City has tasty offshoots from Texas roots
From saloons to cutting-edge cafes, San Antonio ripe with restaurants
Do we order the masa fried oysters with smoked eggplant puree or the pig cheek poutine with pickled cauliflower? Forget Texas toast and barbecued beef, the San Antonio gastronomic scene now exudes creativity and inventiveness.
Hot restaurants like Cured at the Pearl Brewery development or Villa Rica, an eclectic Mexican seafood restaurant in the up-andcoming Southtown, are tasty examples of how far this city has come from its Texas roots.
That’s not to say you won’t find good old southern barbecue joints. But even those aren’t of the heavy sauce and baked beans variety. Look at The Granary, for example, in the aforementioned Pearl district. With smokers steaming on the back porch, you’re struck by a heady, sweet, smoky smell before you reach the stairs to the cabin-like restaurant. Inside, you sit on spartan wooden benches but the food is anything but basic here.
Grilled Maitake mushrooms are dripping with the richness of a smoked garlic duck fat emulsion. Smoked eggplant is infused with lime, cardamom and cumin. East meets west with the brisket ramen, a steaming bowl of smoked shoyu broth with brown ale noodles and chucks of the tender meat. For full-on meat lovers — and let’s face it, why else would you be here — there’s the barbecue board with the day’s choices of cuts, with the obligatory baked beans, potato salad, buttermilk bread and pickles.
Meat is also king down the block at Cured, one of the oldest and most extensive cured meat restaurants in San Antonio. Built in 1904 to house the administrative offices of the Pearl Brewery, the building has been modernized and expanded into new construction which houses the kitchen. But chef/owner Steve McHugh from New Orleans kept much of the original architecture and restored it to its former glory. The former office vault has been turned into a wine room, stainless steel basins that flank the charcuterie case were once handwashing sinks in the brewhouse. They now chill water, wine and Champagne. A refurbished 1913 Berkel meat slicer behind the bar rests on a drill press from a former Pearl workshop. The restaurant has won several awards for its heritage preservation.
It will likely win a few more for its cuisine, which focuses on regional ingredients, organically prepared. Small plates include the aforementioned poutine and oysters, but also smoked lamb ribs and Texas veal tartare. Large sharing plates offer a grilled flat iron steak, a mountain of beercan mussels with house-made Tasso ham and whipped aioli, red wattle pork chop with heirloom corn spoonbread and mustard greens, and poached grouper with eggplant agnolotti, blue crab and corn sauce and peppergrass, an organically grown spicy herb native to southwest Texas.
The Granary and Cured are two rising stars in a number of restaurants, cafes, bars and boutiques in Pearl — a former brewery turned into an upscale district with condos, a stylish hotel and even a campus of the Culinary Institute of America where young chefs and bakers are learning their trade in an immersive environment. This is a true live-work-place development that has attracted young urbanites, empty nesters and even a few Spurs basketball players.
With the addition of Hotel Emma, tourists can also enjoy the cool vibe of the district where an outdoor market runs every Saturday along with impromptu yoga sessions on the community square. The showstopper hotel is a repurposed brewery building and the developer has managed to incorporate many old pieces of equipment and infrastructure while modernizing it to a high standard. Converting three old tanks into unique booths in the bar was an inspired decision. Paying homage to its past, the hotel’s restaurant also does on-site brewing.
But the Pearl isn’t the only area of San Antonio burgeoning with culinary delights. Celebrated local chef Johnny Hernandez has several restaurants, including a unique setup with the Villa Rica seafood restaurant on one side of a shared kitchen and Burgerteca, a casual burger joint and ice cream shop on the other. Hernandez is one of a new breed of local chefs bringing their unique style to food here. Having travelled extensively throughout Mexico, he honed his skills at the Culinary Institute of America campus in New York, working in Las Vegas and California before returning to San Antonio.
But you can’t talk about this city and food without mentioning the River Walk. It’s really the lifeblood of this city and the hub for tourism with hundreds of restaurants and bars lining the sides of the lush canal.
Some highlights include Iron Cactus for authentic Mexican where they specialize in tableside guacamole and tequila, and Casa Rio, a canal landmark with its brightly coloured umbrellas. Above Casa Rio on the street level is Schilo’s, a German deli serving up sausages, schnitzel and homemade root beer. It is the oldest restaurant in San Antonio.
The Lyons family owns both Casa Rio and Schilo’s, which started as a saloon in 1900 in Beeville, Texas. Owner Fritz Schilo moved it to San Antonio in 1914 and started serving food in 1917. It was moved to its present site in 1942. After three generations of Schilo’s, Bill Lyons’ family took over in 1980.
“We have the oldest restaurant in San Antonio and the oldest on the River Walk. The family before us kept it going through Prohibition when it was a bar, through the Depression, two floods, World War Two,” Lyons said over lunch in his packed eatery.
“The family kept it going through some tough times. Good old Germans were determined to make it work.”
The same could be said for the Lyons who maintain a loyal clientele with hearty, homecooked fare, with beyond reasonable prices and quirky decor. An old vault is still in the corner and old photos and postcards, some of Lyons’ own family, adorn the walls in the backroom.
From reliable old standbys to progressive new eateries, San Antonio hits all the marks for a fabulous foodie tour.
The family before us kept it going through prohibition whenitwasa bar, through the depression, two floods, world war two.