San Antonio | Pearl District

You got a glimpse of some of our adventures in San Antonio in our Texas Road Trip post, but we wanted to highlight our time in this city in a little more detail. Growing up in Texas, we made the requisite trips to San Antonio over the years, namely to visit the Alamo and walk The Riverwalk. Of all the major Texas cities, San Antonio tends to get treated like the ugly step child of the bunch. However, after spending a weekend there, I can see why Budget Travel named San Antonio the number two destination in the world to visit in 2016. Iceland was number one. Good thing we checked that one off already.

While in San Antonio, we stayed with friends who live in the Pearl District. Located on the river, this pedestrian friendly neighborhood was the site of a former brewery, evident by the industrial architecture still in place. The Pearl is home to some of the top restaurants in San Antonio, locally-owned shops, and the San Antonio Farmer’s Market which is a local favorite on weekend mornings. It is also home to one of four branches of the famed Culinary Institute of America.

We arrived on a Friday afternoon, and immediately set out to explore, grabbing a coffee at Local Coffee and some macrons at Bakery Lorraine. Then we channeled our inner child and went and played for a bit at The DoSeum, which I highly recommend if you have kids.

Saturday morning we woke up early and headed to the farmer’s market.

We grabbed iced chocolate mint coffees from San Antonio Coffee Roasters to cool off from the hot Texas summer heat. It was so good we returned the next morning to grab one for the road.

Having worked up an appetite browsing all that fresh produce, we headed to Supper for a leisurely lunch.

I recommend the elote corn caesar salad and the white cheddar, apple, and honey mustard grilled cheese sandwich. So yummy!

Supper is inside the recently opened Hotel Emma. The hotel building was originally Pearl’s Brewhouse, built in 1894, and offers a unique blending of historical elements with modern references.

After exploring the public areas of the hotel, we decided to grab a couple cocktails at Sternewirth, the hotel bar. Intimate groupings of sofas, easy chairs and banquettes arranged to encourage conversation, occupy this open lounge space.

After setting back out into the summer heat, we stopped off at Lick for a scoop of ice cream.

This farm to table ice cream company sources all ingredients locally and prides themselves on only using honest, pure ingredients their range artisanal ice cream flavors. It was so hard to choose! All the flavors sounded amazing.

We sampled our fair amount, made our selections, and headed home for an afternoon siesta followed by a cozy night in with lots of newborn baby snuggles.

We had a long drive back to Dallas on Sunday, but we couldn’t leave San Antonio without first having brunch at Boiler House. For south Texas in the summer, it was an unseasonably cool morning, so we decided to enjoy our meal out in the fresh air, which we came close to regretting when the clouds thickened and it started to sprinkle. Luckily, the weather held off and we were able to stay mostly dry.

We started with a round of coffees and the bubbling Swiss cheese with garlic and onion generously spooned over the crusty sourdough bread.

Continuing our series of unhealthy breakfast choices, we ordered peach french toast (drizzled in delectable caramel sauce and served with a scoop of vanilla bean ice cream finished with a sprinkle of Texas pecans) and the BLT mac and cheese (cheesy macaroni shells, bacon, vine tomatoes, spinach and white truffle mozzarella fondue topped with two poached eggs and hollandaise) to share.

With full tummies, we packed up the car, iced chocolate mint coffees in hand, and headed northbound I-35 back to Dallas before flying back to New York the following day.

If you find yourself in San Antonio, be sure to find your way to the Pearl District and bring your appetite with you!

-Ash xx