If you’ve been in Austin for any amount of time, you’ve probably heard the names Clark’s and Perla’s thrown out interchangeably when talking about fancy seafood restaurants and oyster bars. And rightfully so. These sister restaurants—from the team behind Jeffrey’s, Sammie’s, and half the remaining restaurants in Austin—are two of the best upscale seafood spots in town. There’s a lot of overlap between the two. So much, in fact, that we wouldn’t be surprised if the restaurants were connected by a tiny tunnel under Town Lake, where servers raced back and forth with icy trays of New England oysters and chilled buckets of champagne. So what sets Perla’s apart from any other oyster bar in Austin? Armed with a dreamy patio on South Congress Avenue, and some of the freshest seafood in town, Perla’s is the inevitable answer to questions about where to go for date nights and special occasions. And it’s where you go to witness a $39 lobster roll, firsthand. We’ll get right to it—a meal at Perla’s is pricey. This isn’t a place you casually waltz into when you’re in the mood to eat Gulf oysters by the dozen. Part of that is because nobody casually waltzes outside of Disney movies, and another part is because Gulf oysters aren’t even served raw here (you can get them grilled). But the biggest part is because this isn’t a “dollar-oyster night” kind of place. This is the type of place where even the mac and cheese comes topped with lobster. On any given night, you’ll probably find a dozen varieties of oysters flown in from cold New England towns with fancy-sounding names, and even hot platters of grilled fish and crab cakes taste like they use the word “summer” as a verb. Don’t be surprised if an order of salmon a la planche finally convinces you that you could pull off being a pescatarian. But also don’t be shocked if you end up dropping a few bills on the whole experience. As memorable as a meal at Perla’s is, its biggest strength doesn’t lie in the near-army of East Coast oysters in its arsenal, or in its ability to transform Gulf seafood into plates we’d expect to find at a slightly toned-down version of Le Bernardin. Its biggest strength is its patio—a massive wooden deck standing just a few inches above the sidewalk of South Congress Avenue that feels like both a stage and an observation deck. There’s also a pretty large and elegant indoor dining room—complete with a giant fish tank—but outside is where you want to be. And when the weather is nice and the weekend hits, it’s one of the toughest reservations in Austin. But if you plan ahead a little, the patio can be all yours.