There is a battle happening in Waco, Texas. Well, not a battle, nothing as intense as that. It’s a quiet competition between two raw bars half a mile apart. The city didn’t have even a single raw bar two summers ago. Red Herring, the restaurant at the Herringbone Hotel in Downtown, opened with the city’s first raw bar in spring 2024. About a year later, Opal’s Oysters, the first non-barbecue restaurant from Terry Black’s, followed. The restaurants couldn’t be more different.
Red Herring is a sprawling space. The raw bar, with a counter at the back of the restaurant, is topped by a papier-mache-esque open shell. The restaurant also contains Waco’s first chef’s table, which is coated in a sheet of steel to capture the essence of being in the kitchen. I like to describe Red Herring as what a restaurant will look like after the apocalypse, when the survivors are trying to recreate some sense of luxury that existed before whatever tragedy pulls humanity apart. There are nostalgic decor items like glass bricks and leather booth seating with groovy deep green tile work, alongside plywood-covered walls, distressed exposed brick, a roof that looks like the barn rafters, and a cement floor that is textured to project the vibe that it has better days.
Hamachi with oranges and pickled red onions at Red Herring.
The menu is Mediterranean-inspired and was created by former Uchi Austin chef Joel Garza, who collaborated with Waco’s own chef Corey McEntyre (the owner of Milo’s All-Day Cafe, Waco’s favorite weird meets farm-to-table spot) on the opening. Garza knows his seafood well. A few months after opening, Red Herring began offering seating at its raw bar and has held a few chef’s dinners there.
Oysters with blood orange juice.
I chatted with Garza before my second visit to Red Herring in the summer, and he told me that the oysters were a little different — when a chef says something like that, it should make your ears perk up. Different how? Garza seemed bored with mignonettes and decided to play with a more acidic accompaniment by dressing them with blood orange juice and chile oil. It was excellent. When I visited in summer 2024, I had a perfectly executed hamachi aguachile that was much better than my (admittedly low) expectations for a dish like that in Waco. It stood up to anything I’d had in the finest Texas seafood restaurants. So, my expectations were high when I visited Opal’s Oysters.
If you don’t know the backstory already, Opal’s Oysters is the first non-barbecue restaurant from Terry Black’s. It’s named after a beloved Corpus Christi grandmother who just adored Gulf seafood. Why the Black operation chose to open it in Waco is a mystery to me, but it is attached to Terry Black’s location in Downtown, with its own entrance around the corner. It doesn’t look like a barbecue joint in Opal’s — they nailed the aesthetic of a fantastical take on a north eastern seafood spot in an urban area. An authentic seafood shack on the shore wouldn’t have stunning (and expensive) marble table and bar tops, brushed gold fixtures, and an intricate small tile floor like this. But a New York City seafood spot would. It’s sexy inside, with dim lighting and a dining counter looking into the kitchen. A great covered patio has big Connecticut energy, and the bathrooms smell divine. The problem is the food.
A beautiful plate of fish, unevently cut at Opal’s Oysters.
On the night I visited, I started with the crudo plate. The kitchen did not uniformly cut the fish, which seemed to have been cut with a dull knife. One piece had grey on it from where the chef cut too close to the skin. The citrus-wasabi vinaigrette had neither enough acid nor spice to convey any flavor. I should have gone with the oysters — when I asked the bartender, who was acting as my server at the bar, and he listed off an impressive, if small, selection from lesser Massachusetts Bay and Prince Edward Island locations. Not the typical Blue Point options. I followed it with a tuna and avocado dish that is no longer on the menu, thankfully. It was an unbalanced dish, with avocado burying the fish and too many things happening. Let the fish shine through at your seafood restaurant. It was accompanied by sesame crackers and wasabi-coated peas purchased in bulk from Costco or some big box store. Not bespoke, not hand-crafted.
The wasabi peas at Opal’s Oysters were bulk-produced, as was the cracker.
Finally, the lobster roll. The menu did not denote whether it was Connecticut- or Maine-style. When it came out, tossed in mayo (although strangely on an untoasted bun), I thought I knew what I was dealing with. But on the plate, next to my soggy fries, was a container of drawn butter. “What fuckery is this?” I asked the bartender (okay, I said it more politely). He smiled and explained that I was welcome to add the butter to my already mayo-coated lobster roll, and that it was their own style. No. It is not. Waco does not get to make its own style of lobster roll, which is a hybrid of the two existing styles. Also, no one should combine melted butter and mayonnaise. That is foul. The final straw was dessert. I ordered the ice cream sundae with cookies on top, thinking that there was no way they could mess up ice cream with pea-sized pearlescent decorations. Do you know how much those things hurt when frozen and you bite down on them? That’s a dental bill no one wants to get.
This is not what a lobster roll is supposed to look like. The pickle, however, was excellent.
In the midst of this, let us have a moment for the wine list here, which is made up of grocery store wines for reasons entirely unclear to me. I had to restrain myself from telling a man sitting nearby that he should not pay $14 for a glass of Kendall Jackson Chardonnay under any circumstances. It’s odd for two reasons. First, because the liquor selection, which I stared at from my seat at the bar all night, was full of interesting, modern bottles. And because Waco is home to not only multiple wine bars, but also a place called Wine Shoppe, owned by David and Abigail Mayfield, which sets the bar for imported and natural wines for the entire state. Great wine is literally right at the fingertips of everyone in Waco. Why does the wine list at Opal’s Oysters objectively suck?
Long story short: go to Red Herring.