This may be a sordid admission — especially on the part of a food critic, but you would normally never catch me at a steakhouse of any kind on my own quarter. Make that quarter K. I find them stuffy, expensive and utterly unexciting. A slab of meat on an unadorned...
Why not, we thought: Let's make a mini-vacation of it. We agreed to meet for a drink downtown at Zinc Champagne and Wine Bar, then to wander through La Villita to our final destination, the new Luca Ristorante Enoteca at the Fairmount Hotel. I suppose I could have...
There is much that is seductive about Wildfish, beginning with a pair of water-sheeted columns at the entry and continuing with the runway lighting that leads you inexorably toward the large sunken bar with its communal tables and suspended fish skeleton sculpture....
first thing that hits one at Ruth's Chris (after dealing with the valet parking) is the aroma: It's all beef and butter, and it's fantastic. Sensory evaluation number two: the noise level— It's the comforting buzz of a well-oiled machine, just loud enough to convey...
Brian West, chef/owner of Café Paladar, must be doing something right. He's expanded the contemporary café to include more dining and meeting spaces, the crowd was good and varied on a weekday night, and there's more art lining the walls than ever. Even the corridor...
When Sushi Zushi first hit town, in a small but smart space in the Colonnade on I-10, some of us (this writer included) were both pleased and a little perturbed. The menu was intriguing and extensive, yes, but spicy mayonnaise? Chipotle? Cream cheese? The owners might...
Carmine's, a New York transplant to Texas, celebrated its first anniversary in September, and chef/owner Phil Sprio was feeling philosophical about business when he came out to our table after dinner. Still feeling like a pioneer, too, in the fine-dining desert that...
really like it when locals come," offered our garrulous waiter/real estate broker about midway through a very pleasant dinner on Fig Tree's dramatic, terraced patio. "The tourists we'll never see again, but we know you might come back." For the setting alone — perhaps...
The crowds of a spring and summer evening on the River Walk can be daunting; there often seems to be no real goal in mind but the being there, the participation in the surge, the feeling of being an extra in a scene directed by an unseen hand. I have to admit that...
Luciano at the Strand opened in the handsomely but minimally renovated space previously occupied by the ambitious and muchappreciated Gladys, with a gambit that was a gamble: Take Italian cuisine, subject it to the sensibilities of a credentialed Southwestern chef,...
Warning: if you're attempting to find Cowcatchers Steaks at night, be prepared for a little frustration. Unless they have installed a lighted sign in the interim, your only clue to location, other than the address you'll have to glean from reading mailboxes, is that...
San Antonio's A-list chefs and restaurateurs seem to have an itch these days; they aren't at all content to stay put in the places that have given them fame and (we can always hope) fortune. Andrew Weissman dabbles in coffee and burgers; Jason Dady opens tapas-style...
These days, most of the attention in the food world seems to be going to exotic cuisines such as the Nonya of Malaysia, or to Spaniards and their eager disciples fashioning foods from foams and jellies. It's accordingly comforting to come across a menu on which calf...
can't be easy being an icon. Yet it seems that Joe Cosniac, who, along with then partner, Nick Pacelli, opened Paesano's in the post-HemisFair culinary frenzy of the early 70's (a time that also brought us Crumpets' Francois Maeder), has been a fixture from the...
It used to be, or so it seems, that chefs were content to live out their creative days at the helm of a single, successful restaurant — if not in relentless pursuit of Michelin stars, then at least in search of accolades from hometown critics and customers. No more;...
Finding Las Leyendas is half the fun — or could be. Perched atop Rio Plaza, a complex that once housed Planet Hollywood and currently accommodates a newly relocated Johnny Rockets in addition to Rita's on the River, Las L sets itself up to be a kind of crown jewel,...
A soaring cherry tomato, a flying lemon seed, or an avalanche of out-of-control spaghetti sauce is enough to unravel even the most confident woman. What's a little dining disaster among close friends? Accidents happen to all of us, but there is more at stake at the...
It was a benign and balmy night. To the west, trees sheltering the patio at Grey Moss Inn limned ink-brush forms against the fast-fading light. To the east, a full-bellied moon rose almost reluctantly in a dusky dome. Nearby, trumpet-shaped blossoms of melon-hued...
