R estaurant origin stories are the stuff of modern-day mythology. The restaurant scene in Boerne is full of stories, told by people with a vision of what’s possible in a once-small town just 30 miles up the road from San Antonio.
Chef and co-owner Fernando Santafe of Las Guitarras Cocina Mexicana wanted a place where he and his fellow musicians — and whoever else wanted to join them — could break bread and play guitar. San Antonio chef Mark Bohanan of Bohanan’s Prime Steaks & Seafood wanted to honor his mother’s influence on his career, so he channeled her Southern cooking into Peggy’s on the Green at The Kendall.
Keith Kuhn opened his Italian restaurant Valeria to give his globetrotting wine and cooking career a place to settle down. Black Board Bar B Q pitmaster and owner Jake Gandolfo saw Sisterdale as the place to sling the barbecue sauce that symbolizes his chef’s journey: a little West Coast IPA, a little East Coast maple sugar and all the spices from points in-between.
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Over at Botero Wine + Tapas Bar, owners Luis and Gaby Mongiello wanted to bring the food and culture of their extended Spanish, Italian and Mexican families to their little spot in Boerne.
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Gather Boerne is one of the Top 10 restaurants in Boerne.
Gather Boerne is one of the Top 10 restaurants in Boerne.
The menu at Gather Boerne includes, clockwise from left, a chicken pesto sandwich, an English muffin BrieLT, a blackberry-ginger mimosa and watermelon salad.
The Mexican restaurant Las Guitarras Cocina Mexicana is one of the Top 10 restaurants in Boerne.
The Mexican restaurant Las Guitarras Cocina Mexicana is one of the Top 10 restaurants in Boerne.
The Italian restaurant Valeria is one of the Top 10 restaurants in Boerne.
The Italian restaurant Valeria is one of the Top 10 restaurants in Boerne.
259 Brantley’s Bistro & Bar is one of the Top 10 restaurants in Boerne.
A mixed grill plate at 259 Brantley’s Bistro & Bar in Boerne includes axis deer sausage, honey mustard-glazed quail and axis deer tenderloin.
A mural outside 259 Brantley’s Bistro & Bar in Boerne is a popular photo backdrop for visitors.
Cypress Grille is one of the Top 10 restaurants in Boerne.
Cypress Grille is one of the Top 10 restaurants in Boerne.
Black Board Bar B Q in Sisterdale is one of the Top 10 restaurants in Boerne.
Certified Angus Beef brisket is smoked over live oak at Black Board Bar B Q in Sisterdale.
Black Board Bar B Q in Sisterdale is one of the Top 10 restaurants in Boerne.
The Czech-German restaurant Little Gretel is one of the Top 10 restaurants in Boerne.
The Czech-German restaurant Little Gretel in Boerne serves kolaches with fruit and farmer’s cheese, left, and poppyseed.
The menu at the Czech-German restaurant Little Gretel in Boerne includes, clockwise from top left, a housemade sausage plate, jägerschnitzel, Hacker-Pschorr Munich lager, Bohemian roasted duck and Austrian grüner veltliner wine.
The Czech-German restaurant Little Gretel is one of the Top 10 restaurants in Boerne.
The Spanish restaurant Botero Tapas + Wine Bar is one of the Top 10 restaurants in Boerne.
The Spanish restaurant Botero Tapas + Wine Bar in Boerne specializes in Paella Botero (clams, mussels, shrimp, pork and chicken) and red wine sangria.
The Spanish restaurant Botero Tapas + Wine Bar in Boerne specializes in Paella Botero (clams, mussels, shrimp, pork and chicken).
The Spanish restaurant Botero Tapas + Wine Bar is one of the Top 10 restaurants in Boerne.
The Southern restaurant and steakhouse Peggy’s on the Green is one of the Top 10 restaurants in Boerne.
The menu at the Southern restaurant and steakhouse Peggy’s on the Green in Boerne includes a 12-ounce New York strip steak, loaded baked potato, biscuits, roasted chicken and Southern green beans.
The Southern restaurant and steakhouse Peggy’s on the Green is one of the Top 10 restaurants in Boerne.
The Creek Restaurant is one of the Top 10 restaurants in Boerne.
The menu at The Creek Restaurant in Boerne includes, clockwise from top left, New Zealand sauvignon blanc, habanero scallops, Tajima Japanese Wagyu tenderloin, a house salad, citrus duck confit, a side of linguini pasta and a Woodford Reserve old fashioned.
The menu at The Creek Restaurant in Boerne includes citrus duck confit with mashed potatoes.
The Creek Restaurant is one of the Top 10 restaurants in Boerne.
Together, they’ve given all of us a reason to make Boerne a restaurant destination, a destination comfortable with lamb sliders, chorizo-stuffed quail, a $400 bottle of California cab, Spanish paella and Japanese Wagyu. A destination on the same upward trajectory as San Antonio.
Here are Boerne’s Top 10 restaurants.
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The menu at Gather Boerne includes, clockwise from bottom left, a chicken pesto sandwich, an English muffin BrieLT, watermelon salad and a blackberry-ginger mimosa.
