If Chef Steve McHugh’s Cured restaurant shows his roots in rural Wisconsin and his adopted home-town of New Orleans, Landrace picks up where Cured left off, and anchors its understanding of San Antonio in the land itself.
“The idea of Landrace is focusing on Texas terroir,” McHugh says. “Whether it’s the fish coming out of the Gulf or raking prickly pear and using it in a dessert, I want to take all of these things that San Antonio is known for and put them in a menu.”
This gem located at the new Thompson Hotel downtown came from an idea Steve and Sylvia McHugh conceived of years ago. It found its home at the hotel when a Thompson executive reached out to McHugh after dining at Cured.
“They were fans of what we were doing and wanted to do some-thing new and different for San Antonio,” McHugh says.“They were adamant about nothing touristy.”
The heart of Cured is the charcuterie case that greets guests when they first walk in. At Landrace, the hub is a gleaming, steel Argentinian-style grill with crank wheels akin to a contraption in a Jules Verne story. It’s a heart that beats with a live fire, which the chef raises and lowers to adjust the heat and intensity needed for each dish. The grill relies on a mix of mesquite and post oak that add earthy, sweet and piquant notes to dishes.
The smoke notes enliven a seemingly basic bread service that includes dense, house-baked rolls accompanied by a dip of smoked butter and Texas extra virgin olive oil, together evoking the feeling of a campfire under a clear, Texas sky.
Pair that bread and butter with a house cocktail. Maybe you’ll want something based on mezcal, or per-haps a mesquite-infused bourbon. Or, ask for a visit from the Old Fashioned cart that offers diners a choice of spirits, flavored syrups and bitters. No matter the selection, the commitment to a sense of place shines through with ingredients that include mesquite beans and prickly pear. “I wanted to make the bar as local as our kitchen,” says McHugh, a five-time James Beard Award finalist.
After the bread, move on to appetizers where the smoke adds depth to grilled barbecue oysters, and it plays off the herbaceous parsley and garlic spread of the accompanying toast to achieve memorable bites. The smoke enlivens a rich and addictive bone marrow appetizer, too.
But it’s not all about the smoke. Consider a snapper crudo, presented as an entree plate of fanned out raw fish, bathing in brightly sweet clementine juice, with thin slices of fermented—not simply pickled—chilis, and dollops of avocado yogurt. The result is a light dish with amazing and intense flavors.
The rustic overtones of the dishes balance with the sleek, strong lines of the stylish interior architecture. Indeed, the entire restaurant offers a remarkable bal-ance of seeming opposites: rustic yet elegant, playful yet meticulous, intensively creative yet accessible.
In other words, if you like what McHugh created at Cured, you’ll love what his team is doing at Landrace. It’s superb.
