RESTAURANTS, HOTEL EMMA ARE THE GEMS IN PEARL
PEARL, Texas — This San Antonio community — known as “the Pearl” to locals — is named for the brewery that once churned out cases of the city’s beloved hometown brew, Pearl Beer.
But the brewery, now a cornerstone for this village of cultural and culinary delights, wasn’t always the sparkling gem it is today. Following the brewery’s close in 2001, the area became rundown. Then Silver Venture developer Christopher “Kit” Goldsbury, who made his fortune by selling salsa maker Pace Food to Campbell Foods for $1.12 billion in 1994, transformed it into one of the trendiest neighborhoods in the Southwest. He had a grand culinary vision for the place, creating new, privately owned restaurants.
“His idea was to have a destination and a place where chefs just graduating from culinary school could come and open a restaurant,” says Beth Smith, marketing director for Hotel Emma. “Pearl is Kit’s love letter to San Antonio. His vision was to change and transform a once-neglected area and make it a culinary destination that now extends south to the King William district with its Bohemian feel and privately owned restaurants and bars on the other (south) end of the River Walk.”
So Goldsbury promised $35 million to the Culinary Institute of America, headquartered in Hyde Park, New York, to help open a branch of the school in Pearl. In 2008, the CIA San Antonio opened, becoming the catalyst for Pearl’s growth.
“We received tremendous support from the Pearl community,” says Bernadette Lewis, marketing manager for the San Antonio school, adding that most of the money pledged by Goldsbury is earmarked for scholarships to attract Latino culinary students as part of the college’s El Sueño (The Dream) initiative. The program’s mission is to offer Latino students an opportunity to learn the skills needed to attain leadership positions in food service and hospitality.
In just 10 years, the school has an enrollment of 164, with students graduating from all 50 states as well as foreign countries, Peters says. Some have stayed to open their own restaurants in Pearl, making it the culinary destination Goldsbury had hoped for. With restaurants came retail establishments — shoe stores, bike shops, clothing stores, florists, jewelers — and it didn’t take long for Pearl to become a favorite dining and shopping destination for the local crowd.
Then Hotel Emma opened in November 2015, and Pearl became
a destination for visitors from around the world.
EAT UP
There are about a dozen chefowned and -operated restaurants spread around the 22-acre Pearl campus with an amazing fusion of cuisine. Highlights include:
› Southerleigh Fine Food & Brewery. Located in the former Pearl brewhouse, the restaurant brought beer brewed in-house back to Pearl. The menu is a mix of seafood, beef and small plates.
› Supper. The restaurant at Hotel Emma is as comfortable as Sunday dinner at grandma’s — only better. The approach is a seasonal, farm-to-table mix of choices from the Southwest table. You’ll find quail on many menus in town, but none like the crispy smoked quail prepared by chef John Brand or his Beef Santa Maria with tomato-paprika chimichurri.
› The Granary “Cue & Brew.
Esquire magazine called the barbecue at The Granary “the future of barbecue,” and rightly so. The restaurant raises the bar for ‘cue, with amazing things coming out of the smoker, such as Tuesday’s special — a giant smoked pastrami rib that’s been brined for three days then smoked for hours on end.
› Bakery Lorraine. Macarons in France cannot compare to those served at this playful bakery. Every confection is handmade and stunningly delicious. The fruit tarts are a thing of amazement.
› Cured. There’s an art to curing meats, and if there were a Louvre for food, the case of smoked meats at Cured would be installed next to the “Mona Lisa.” It’s the first thing to greet you as you walk through the door — beautiful hams, sausages, salamis. It’s a carnivore’s dream. Cured was nominated for Bon Appetit’s America’s Best New Restaurants in 2014.
› La Gloria. Chef Johnny Hernandez gives a nod to the street vendors, taquerias and kitchens of Mexico with dishes such as pulpo (marinated octopus) tostados or tacos al pastor.
› The Bottling Department. This is a food “incubator” where new chefs can get their feet wet or established chefs can introduce new concepts. There are currently five vendors with foods ranging from doughnuts to burgers to ramen noodles.
WHERE TO STAY This one’s easy: Hotel Emma. Not only is it the only hotel in Pearl, once you walk through the doors, you’ll realize this is the place you want to stay. It’s a jaw-dropping example of the repurposing of many of the items from the brewery in a decor best described as industrial chic. Columns in public rooms and guest rooms have been left in as much of their original condition as possible — in many cases, that means chipping paint and plaster. Many original floors were saved, but since the ceilings of the brewery were so high, floors had to be built to house the guest rooms. But even the new floors were given an old touch with sealed concrete that looks old. And each guest room is different.
“It’s definitely not cookie-cutter,” Smith says.
The lobby ceiling is more than 20 feet high. Keep looking up and around to see pipes for plumbing, windows with huge fans that once offered ventilation and other bits and pieces of the original engine room in which you are standing. On the floor, you’ll see a big red engine that used to keep the beer cool. On an opposite wall, ammonia tanks, also used for cooling, guard the entryway to the expansive Sternewirth Bar, where you can sit in cutaway tanks that once held beer or in front of the fireplace on a cool Texas day. The bar’s high ceiling allows for a balcony with extra seating where you can watch the goings-on in the bar below.
Smith explains that back in the heydays of the brewery, the best employees were honored with membership in the Sternewirth “club.” “Being named a Sternewirth was a privilege that allowed the employee to drink beer on the job — just as long as he didn’t get drunk,” Smith says.
There is a library with books from the collection of author Sherry Kafka Wagner, as well as tomes on the chemistry of beer-making left over from the hotel’s days as a brewery.
The library is also the place where the Three Emmas cocktails are served every day to hotel guests, and it’s where coffee and pastries are served each morning.
The hotel offers everything you need, and it’s this attention to detail that has earned Hotel Emma FiveStar Diamond status from AAA, making it only the second property in Texas to do so. The hotel is also an I Prefer property and the only one in the Lone Star State to receive its Legend Award. Neither honor is easily achieved, particularly for a hotel only in its third year. It requires a dedication to service, food, activities and an attention to detail, such as the turn-down service at night. It is unparalleled, with carafes of water, macarons from Bakery Lorraine, eye masks and ear plugs left on your pillow, among the gifts left for a good night’s sleep.
Email Anne Braly at abraly@ timesfreepress.com.