A month spent combing the city for the best and worst restaurants on the River Walk, the top hotel restaurants and new spots for pizza and Thai food yielded two of the city’s best lunchtime values and an appreciation for how NOT to do barbecue.
The best
Seafood paella at Dorrego’s: You don’t see paella on too many restaurant lunch menus, but there it was at Dorrego’s at Hotel Valencia, a steel pan filled with everything that makes paella a delicate dance of risk and reward: mussels, shrimp, clams, chorizo, scallops, chicken, blistered cherry tomatoes and the rice that can make or break the whole thing. Nobody will mistake this for a grand Spanish paella with rice that goes from cloud-soft to firm to extra crispy. This saffron-flavored rice finds a middle ground of fluff and fortitude, a vehicle for a carnival of proteins that all do their jobs with grace. At $28 in this nice hotel setting with a South American sense of style, it’s one of the best lunch (or dinner) values downtown. 150 E. Houston St. at Hotel Valencia Riverwalk, 210-230-8454, dorregos.com
Italian Sammy at Tre Trattoria: There’s plenty of time and space to celebrate chef Jason Dady’s Tre Trattoria for its Top 10 Italian bona fides: for handmade pasta, for rustic cast-iron pizza, for its postcard River Walk setting at the San Antonio Museum of Art. But let’s make time to appreciate a simple lunch-time sandwich on warm, crusty bread, an Italian sandwich with dense layers of prosciutto and soppressata with pesto and oven-dried tomatoes. Served with a side of basil pesto pasta salad, it’s the best $16 you’ll spend on a sandwich this spring. 200 W. Jones Ave., Suite 501, at the San Antonio Museum of Art, 210-805-0333, tretrattoria.com
TOP 10 RIVER WALK RESTAURANTS: Nothing but the best
Pizza at Leo’s Hideout: I stumbled across this slice shop on the way to somewhere else, walking downtown after dark. Good pizza by the slice in the middle of the city, all the way to midnight? It’s like we’re finally catching up. Chalk that up to the restless spirit of Chad Carey, the Empty Stomach Group provocateur behind Barbaro, Double Standard, Extra Fine and Hot Joy, to name a few. Leo’s Hideout arrived downtown last fall, selling whole pizzas or slices, plus a few salads, some beers, easygoing drinks and a side of neon pizza parlor kitsch. These were big slices, built on foldable crusts with fat collars, including the L.C. Special, with mushrooms, roasted garlic, mozzarella and basil; and the Mad Dog, with Calabrian sausage, hot honey, jalapeños and ricotta cheese. Over the top, under the radar. Right on the money. 143 Soledad St., 210-251-2117, leoshideout.com
Caramel-apple-pecan pancakes at Granny D’s: I haven’t been to Granny D’s since I rated the area’s Top 10 Country Cafes a few years back. Granny D’s made the list with pancakes big enough to fuel the Canyon Lake lifestyle for more than 10 years. Nothing’s changed, unless they’ve gotten even better, with pancakes as hot and fluffy and as big around as an F-150 steering wheel. The caramel-apple version is like a three-for-one deal: part pancake, part apple pie, part birthday cake. 14312 FM 306, Canyon Lake, 830-964-4677, Facebook: Granny D’s
Lunch at Moo Deng Thai Restaurant: Named for Thailand’s adorable pygmy hippo TikTok star, the tiny shop called Moo Deng is the latest addition to the crazy quilt of restaurants on Fredericksburg Road. Owner Myla Suvichanaragultom opened Moo Deng just eight months after moving to the U.S. from Bangkok. Her menu is a short-and-sweet-and-spicy collection of Thai cooking’s greatest hits, and I found something to like about everything from Mafia Buffalo chicken wings and tom yum soup to a spicy beef dish called Moo Deng Fire and chicken pad pak. 820 Fredericksburg Road, 210-240-1845, moodengthairestaurant.com
Salmon belly crudo at Ostra: Sure, the steak and lobster got all the press when I named Ostra the No. 1 restaurant on the River Walk. But chef Robert Cantu, who oversees both the Mokara and Omni La Mansion hotels, also revitalized the raw bar, building on Ostra’s namesake oyster reputation with a bowl combining rich, silky slices of salmon belly with tangy-sweet pineapple gel, crisp serrano peppers and the briny pop of salmon roe. 212 W. Crockett St. at the Mokara Hotel & Spa, 210-396-5817, omnihotels.com
Chicken Ballotine at Supper: When I rank the city’s Top 10 hotel restaurants next week, you’ll be hearing more about how executive chef Geronimo Lopez and chef de cuisine Ralph Montes are breathing new life into the Michelin-rated Hotel Emma’s flagship restaurant. For now, I want to focus on the kitchen craft behind Supper’s Chicken Ballotine, born from a 12-hour process of roasting, whipping, stuffing and seasoning. It’s a labor of love that combines the layered flavors and textures of Continental cooking with the comfort of a country kitchen. 136 E. Grayson St. at Hotel Emma at Pearl, 210-448-8351, supperatemma.com
TOP 10 RIVER WALK FAILS: Nothing but the worst
The worst
Barbecue at Lone Star Cafe: Barbecue gets trampled on the River Walk the same way the River Walk makes San Antonio Mexican food look like Casa Bonita. It’s a comedy. And it’s a tragedy, a masquerade perpetuated by places like Lone Star Cafe, where the barbecue combo was like barbecue at a school cafeteria. Washed-out brisket with its belly showing under a “Git ’er Done” T-shirt, scorched chicken that crossed the road from a wildfire, and sausage with nothing left to lose. 237 Losoya St. on the River Walk, 210-223-9374, lonestarcafe.us
Shrimp and grits at Oro: Simplicity is the beauty of shrimp and grits, the art of getting those two things exactly right. This scuffed-up bar and grill at The Emily Morgan Hotel clearly didn’t understand the assignment, and this little iron skillet with the ratty hot pad on the handle looked like a crowded tour bus full of people in mismatched summer clothes. Bell pepper here, chopped onions there, Brussels sprouts everywhere, everything covered in sunscreen or melted butter, I couldn’t tell. And somewhere in there, undercooked shrimp lay curled up from exhaustion, their tails dragging in the soggy grits around them. The only other time I’ve been to Oro was to sit at the bar with a former colleague to drown our sorrows. It looks like those sorrows came back up for air and took the empty seat next to me. 705 E. Houston St. at The Emily Morgan Hotel, 210-244-0146, emilymorganhotel.com
Appetizer trio at Margaritaville: There’s a reason this River Walk tourist trap wasted away at No. 1 on my ranking of the Top 10 worst River Walk restaurants. Lots of reasons, really. Cheesy commercial exploitation, mix-and-match margaritas, pop-radio distortions of fast food and this three-part disharmony of an appetizer plate. It’s a sticky, greasy, gummy assortment of whatever Caribbean chicken egg rolls are supposed to be, plus a gloppy Buffalo Chicken Dip that denigrates Buffalo and chicken in equal measure. And chicken tenders, because the River Walk turns all of us into whiny backseat children on a road trip. It would be funny if it weren’t the price of an entree at a decent restaurant. 849 E. Commerce St., 210-973-5911, margaritavillesanantonio.com …