A lobster roll at the bar at Mixtli is one of the 10 best (and worst) things Express-News restaurant critic Mike Sutter ate in San Antonio in August.
Mike Sutter/San Antonio Express-News
When the month is split between research for the new Top 50 restaurants list and a patchwork of pizza, fried chicken, a new French cafe and New Braunfels road-tripping, there’s plenty to talk about for the 10 best (and worst) things I ate in and around San Antonio in August.
The best
Lobster roll at Mixtli: The lobster that’s part of the formal ticketed menu at this Michelin-starred Mexican gastronomy lab in Southtown is your gain at the bar. Because the claws they’re not using for that menu go into a fun-size lobster roll that’s part of the informal bar menu of small bites and big ideas. For an incredulous $14, you get two sweet arcs of coral-red lobster claw with smoked trout roe on a house-baked sweet coconut bread roll, no reservations required. 812 S. Alamo St., Suite 103, 210-338-0746, restaurantmixtli.com
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The Cochon Cochonne sandwich (top left) at Ray & Josephine is one of the 10 best (and worst) things Express-News restaurant critic Mike Sutter ate in San Antonio in August.
Mike Sutter/San Antonio Express-News
Cochon Cochonne sandwich at Ray & Josephine: Chef Raphael Francois arrived at his new French cafe on the ground floor of the Merchants Ice building on the East Side last month with a restaurant rap sheet full of big names and Michelin stars. But he’d rather talk about how he’s perfecting the bread for the sandwiches on the cafe’s opening menu, a menu of croissants, fresh pastries, quiche, a bacon-egg-and-cheese sandwich, coffee and matcha for breakfast and sandwiches for lunch. Those sandwiches include a a crispy chicken number, a French shaved beef with horseradish, and a Cochon Cochonne double-pig stack of jambon cru ham and mortadella with confit tomatoes, arugula and burrata cheese. It’s a two-handed beast with surprisingly light-bright curb appeal. The counter-service cafe is named for the chef’s grandmothers, Raymonde and Josephine. For now, the hours are 7 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday; 8 a.m. to 4 p.m. Saturday; and 8 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Sunday. Francois plans to add dinner as soon as his beer-and-wine license goes through. 1305 E. Houston St., Suite 1103, Instagram: @rayjosephinecafe
TOP 50: S.A.’s best restaurants
A flight of house-brewed beer at Dos Sirenos Brewing is one of the 10 best (and worst) things Express-News restaurant critic Mike Sutter ate in San Antonio in August.
Mike Sutter/San Antonio Express-News
Flight of house-brewed beer at Dos Sirenos Brewing: Michael and Kari Sireno opened their brewery, bar and grill in 2019, coming through the worst of the pandemic even better on the other side, with more than 20 house beers on tap and an engaging menu of brunch, burgers, pizzas, pork belly banh mi tacos and so much more from veteran chef Jared Cattoni. A beer flight of 5-ounce brews included a crisp, a floral IPA, a tannic Belgian tripel and a milk stout called Moo-cha Latte. Each of them clean and true-to-style, each of them inviting a deeper dive into the tap wall and menu alike. 231 E. Cevallos St., 210-442-8138, dossirenosbrewing.com
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Crispy sweetbreads at Max’s Sister is one of the 10 best (and worst) things Express-News restaurant critic Mike Sutter ate in San Antonio in August.
Mike Sutter/San Antonio Express-News
Crispy sweetbreads at Max’s Sister: It wasn’t enough for San Antonio ultra-chef Andrew Weissman to land his new restaurant at the top of our new ranking of the city’s 50 best restaurants. He had to go and make one of the year’s best dishes: crispy sweetbreads. Weissman takes the thymus glands we poetically call sweetbreads, cooks them to a light crispiness and plates them with garlic spinach, morel mushrooms and the tawny velvet gloss of sauce madeira. Close your eyes, and you can pretend it’s the already-mythical chicken-fried steak Weissman tossed off the menu when he took Max’s to full glow-up mode. 10003 NW Military Highway, Suite 2125, 210-383-8416, Instagram: @maxssistersa
The Eric’s Special pizza (lower right) at Joey’s on North St. Mary’s Street is one of the 10 best (and worst) things Express-News restaurant critic Mike Sutter ate in San Antonio in August.
Mike Sutter/San Antonio Express-News
Eric’s Special pizza at Joey’s: It was only last month I learned that Joey Villarreal — the Joey in Joey’s bar on the St. Mary’s Strip — also owns Blue Star Brewing Co. a few miles south. That explains Blue Star’s Texican, Green Tractor and Apache Amber beers on tap at Joey’s. And the fast-turn kitchen savvy behind a bar pizza with a handmade crust on the thin and crunchy side, this one loaded with a surprising patchwork of pesto, pepperoni, mushrooms, tomatoes and basil. Pretty good for a dive bar. Pretty good for anywhere. Bonus #1: Ask for the Blue Star Geyser raspberry sour beer in a glass as tall and cool as you are. Bonus #2: If you park near the bar and there’s a QR code staring at you, either use it to pay way too much for parking in that spot or pay way too much for a predatory private parking ticket, a ticket my buddy got just 38 seconds after parking there unaware. There’s almost always a spot for free along East Ashby Place around the corner. 2417 N. St. Mary’s St., 210-733-9573, Facebook: Joey’s – San Antonio
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Fried chicken from Cap’n Jim’s Fish & Chicken To Go is one of the 10 best (and worst) things Express-News restaurant critic Mike Sutter ate in San Antonio in August.
