning chefs behind Uchi and Franklin Barbecue. Together, they merged their love of Asian cuisine and Texas barbecue to offer innovative dishes you won’t find anywhere else. So come on by, kick back, and stay awhile.”

Further: “We begin slow cooking our meats every day at midnight, so it’s ready for lunch the next day. Most of our meats are finished over post oak wood on our open fire grill, giving each piece a little more flavor.  Our vegetable dishes are made with the same creativity, care and quality as our smoked meats. So tasty, they will satisfy even the most carnivorous tendencies.”  That sounds like my kind of restaurant.  Best of all, it’s Aaron Franklin barbecue without the line.

I arrived at Loro’s second location, The Domain (a trendy, premier lifestyle destination that “brings unique shopping, dining and nightlife together“) in North Austin at about 11:15AM.  There was no line.  Two servers greeted me, explained the ordering process and even recommended what they considered the best options on the menu.  They actually dissuaded me from ordering the brisket.  Oak-smoked brisket is available only after 4PM and I had a plane to catch.  I could have had an oak-smoked beef brisket sandwich (made with papaya salad, peanuts, chili aioli, Thai herbs), a sandwich which truly marries Asian and barbecue, but the servers made other options sound even better.

Their first recommendation was a “must not miss” shareable and maybe the most popular item on the menu.  That would be the crunchy sweet corn fritters served with piri piri aioli and cilantro.  What an excellent recommendation.  These were the best porn fritters I’ve ever had.  There nearly weren’t enough of these terrific whole kernel corn niblets held together by a thick batter.  Not quite as sweet as their name would imply, they’re wonderful two-bite sized gold.  The piri piri aioli was somewhat tame by piri piri standards.  Piri piri is made from the small, fiery piri piri chile.  In my experience, most piri piri sauces and aiolis have had a rather pleasant piquancy.  This aioli was rather benign.

My entree, the item my servers boasted was better than a brisket sandwich was the smoked butchers cut.  The butchers cut turned out to be a smoked prime bavette, often considered the “unsung hero of beef.”  The bavette cut comes from the bottom sirloin, near the flank steak.  It’s a lean cut with a near optimal ratio of fat and muscle, making it easy to prepare and cut into different portions.  Loro serves it “medallion style,” sliced into several pieces topped with shishito salsa verde, cilantro and pickled onion.  At the risk of hyperbole, this was one of the best cuts of meat this “indifferent about steak” gastronome has had in a long time.  With or without the shishito salsa, every tender bite showcased an optimal smokiness arrived at by a superb pitmaster (I have no illusions that Aaron Franklin himself smoked it).

Perhaps even better than the butchers cut was the chocolate creme brûlée, one of three sweets on the menu.   It’s one of the two best creme brûlée dishes I’ve ever had (the other was a ginger and lemongrass infused crème brûlée from Blue Heron in La Cienega).  A caramelized layer was punctuated by candied peanuts while the creme brûlée was infused with ancho chile.  This is where I typically whine that there wasn’t enough chile, but that wasn’t the case.  Had the chocolate been of the milk chocolate variety, piquant notes would have been welcomed.  As it was, there was just enough chile to get your attention, not so much that it will scald your taste buds.

Loro Asian Smokehouse & Bar may not have given me the Franklin BBQ experience beloved by massochists who seem to like to stand in line, but it gave me a wonderful meal and infinitely more pleasant experience than standing in 80-degree weather in a crawling queue.

Loro Asian Smokehouse & Bar
11601 Domain Drive, Suite 200
Austin, Texas
(512) 916-4806
Website | Facebook Page
LATEST VISIT: 26 February 2025
# OF VISITS: 1
RATING: N/R
COST: $$$
BEST BET: Chocolate Creme Brûlée, Smoked Butchers Cut, Crunchy Sweet Corn Fritters
REVIEW #1458