This bright and breezy coffeehouse opened this spring under the sprawling shade trees of a former dog kennel, a project from Amy Brand, her brother Paul Carey and his wife Jessica Carey. Brand is married to chef John Brand of Supper at Hotel Emma at the Pearl in San Antonio, who calls himself a “silent, supportive” partner.
More than a full-service coffee shop and wine bar, Gather’s menu is a smartly curated list of well-executed salads, sandwiches, breakfast dishes and pastries. Options include a lush chicken pesto sandwich, a robust bacon-cheddar scone, a refreshing watermelon salad and a polished English muffin breakfast sandwich called the BrieLT with bacon, egg and fat slices of brie cheese. 946 N. School St., Boerne, 830-331-2182, gatherboerne.com
The menu at the Mexican restaurant Las Guitarras Cocina Mexicana in Boerne includes steak and shrimp skewers called Brocheta Bull Fighter, left, and a plate of New Mexico-style stacked enchiladas with chicken, blue corn tortilla and New Mexico green chile sauce.
Even when Santafe and his talented friends aren’t playing their nightly Spanish and flamenco guitar sessions, there’s music in the air at Las Guitarras. It’s the music of plates with a variety of Mexican influences, including New Mexico-style stacked enchiladas with chicken, blue corn tortillas and New Mexico green chile sauce. Call it casserole with the attitude of an artist. A Tex-Mex combo plate lets a cheese enchilada, a chicken puffy taco and a beef crispy taco each have their solo moments.
Las Guitarras brings out the superstars with an aromatic chile en nogada with pomegranate seeds and with a pair of grilled steak and shrimp skewers lyrically called Brocheta Bull Fighters. There’s beer, wine and agave-wine margaritas, and the music fires up every night around 6. 911 S. Main St., Boerne, 830-331-8787, lasguitarrascocinamexicana.com
The Italian restaurant Valeria in Boerne makes lasagna with housemade pasta, Bolognese sauce and bechamel, and it has a wine list that includes Tuscan Viticcio Bolgheri red wine by the glass.
A singer posted up in the corner of Valeria’s wide open dining room on a Thursday night, a man in a fedora who crooned a playbook that ranged from the Rat Pack to Neil Diamond. Everybody sang along to “Sweet Caroline,” especially the “ba-ba-BA” part. It felt loose and carefree, fitting for an Italian restaurant that doesn’t bother with the everyday red-sauce standards.
In the classically trained hands of chef and owner Keith Kuhn, lasagna is made-to-order and served in a stone dish with round sheets of handmade pasta layered with lavish Bolognese and rich bechamel. For veal scaloppine, the veal comes from France, delicate and alabaster white, its subtle velvet texture the perfect companion for freshly shaved truffle and an earthy glass of Viticcio Bolgheri Toscana red wine. 109 Waterview Parkway, Boerne, 830-331-1393, valeriarestaurant.com
Baked salami chips with jalapeño cream cheese are a popular appetizer at 259 Brantley’s Bistro & Bar in Boerne.
The plank floors, tin ceilings and polished oak bar make 259 Brantley’s look like a saloon set from “Lonesome Dove.” Just below that rustic surface is a menu that’s comfortable with perfectly seared lamb sliders at lunch and a Hill Country mixed grill for dinner with axis tenderloin and sausage and mustard-glazed quail that could hold their ground on any white tablecloth.
Baked salami chips are a thing here, an unexpected hit that turns salami into crispy, fatty, salty charcuterie chips embedded in sweet jalapeño cream cheese. Brantley’s also pours the most extensive Texas wine list I’ve ever seen, and the bar stirs a Pecan Old Fashioned that lends just enough “country with K” charm without becoming a parody of itself. 259 S. Main St., Boerne, 830-331-8889, Facebook: @259brantleysbistro
Chorizo-stuffed quail comes with sweet corn and mole verde at Cypress Grille in Boerne.
Who do you want to be at Cypress Grille? Do you want to be the barstool philosopher having a Texas draft beer? The family sitting at the table with a twinkle-lit tree running through it? Or the head of the formal dining table facing the wine room?
Cypress Grill looks like a modest sidewalk cafe from the outside, but it sprawls through all of those identities inside, working from a menu that includes nicely grilled mahi mahi with lobster ravioli and an artfully plated chorizo-stuffed quail over sweet corn and complex mole verde. They’ll let you taste a strident cab franc before you order a glass, and if you’re the sort of old-schooler who digs the mushroom-gravy groove of steak Diane, they’ve got you covered, too. 170 S. Main St., Boerne, 830-248-1353, cypressgrille.com
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Barbecue and sides at Black Board Bar B Q in Sisterdale include, clockwise from bottom left, brisket, St. Louis pork ribs, corn maque choux, macaroni and cheese, Italian sausage and Wagyu jalapeño cheddar sausage.
