One of the funniest things about travel is how unexpected it can be. No matter how much you might research and plan, you can’t know until you have experienced a place, an excursion, a restaurant which you will actually love and which will fall flat. If anyone had told me that I would leave Austin, Texas dreaming about an Italian restaurant there, I would have laughed at them…but here we are.

I read about L’Oca d’Oro in a few different places while doing my restaurant research and while it intrigued me, Italian is almost never my default. Each of the kids asked to have a special date night with me alone while we were visiting, and when I asked Caroline what sort of food she wanted on our night out together, she answered, “Pasta!” without hesitation. I circled back to this option and after perusing the menu for the third time, I concluded that the food sounded pretty wonderful and if nothing else, the wine list would be worth checking out.

We experienced a lot of very good food during our time in Austin, but nothing has captivated my memory quite like L’Oca d’Oro. Read on below to get all the details of our experience there but suffice it to say, this was my top favorite dining experience over the course of our trip.