Best Bar Food

10 best bars in San Antonio for food that's as good as the drinks

Esquire Tavern San Antonio fish and chips

Some tasty bar bites are where you'd least expect.

San Antonio has numerous bars where the eats are rather complementary to the drinks. Some bars are upscale, and the food menu reflects that level of service, other bars are more basic, neighborhood spots, but the food is no less exceptional. Here are our top picks for the best pub grub in town.

Claude Hopper's
Claude Hopper's, near Stone Oak, is a craft beer bar with more than 40 brews on tap. It also puts a spin on pub grub with menu items offered for $10 or less. Bavarian-style pretzel sticks are baked onsite, served in Italian, Cajun, or traditional style. There are house-baked flatbreads, "naked" wings tossed in one of many house sauces or rubs, and smoked ale pulled pork street tacos and sliders. There are also nachos with beer-infused queso to please a crowd.

The Hangar
The Hangar is a full bar whose kitchen offers a variety of affordable pub grub in a low-key, casual atmosphere. Entrees include your choice from three burgers, a grilled chicken sandwich, chicken strips, or a BLT. The $12 bottomless brunch is available Saturday and Sunday. Don't forget the $1 mimosas.

The Esquire Tavern
The Esquire Tavern, on the western side of downtown, is the oldest bar on the River Walk and boasts the longest wooden bar top in Texas. Visitors need all the elbow space they can get to enjoy the craft and traditional cocktails with upscale food. The kitchen staff does not squelch on culinary quality or presentation at the buzzy tavern. Appetizers such as deviled eggs, boiled peanuts, and pork belly rillettes are fan favorites.

La Tuna Grill and La Tuna Icehouse
Located in Southtown, La Tuna is an unassuming, family- and budget-friendly venue for an easygoing afternoon meetup or dinner. La Tuna Grill and La Tuna Icehouse are separate entities, with separate owners, but they are on the same property and share the same vibe reflective of the Southtown community. The icehouse features dozens of domestic and imported beers, any of which can be enjoyed with fried stuffed jalapeños, white bean chili, seared salmon salad, torta milanesa, or roasted lamb sandwich.

Cullum's Attagirl
Cullum's Attagirl, from Chris Cullum of Cullum's Attaboy fame, loves its chicken. The icehouse offers 12 craft beers on tap to help you cool down from the Nashville hot, Southern fried, or daily smoked wings. If that’s not enough, consider chicken with waffles or the fried bologna sandwich topped with pimento cheese and homestyle pickles.

Charlie Brown's
Charlie Brown's, for a full neighborhood bar on the North Central side of town, has a solid budget-friendly menu. Charlie Brown's offers buffalo wings; eight styles of burgers; and nine sandwiches, including the prime rib and the Philly cheesesteak. Entrees include Salisbury steak, 10-ounce New York strip streak, 16-ounce rib-eye, or fish and chips.

Tucker’s Kozy Korner
Chris Cullum offers Southern soul food dinner options at the casual yet hip lounge, including the red-eye molasses ribs, fried chicken livers, collard greens, skillet cornbread, and fried catfish. Like Cullum’s Attagirl icehouse, Tucker’s offers Southern-inspired Sunday brunch, complete with eggs Benedict, biscuits and gravy, chicken and waffles, a Bloody Mary bar, micheladas, and mimosas.

Ocho
Ocho restaurant and lounge shares space with Havana, a full bar, at the upscale Hotel Havana. Enjoy a pan-Latin-inspired lunch, dinner, or late-night snack with a cocktail, while overlooking the River Walk. The all-day menu includes coconut rice and beans, shrimp and crab campachena, and a classic Cuban sandwich.

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NYT loves AUS

Pastry chef from San Antonio makes New York Times Best Bakeries list

Comadre Panadería/Instagram

Comadre Panadería is known for nostalgic Mexican bakes with feminine flair.

The New York Times has once again shined its spotlight on Austin’s culinary scene. It included Comadre Panadería, an Austin bakery by San Antonio native Mariela Camacho, on its new list of the 22 of the Best Bakeries Across the U.S. Right Now.

Interim food critic Priya Krishna praises pastry chef Camacho’s pastries that include conchas and her signature pink cake. “Despite their saccharine appearances, not one of the desserts is overly cloying, and even the coffee drinks (Texas pecan horchata! Cranberry vanilla agua fresca!) strike the playful tone of the pastries,” she writes.

Comadre Panadería has been widely recognized, including by this publication; Camacho, who is now based in Ausitn, won Pastry Chef of the Year in the 2023 CultureMap Austin Tastemaker Awards. She also earned a 2024 James Beard Award semifinalist nomination for Outstanding Pastry Chef or Baker.

Camacho and Comadre as a whole are both invested in using baked goods to make a more equitable world, from the bakery's early days as a fundraiser for disaster relief, to a current insistence on charging enough to support ethical and organic foods, and paying staff enough to keep up with rising costs in Austin.

Although Camacho was born in San Antonio and started her baking career there, she also spent a significant time in Seattle, Washington, where Comadre started as a pop-up. According to Austin Monthly, she then moved back to San Antonio, and then to Austin. But no matter where she is, the Mexican cooking traditions of her ancestors take precedent.

Mariela Camacho of Comadre Panaderia in Austin Mariela Camacho, Comadre Panaderia. Courtesy photo

The Times also recognized Houston's Koffeteria. Krishna hails the bakery for pastry chef-owner Vanarin Kuch’s creative fare that includes dishes such as beef pho kolaches, Chinese sausage breakfast tacos, and butter mochi.

“Some of Mr. Kuch’s offerings are rooted in his Cambodian American identity — he makes cornbread with the coconutty, scallion-forward flavors of Cambodian street corn — while others are odes to Houston’s multicultural makeup. But most of the fun of Koffeteria is having no idea what Mr. Kuch will do next, and eagerly awaiting his next innovation,” Krishna writes.

Open since 2019, Koffeteria has been riding high this year. It earned a James Beard Award semifinalist nomination for Outstanding Bakery and a CultureMap Houston Tastemaker Award for Pastry Chef of the Year.

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Comadre Panadería and Koffeteria are the only Texas establishments to make the Times’ list. Only California and New York City, which each have three representatives, earn more recognition.

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