After closing the Austin location of Pasta | Bar earlier this year, the chefs have pivoted to a more casual expression of Italian food for their forthcoming Frank and Margie’s in Round Rock. The restaurant will be located in the former Odds Bar + Bistro space at 1401 S. I-35 Suite 120 in Round Rock, just north of Gattis Road.
Frank and Margie’s is slated to open Saturday and will be open for dinner Wednesday through Sunday.
The restaurant will center thin-crust pizzas (including pepperoni with candied local jalapeños and the restaurant’s signature bone marrow pizza) using celebrated pastry chef Kallas-Lee’s sourdough starter and handmade pastas (such as lamb ragu pappardelle, lobster cavatelli and rigatoni alla vodka).
Scratch has brought on a chef who also knows his way around pasta. Chef Grae Nonas, who got his start in Austin as a co-founding executive chef at Olamaie, where he was named a Food & Wine Best New Chef, previously ran Italian pop-up Le Cowboy. New Jersey native Nonas has also cooked with Jon Shook and Vinny Dotolo at Animal and Son of a Gun in Los Angeles.
Kallas-Lee’s seasonal dessert menu will kick off with selections like fig leaf and strawberry tiramisu, made with fig leaf-infused mascarpone cream, macerated strawberries and aged balsamic. The bar program will center Italian wines, Texas beers and a full bar.
“Frank and Margie’s is meant to feel fun, familiar, and a little unexpected,” Frankland Lee said in a release. “We’re taking the kind of pizza and pasta people crave and bringing the same level of intention we bring to our tasting-menu restaurants. It’s casual, but the food still has that Scratch quality and point of view.”
It’s not the first casual concept for the couple who originally came to Austin in late 2020 to open Sushi | Bar. After selling their partnership in that omakase, they opened NADC Burger on East Sixth Street. Their Scratch Restaurants group also operates two Sushi by Scratch omakase restaurants and the a la carte sushi restaurant Shokunin.
Dining and Cooking