The Nido

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We had dinner at the Nido restaurant, outside in a comfy lounge area, on the 8th floor of the Loren Hotel overlooking Town Lake (also known as Lady Bird Lake) and the city of Austin. There were amazing views as the sun set behind us and the lights came up on the highrises and office towers on the north shore. Wow!

 
The city scape has changed a ton since we first stayed here in 1990. It's unrecognizable now and even hard to fathom the changes since our last visit in 2020. All of that area dominated by super highrise apartments and office towers was called the warehouse district when we first came. There were old one and two story buildings and a few night clubs. Notably we went to several shows at La Zona Rosa (James McMurtry and the Emilyfest (1994), Guy Forsyth and the Asylum Street Spankers), a warehouse bar that was owned by Marcia Ball. That bar was at 612 4th St W, it's now surrounded by high rises and federal buildings, and has been repurposed and renamed LZR. See also our visit to Austin & San Antonio in 1994

The "Sail" building, pictured at the left above, is a recently completed office building which will house Google, to the left is the new Austin Central Library, to the left of that is the repurposed Seaholm Power Bldg with the old outlets to the river lit up in color, the Independent is the tallest tower with the floor shifts. There's a lot of interesting buildings which have turned the downtown into busy dark canyons. Austin is no longer a small town, it's a big city, ... an awfully big city.

There are very few dining places that take advantage of the views along Town Lake. We used to go to Joe's Crab Shack (south shore between Congress and the I35 traffic jam) but that's now a gaming arcade. There is a nice restaurant at the Hyatt and across the river at the Line (both at the Congress bridge) but the Nido is by far the best. There was a nice Alta Cafe on the north shore at the rowing club by Waller Creek but that is no longer.

Kate discovered the Nido as we were driving on Lamar. She noted some lights and what looked like a patio area on the roof of the Loren which is located on the south shore at the Lamar bridge. Thinking that it might be a restaurant she did the research to find out that the hotel (the Loren is a modern pricey hotel) has a ground floor cafe and a large fancy dining room with an outdoor lounge/patio area on the top floor. 

Kate made sunset reservations for us on the patio where we had some wine and a couple of dishes. I had the cod; Kate had the shrimp. Both were pricey dishes — quite tasty and beautifully presented. I note that others on the patio just came for the wine and had a quick nosh (fries). We'll do the same next time when we take Gord and Leslie before the show at Zach.