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San Antonio chef Jason Dady is opening a new restaurant at the Spurs campus next year.. Roca & Martillo will open at the Frost Plaza within the Rock at La Cantera sometime in the spring of 2024.
The restaurant’s menu will feature Italian and Tuscan dishes with South Texas inflections. Expect smoked brisket lasagna, bourbon-honey-glazed Texas quail with a wheat grain risotto, Tuscan-style marinated steaks, and wood-fired flatbreads. There will be indoor and outdoor dine-in services, with a rooftop patio. The name is Italian for “rock and hammer,” which is a reference to the team’s mantra of “pounding the rock.” The Rock at La Cantera is also home to the Spurs’s training facility, Victory Capital Performance Center.
Earlier this year, Dady opened a location of his barbecue restaurant Two Bros BBQ at the Frost Bank Center (where the Spurs play).
San Antonio cookbook alert
San Antonio chef Steve McHugh is publishing his first cookbook next year. Cured features recipes for fermented and cured items like pickles and jams as well as dishes using those items. It’s being published by Ten Speed Press, and will be released on March 26, 2024. The book was co-written by Paula Forbes (author of the Austin Cookbook, former Eater/Eater Austin editor, currently of cookbook newsletter Stained Page News). McHugh runs New American restaurant Cured and Texas-focused restaurant Landrace within the Thompson Hotel in San Antonio. He also opened his first Austin restaurant, Luminaire, and rooftop bar, Las Bis, in downtown earlier this year.
Pickleball opening back in Austin
A new pickleball club opened in downtown Austin last month with food and drink available. Austin Pickle Ranch is found at 1717 West Sixth Street on the fourth floor of the parking garage as of October 1, as reported by Community Impact. One of the eight courts can be booked online and there are monthly memberships. Players can buy snacks and non-boozy drinks.
Tracking Austin food and restaurant events
South Congress Hotel’s Japanese restaurant Otoko and cocktail bar counterpart Watertrade is hosting the next of its Dram Sessions, where they offer Japanese whisky tastings with paired food. The next one takes place on Sunday, November 26 at 4 p.m. with a focus on Eigashima Shuzo spirits. It’s $120 per person.
