Comfort Food
Dallas restaurant brings biscuits and Southern charm to San Antonio
An upscale Southern gastropub from Dallas with from-scratch food and a pre-Prohibition style bar is headed for San Antonio.
Called Ida Claire, the restaurant will open at 7300 Jones Baltsberger Rd., at the Alamo Quarry Market, in the space formerly occupied by El Machito. A spokesperson confirms that the restaurant will open in summer 2019.
Ida Claire describes its food as a "unique take on Southern cuisine." The menu includes Nashville hot chicken, shrimp and grits, smoked pork chop, chicken and waffles, muffalettas, and a burger with pimento cheese.
Biscuits are a big thing, available solo or in configurations such as the chicken and biscuit sandwich. As company VP Scott Sharrer quips in a help wanted ad, "It's worth working here just to eat the biscuits."
The "pre-Prohibition style" bar means it offers bottled sodas, and makes grenadine, syrups, bitters, and fresh juice in-house daily, with a focus on craft rum and gin.
The first location opened in 2015 just north of Dallas in Addison, where it serves not only lunch and dinner, but breakfast as well.
Ida Claire is part of the Front Burner group, the force behind such concepts as Twin Peaks; Whiskey Cake; Mexican Sugar; Velvet Taco; The Ranch at Las Colinas; and Sixty Vines, a pizza-and-wine concept. Front Burner is also the group that opened Legacy Hall, the acclaimed food hall in Plano.
Front Burner has regular ties to San Antonio, having opened a location of Whiskey Cake in 2014. They were also the company that brought San Antonio's Hot Joy to Dallas in 2017; sadly, it only lasted three months.