A new French restaurant was opened on October 3rd in Downtown Austin on 4300 Speedway by a ‘Top Chef’ contender, Jo Chan. Jo Chan teamed up with Tiny Grocer to create a restaurant and grocery store for gourmet international meals and ingredients, mostly from France called Bureau De Poste with Tiny Grocer.
Walking up to the restaurant there are two entrances, one for the Tiny Grocer grocery store, and one for the Bureau de Poste restaurant. The restaurant has indoor and outdoor seating, in order to sit inside you will most likely need to make reservations beforehand. Inside there are a total of six tables which was surprising, I assumed it would have around 20-30. Each table sat 4 people, except for two, those sat three. The outdoor seating had around 18 tables which were all pretty large.
The restaurant portion of the building was in the same room as the Tiny Grocer grocery store, this caused a lot of noise due to people talking throughout the store which was slightly chaotic. There was also light music playing which added to the ambiance nicely.
When you are seated they put down some cold water in a pitcher, and some glasses for the water, and you are also given a menu. The menu consists of a few brunch options like soups, avocado toast, omelets, and some desserts.
I got the Omelet, the French onion soup, and a crepe. I liked that the menu was simple, for each food item the menu had the name of the item and a description of it, there were no pictures of them but the description made up for that. I did notice that there were no salt and pepper shakers on any tables unless you asked for some and the napkins they give you are cloth and black.
To drink they have a coffee bar and tea. I got an iced caramel latte with oat milk and they served it in an 8oz glass which was a little small for the price but the coffee itself was very well made. They did charge for the caramel, ice, and oat milk in addition to the coffee but I could tell they didn’t use any cheap syrups for flavoring. The caramel they used really blended in with the coffee and the oat milk tasted very natural and added a nutty taste which really complemented the coffee.
The omelet was made with what I’m assuming was two eggs, and asparagus discs, and it was topped with spinach. An interesting thing I noticed about the asparagus was that only the spear of the asparagus was included, which I liked. There was also a very small portion of salad beside the omelet, which complemented the omelet nicely. The omelet itself was perfectly cooked, it was fluffy, a bit runny, and was perfectly yellow all throughout. It was one of the best omelets I have ever had.
The French onion soup was served in a cast iron bowl and was topped off with cheese shavings and had pieces of crunchy bread in it. The bread did not get soggy at all. The broth was perfectly seasoned and went exquisitely with the bread and cheese. Overall it was a great soup.
Lastly, I had the crepe, the presentation was enthralling, and it seemed as if it would taste good. Cutting into it, I saw that it was filled with whipped cream, strawberries, and blueberries. The crepe itself was bland and had little to no flavor, and it didn’t help that the whipped cream wasn’t sweet either, the fruit was the only thing with flavor but even that didn’t help. We asked for something sweet to put on the crepe and were given a thin liquid with a honey-like taste, that instantly elevated the overall taste but on its own, the crepe wasn’t great. I would only recommend it to someone who doesn’t like sweet-tasting desserts.
The service was wonderful, we didn’t even have time to move our empty plates out of the way before a waiter came over to our table and took them. Our waitress was also delightful, she gave us some great recommendations and was very attentive to us despite having other tables, this is an upside to the fact that there weren’t many tables inside.
My overall experience at Bureau de Poste at Tiny Grocer was amazing and I would definitely recommend it to someone who wants to eat breakfast, brunch, or lunch. I will say that you need to make reservations to get a good seat and do that beforehand, and parking was a little time-consuming so keep that in mind when reserving a table.
