Prepare your palates, San Antonio...Chef John Besh's Lüke Restaurant opens within a few weeks on the Riverwalk.
Rather than developing the same exact restaurant and menu as the original in New Orleans, Chef Steve McHugh (www.twitter.com/chefstevemchugh) has modified the Alstatian-style restaurant to meet local needs and flavors. The menu will include many local ingredients, such as quail, beef, and a wide variety of produce.
They invited the local food blogging community (hey, that's me!) to a special preview tasting tonight, across the river from the restaurant. It's located in the new Embassy Suites downtown, just across the street from Acenar and the Hotel Valencia. Their chefs prepared a variety of house-made sausages (not on the menu in New Orleans but added here due to the strong German community), Texas fried quail with Hill Country honey, Chef Besh's famous creamy shrimp and grits, and a decadent bread pudding for dessert. Their bar will feature Texas wines and beers (as well as French, German and Belgian beers).
We had to don hard hats for our restaurant tour, as construction is still very much underway. Keith Zars Pools designed the $2 million indoor/outdoor water feature, a future bridal photo location for-sure. Oddly for a Riverwalk restaurant, there's no river seating, although the large curved picture window overlooks the river, and there are two small outdoor dining patios. The glassed-in kitchen (which was unfortunately inaccessible due to welding work) features VIP seating; manager Victor told us those are the most popular seats in the New Orleans location.
Chef Steven (and most of the other senior staff) moved to San Antonio several months ago and has been overseeing the (slow) construction work. Their current plan is to have a "soft" opening at the end of October, with a grand opening about three weeks after that. But all depends on construction progress.
Hours will be 11:00am-11:00pm, 365 days a year. Valet parking will be avaialble for $7, and the restaurant is within easy walking distance of the Majestic. In fact, they've already arranged with the symphony to have pre/post-show sessions with the new conductor. I strongly recommend reservations, available online through Open Table.
Really looking forward to this one!
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