Past the dry growing old cupboard of meats on the entrance of Cured sits a desk for 4 by the kitchen. A white tablecloth chef’s desk.
Company are handled to a five-course menu ready by Steven McHugh, a six-time James Beard-nominated chef. Every tableside dish is exclusive, the meat regionally-sourced, the components native to Texas.
Name it farm-to-table with tales from McHugh. He tells tales concerning the rabbit he confits and the place it was farmed, tales concerning the dry-aged pork and the cured flavors within the kitchen, tales about sourcing particulars from native farms and ranches.
One facilities on the 28-day, dry-aged Akaushi Prime Texas beef from HeartBrand Beef, an organization run by fifth-generation cattle ranchers in Flatonia.
“Akaushi beef is very tender with intense marbling,” McHugh mentioned, “leading to a definite buttery taste.”
Wine and beverage pairings are curated by bar supervisor Robert Rodriguez for every chef’s desk expertise. “I discover real satisfaction in discovering that excellent steadiness between your private style and the distinctive flavors showcased all through the menu,” Rodriguez mentioned. “It’s these conscious connections between what’s in your glass and in your plate that really elevate the eating expertise.”
Embedded within the restaurant’s title is a double that means, a deeper story.
McHugh is a most cancers survivor. He arrived in San Antonio in 2011, battling non-Hodgkin lymphoma. In 2013, he opened Cured at Pearl with the illness in remission and a imaginative and prescient: He wished to lengthen moments with household and buddies over meals.
Restaurant and chef earned nationwide acclaim. Cured advanced with rotating menus and inventive flavorings. The chef’s desk ($150-plus per individual) is the newest addition of an increasing culinary repertoire.
“Cured’s menu may be very fluid,” McHugh mentioned. “It’s continually altering. With the chef’s desk, we wished to step out and create one thing that takes a bit bit extra time.”
For instance?
“We’re going to perform a little rabbit tasting with a rabbit sausage made from the stomach with the loin,” he mentioned. “And we’ve received chicken-fried rabbit leg that we’re going to confit after which buttermilk brine and deep fry and serve with some pickled okra.”
The chef’s desk is a tribute to preserved meals, the “magic mud,” as McHugh calls it, of his culinary journey.
“Curing is the place it began for me: preserving components by packing them in salt,” McHugh wrote in his cookbook, “Cured: Cooking with Ferments, Pickles, Preserves & Extra.” “Salt pulls both a bit water out of meals, which improves taste and texture, or loads of water, which renders the ingredient inhospitable to dangerous micro organism and extends its edibility.”
McHugh grew up on a dairy farm in Wisconsin, one in all seven brothers whose dad and mom raised hogs and chickens, geese and geese. There, he discovered canning, pickling and fermenting. Farm-to-table was his life.
In his teenagers, McHugh took a job as a dishwasher and cook dinner and fell in love with the kitchen. Inspired by his father, he enrolled on the Culinary Institute of America in New York, the place he thrived.
McHugh discovered post-CIA work in New Orleans. Underneath the mentorship of celeb chef John Besh, McHugh refined his culinary chops within the famend kitchen at August.
“I used to be very fortunate early on in New Orleans,” McHugh mentioned. “I labored for a chef that received the James Beard award. I felt extraordinarily proud. And never only for him, however for myself and the complete crew.”
At August, McHugh had an opportunity encounter with former Spurs coach Gregg Popovich. The 2 met in an upstairs hallway about 20 years in the past.
“I mentioned, ‘Coach!’ And he mentioned, ‘How are you,’” McHugh recalled. “And we simply began speaking. That was again when, imagine it or not, Chris Paul was enjoying in New Orleans. And we began speaking about what an ideal participant he was.”
Years later, Popovich stepped into Cured. Chef and coach laughed about their way back assembly and commenced a culinary connection.
“He doesn’t significantly stick to 1 factor,” McHugh mentioned. “He’s everywhere in the menu, which is nice. He likes to strive new issues. I keep in mind the time he got here in and mentioned, ‘Wow, you will have fried hen livers? I can’t keep in mind the final time I had these. Let’s order ‘em.’”
McHugh divides his time between Cured and The Spurs Membership, a personal social membership and restaurant at The Rock at La Cantera, the place he serves as govt curating chef. At a current Fiesta occasion on the Spurs Membership, he ready smoked brisket tacos and New Orleans-style barbecue shrimp.
“It’s been an ideal partnership,” McHugh mentioned. “It offers individuals who dwell on the North Facet the flexibility to style a few of the issues we do right here with out having to come back all the way in which right down to the Pearl.”
The Pearl is dwelling. The chef’s desk a brand new journey. An upcoming menu merchandise: escargot. Sure, that’s the French phrase for snail.
“There’s one thing concerning the texture of the escargot and the fattiness of the marrow,” McHugh mentioned. “You’re spreading it on some bread and all of it works very well with a extremely nice herby compound butter that’s stuffed with garlic and spices.
“Cured has all the time been that place that by no means match any field. It’s all the time been that place the place we simply cook dinner with what we’ve and the place our fancies are. It’s in all probability why we’ve been so profitable and why we proceed to push and push the barrier and attempt to make ourselves higher day by day and never relaxation on what we did yesterday.”
