One of Austin’s most celebrated restaurants of the 21st century will soon turn out its lights permanently
Olamaie, the Southern fine dining restaurant from chef-owner Michael Fojtasek, which he opened with co-executive chef Grae Nonas in 2014, will serve its final meal on July 19.
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The only restaurant named No. 1 in the city by the American-Statesman on three separate occasions (first in 2017) was the first Southern restaurant in America to earn a Michelin star, joining six other Austin restaurants that received stars in the influential food guide’s inaugural 2024 Texas edition
The American-Statesman ranked the restaurant, now helmed by chef de cuisine Amanda Turner, No. 14 in 2025.
“I’m sad. I’m incredibly grateful to everyone that’s come through those doors and for all the contributions. When you open a restaurant, you want to accomplish all these things, you want to live forever and making it 12 years is pretty impressive,” Fojtasek said. “I’m really proud of this team and what we’ve accomplished.”
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‘This market is incredibly hard.’
Dallas native Fojtasek, who returned to Austin after working in celebrated restaurants in New York City and Los Angeles, said the economics of running the restaurant in a difficult Austin market became untenable. He pointed to the dreadfully slow summer months — Olamaie’s sales are currently down 40% from March — as one of the biggest challenges.
“I think everybody’s out of town, especially the people who can afford to dine in the types of restaurants we’re talking about,” Fojtasek said, referring to upmarket restaurants like his. “It’s been a hard business forever. I think that the general population thinks the more expensive things are, the better the margins are, and unfortunately, the more expensive things are, oftentimes the margins are worse.”
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Though he praised his own landlord, Fojtasek said Austin’s high rents and labor costs — his are up 45% across the board since before the pandemic — have made it a very hard restaurant market. He noted that unlike other major cities across the country, people in Austin rarely dine out late, making restaurants reliant on fewer guests to make ends meet.
“In this market, nobody is taking a reservation after 8:15 p.m. I’ve always warned operators from outside of the city who are coming here who would listen that this market is incredibly hard,” Fojtasek said. “I’ve worked in LA; I’ve worked in New York. I’ve been around the block, and I’ve never seen a market that’s this challenging.”
Michelin traffic rush lasted less than a year
The Michelin star earned by Olamaie in November 2024 initially brought a rush of traffic. The restaurant booked hundreds of reservations in the days following the ceremony in Houston, but the bump from the award only lasted about eight months.
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Retaining the star did little to change the flow of traffic. Fojtasek said he received hundreds of calls and text messages congratulating him and his staff in 2024, but only received one or two texts following the news that the elegant Southern restaurant had retained its star in 2025.
Olamaie attempted to extend itsfixe menu, complemented by a biscuit and snacks menu served at the bar. Fojtasek had seen numerous guests arrive following the star, curious to get a sense of the “Michelin experience” and only order a few appetizers and entrees to share among the table
“People would come to Austin and have lunch at Interstellar BBQ and LeRoy and Lewis Barbecue and then pop in here for a few bites for dinner,” Fojtasek said with a laugh, referring to two other Austin restaurants that received their initial stars in 2024
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Leaving fine dining behind
The Olamaie closure comes at the end of a difficult string of other closures for the chef who was named a Food & Wine Best New Chef in 2015. His team closed Little Ola’s biscuit shop in Wells Branch at the end of 2024 and his Redbud Ice House closed in spring 2025
The celebrated chef, who operates the Gimme Burger truck at Butler Pitch & Putt — with plans for a second location in Hyde Park — is working on the food and beverage concepts for a championship golf course and event center called The Burn in the Houston area, but says he’s not sure what the rest of his future holds
“I don’t really have a really clear pathway to what’s next, but I’m sure there’ll be something. I doubt that I will engage in another fine dining restaurant like that,” Fojtasek said. “It’s just so hard. It’s the hours, the level that you have to play at.”
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The Olamaie closure comes just a month after James Beard Award-winning chef Iliana de la Vega announced the July 18 closure of her El Naranjo. The two departures leave a dining scene that looks very different than the one they joined more than a decade ago.
Few independent restaurant operators have lasted since Fojtasek opened Olamaie in 2014. Only a small group of Fojtasek’s culinary cohorts remain from that era, including Barley Swine, Odd Duck, Dai Due, Foreign & Domestic and Emmer & Rye, which opened a year later.
“To have been relevant for 12 years is pretty amazing,” Fojtasek said. “I’m grateful. I am honestly feeling this really deep sense of gratitude for all of it.”