A few miles north of Boerne proper on the prettiest country road in Central Texas, Black Board Bar B Q in Sisterdale is smoking brisket, ribs and sausage powerful enough to make my colleague Chuck Blount’s Top 10 San Antonio-area barbecue list. There’s no secret to the brisket. It’s just generously-trimmed certified Angus Beef that pitmaster Jake Gandolfo brings to perfect melt-in-your-mouth balance over live oak smoke.
The neatly butchered St. Louis ribs carry a cloak of deep blackening spice, and a link of Italian sausage growls with spice and attitude, amplified by mustard with cinnamon, cardamom and Shiner Bock. That’d be enough, but Black Board’s side game is just as strong, with creamy-crunchy corn maque choux, broiled macaroni and cheese and Luckenbach Lollipops that put fried chicken in the same league the ’cue. 1123 Sisterdale Road, Sisterdale, 830-324-6858, blackboardbarbq.com
The Czech-German restaurant Little Gretel in Boerne serves a housemade sausage plate with choices that include smoked buffalo, left, and Vienna bratwurst with sauerkraut and spätzle.
In the hands of chef and co-owner Denise Mazal, the food of Germany, Bavaria and the Czech Republic moves beyond the limitations of tourist curiosity and into the halls of proper respect where it belongs. Jägerschnitzel is tender beneath its crisp breading, a breading stout enough to support rich mahogany mushroom gravy without going soggy. Caramelized skin keeps a roasted duck moist and juicy on a plate with a cast of European all-star sides: tart sauerkraut, sweet purple cabbage, rustic Czech bread dumplings and herb-forward potato pancakes.
Little Gretel makes its own smoked buffalo sausage and classic Vienna bratwurst for a sausage plate that includes springy handmade spätzle, a plate that pairs perfectly with a dark German lager or a spicy Austrian grüner veltliner wine. Mazal’s famous for her fruit and poppyseed kolaches. The first bite will tell you why. 518 River Road, Boerne, 830-331-1368, littlegretel.com
The Spanish menu at Botero Tapas + Wine Bar in Boerne includes Paella Botero (clams, mussels, shrimp, pork and chicken), red wine sangria, Spanish tortilla with pan con tomate and shrimp with saffron sauce.
Botero’s building looks like a storage shed from the outside, all corrugated steel and distressed wood. But cross the threshold and it’s more like a Spanish cafe, with a menu of red and white sangrias and tapas as simple as sliced Manchego cheese, as fortifying as the tall potato layers of a proper Spanish tortilla and as complex as rabbit-and-pork-cheek terrine.
But the main attraction is paella with clams, mussels, shrimp, pork and chicken. Botero treats every element like it’s the only element and then brings all of them together with the tiered textures of good paella rice and the ephemeral jolt of saffron. 161 S. Main St., Boerne, 830-446-3035, botero161.com
The menu at the Southern restaurant and steakhouse Peggy’s on the Green in Boerne includes chicken-fried quail and an heirloom tomato salad.
When Mark Bohanan opened Peggy’s in 2016, he brought all the formal polish and beefy swagger of his downtown San Antonio steakhouse Bohanan’s. The 12-ounce New York strip at Peggy’s wears the same time-honored crosshatching of the mesquite grill at Bohanan’s, and it’s just as easy to get a big glass of cabernet sauvignon from the uniformed — and informed — waitstaff as it is at Peggy’s big-city brother.
But Peggy’s finds its way to the South with fluffy, golden-top biscuits; green beans stewed with tomato and bacon; a salad that pays tribute to summer tomatoes and a crunchy fried quail appetizer that incorporates little fluffy johnny cakes and cayenne maple syrup. 128 W. Blanco Road at The Kendall, Boerne, 830-572-5000, peggysonthegreen.com
The menu at The Creek Restaurant in Boerne includes habanero scallops with Spanish chorizo, habanero-peach reduction and roasted corn.
In a dining room set like the parlor of a European aristocrat from the 1920s, The Creek makes no concessions to informality. The waiters wear uniforms, pull chairs, fold napkins and offer an amuse bouche of French onion soup to start dinner. The wine list rolls on for 11 printed pages, the cocktail and spirits list for another six. Make it easy on yourself and get the perfectly balanced Woodford Reserve old fashioned.
The Creek has held its landscaped space along Cibolo Creek since 2006, and chef Josue Padilla has been in charge of the kitchen for the past six years. In a world of fusion and confusion, his cooking holds the Continental line, from the tender citrus bite of duck confit to seared scallops with Spanish chorizo to a grilled Japanese Wagyu tenderloin that needed only a butter knife to cut it.
It’s a great restaurant experience by Boerne standards, by San Antonio standards, by any standard. 119 Staffel St., Boerne, 830-816-2005, thecreekrestaurant.com
msutter@express-news.net | Twitter: @fedmanwalking | Instagram: @fedmanwalking
Mike Sutter is the Express-News restaurant critic. Before joining the Taste Team in 2016, he served as restaurant critic for the Austin American-Statesman and editor of FedManWalking.com. He's appeared on NPR's "All Things Considered," ABC's "To Tell the Truth" and written for The Guardian, Bon Appetit and The Wall Street Journal.