Mike Sutter/San Antonio Express-News
Fried chicken at Cap’n Jim’s Fish & Chicken To Go: Don’t let the shabby, sun-scorched walkup energy blind you to the truth: This is some the best cheap fried chicken in San Antonio, if you don’t mind eating in your car or taking it back to wherever you call home. A two-piece, dark-meat combo with crinkle fries starts at $3.54, and a three-piece mix of white and dark with fries and a jumbo sweet tea is just $5.75. This is good fried chicken, clean and crisp and shaggy, with the juice to back it up. 2026 Pleasanton Road, 210-994-8969
Halibut with green pepper, white beans, olives and herbs at Supper at Hotel Emma at Pearl is one of the 10 best (and worst) things Express-News restaurant critic Mike Sutter ate in San Antonio in August.
Mike Sutter/San Antonio Express-News
Halibut with green pepper and herbs at Supper: Cooked with a practiced hand, halibut is a prince of a fish, clean and flaky, but with the integrity to act as a canvas for most anything the kitchen wants to paint. Once again under the leadership of John Brand, the chef who put Supper on the map in the first place, the restaurant paints its own halibut landscape with the green and khaki tones of green peppers, white beans, olives and herbs for an effect like chimichurri for the seafood class. 136 E. Grayson St. at Hotel Emma at Pearl, 210-448-8351, supperatemma.com
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HONORABLE MENTION: 25 more great restaurants
The worst
Big Daddy Nachos at Oblate Cafe are some of the 10 best (and worst) things Express-News restaurant critic Mike Sutter ate in San Antonio in August.
Mike Sutter/San Antonio Express-News
Big Daddy Nachos at Oblate Cafe: I’m a big fan of Oblate Cafe, enough to rank them No. 47 on this year’s Top 50. For the big flour tortillas and the breakfast tacos they make possible. For carne guisada and combo plates. For swirling bowls of primordial menudo served all week long. But I can’t get behind the stiff, dry beef fajitas and the bitter edges of over-broiled chips and cheese that make up the Big Daddy Nachos. They cost about the same as one of those combo plates with enchiladas and a puffy taco. But they deliver half as much. 904 Oblate Drive, 210-826-3363, Facebook: Oblate Cafe
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The Amanti Della Carne pizza (bottom right) at Pizzeria Buonizzimo is one of the 10 best (and worst) things Express-News restaurant critic Mike Sutter ate in San Antonio in August.
Mike Sutter/San Antonio Express-News
Amanti Della Carne pizza at Pizzeria Buonizzimo: That name? It’s the lyrical way of saying it’s a meat lover’s pizza from the Italian spot that took over the former Aloha Kitchen space near Fort Sam in February. Except when it hit the table in shades of shimmered capillary splatter broken by haunted phantasms of amoebic whiteness, we couldn’t tell if we had the right pie. The “double pepperoni” decamped in shallow clusters toward the center. Carefully rationed slices of paper-thin soppressata retreated into the abyss like Homer Simpson in the cornfield. Specks of pancetta hardly made bumps in the cheesy stracciatella ooze. The crust formed an irregular circle with reasonable toasting, but ultimately did nothing to soften the slasher-movie aesthetics of a pizza that struggled to support its $28.99 price tag. 1151 Harry Wurzbach Road, 210-560-2229, buonizzimo.com
Jagerschnitzel at Krause’s Cafe in New Braunfels is one of the 10 best (and worst) things Express-News restaurant critic Mike Sutter ate in and around San Antonio in August.
Mike Sutter/San Antonio Express-News
Jägerschnitzel at Krause’s Cafe: I’ve reviewed and ranked and written up this resurrection of a legacy German cafe from the time it reopened in its modernized quonset hut biergarten glory in 2017. In 2022, I ranked it first on my Top 10 New Braunfels list. In 2024, it came in at No. 4. From the outset, I’ve ordered the trinity: jägerschnitzel with a fried pork cutlet and mushroom gravy; a Reuben sandwich; and a sampler of local sausages. I liked the food. I loved Krause’s, with its big community energy and a tap wall as wide as Germany. So when I went back last week, I ordered the same spread. And let me tell you, friends: This is not the Krause’s Cafe of nine years ago. Did everything shrink, or did I just get bigger? I could get a more substantial Reuben at Jason’s Deli. I could buy cheese cubes and kielbasa at H-E-B, throw on some dry pumpernickel bread and make that sampler. But I’d have to go to a school cafeteria to get a jägerschnitzel this withdrawn, clearly in distress over the Great Gravy Shortage of 2026, the one that the rest of us knew nothing about. At least I have my beer to cry into. 148 S. Castell Ave., New Braunfels, 830-625-2807, krausescafe.com
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