Not just Mexican: Alamo city’s tasty revolution,
Clouds cover San Antonio on a chilly Saturday morning in April. Beneath the sounds of trees and tents rustling in the wind, the streets of Pearl Brewery begin to fill a mere 12 minutes after the farmers market’s 9 a.m. opening.
This appealing district of restaurants, shops, apartments, and now the landmark Hotel Emma, was the city’s first trendy alternative to the crowded River Walk when it debuted almost nine years ago. People still come to try something new. Lines for Merit Roasting Co. coffee and Frenchstyle pastries snake to the doors at Local Coffee and Bakery Lorraine, and parking fills fast. Young, hip visitors, older locals and families browse the tables of produce, honey, bread and finger foods, from empanadas to Indian pakora.
“Everybody goes to Mexican restaurants, and they think that’s what San Antonio is only,” says Luis Morales, who runs the market’s Humble House Foods tent, which sources all of its ingredients for sauces, dips and dishes from the surrounding market. He points out the pork belly hash a customer is picking up. “This is more of an expression of what San Antonio tastes like, because the eggs are from here, the meat is from here, the veggies are from here. The terroir is true to what we do.”
Johnny Hernandez began shopping at the market and cooking on the lawn before opening La Gloria, one of Pearl’s two inaugural restaurants (along with Andrew Weissman’s Il Sogno Osteria), which celebrated seven years on Cinco de Mayo. Today, the district has more than 15 bars and restaurants.
Hernandez is nationally known for his Mexican cooking, thanks to the success of La Gloria’s authentic street food, yet he, too, notes the other influences in the city’s modern food scene, including Native American hunters and gatherers, Texas cattle trails and German beer making.
Pearl was a local pioneer in craft brewing, influencing several local breweries, from trendy Alamo Brewing Company to the city’s first “brewstillery,” Ranger Creek, one of five local distilleries. Patrons enjoy Alamo’s outdoor beer garden, with games on sunny days, more than 20 beers on tap and a full menu sourced from local farms, and the Texas Gulf at Southerleigh, which opened inside the former Pearl Brewhouse in 2015.
Most San Antonio eateries serve Lone Star Beer from Texas’ first mechanized brewery, established here in 1883.
“We’re a community that feels culturally grounded,” Hernandez says. “It’s not youthful Austin, it’s not the glamour and glitz of Dallas. … The culture, heritage and hospitality is what creates the destination. Food is culture, right?”
No one’s defined a single restaurant’s culture quite like chef Steve McHugh, a two-time James Beard Foundation Award finalist for Best Chef: Southwest, who helms Cured in Pearl Brewery’s original administration building. The eatery incorporates reclaimed and repurposed elements of the former site into its design, earning a 2016 San Antonio Conservation Society Award.
Celebrating “the beauty of aging,” as general manager Robert Rodriguez puts it, McHugh practices ancient curing and preserving techniques. Cured serves one of the most diverse charcuterie platters you’ll find in America — lamb and citrus terrine, sixmonth pork culatello, 30-day tuna lomo — and the walls are lined with colorful jars of fermenting fruits and vegetables.
“When people come here, they’re surprised not just by the food, but by the feel and the culture,” says McHugh. “We take everything we love about San Antonio and just combine it.”
For a self-guided sample, start on South Alamo where The Friendly Spot’s colorful chairfilled yard beckons passersby. The only non-relaxing thing here is choosing from more than 300 beers.
Across the street, unassuming B&D Ice House smokes tasty brisket and more meat to enjoy at the bar or picnic tables.
McHugh says the energy from Pearl and development in the surrounding neighborhood are “a catalyst for what’s happening in the city.
“San Antonio is 300 years old. It’s the same age as New Orleans, so there’s a history of good food and culture, and we’re kind of just getting our due now.”