San Antonio, TX

San Antonio's only Michelin-starred restaurant, run by chefs Diego Galicia and Rico Torres in a 12-seat counter-style room on South Alamo. Each month brings a single new tasting menu organized around a region or moment in Mexican history.

John and Elise Russ's neighborhood restaurant in Castle Hills, ranked the city's best by the Express-News critic year after year. The daily-changing 'Feed Me' chef's tasting is the way most regulars go.

A 25-seat French bistro on South Presa that earned a five-star Express-News review in its first year. Three-course prix fixe most nights, an unusually deep wine-by-the-glass list for the size of the room.

A modern Texas-cuisine restaurant and bar in a 100-year-old King William building, run by Chef Paul Petersen. The smash burger with prosciutto and manchego on a brioche bun is the dish locals come back for.

Chef Mark Bliss's Southtown restaurant in a converted 1920s garage, with a frequently changing seasonal menu and quietly excellent service. The room is small enough that you'll see the chef at some point.

French-inspired Texas cuisine on the St. Mary's strip, with a Plat du Jour rotating three-course prix fixe daily. The wood-fired kitchen has been the neighborhood anchor since 2017.

Rustic Italian in the historic Fire Station No. 7 on the gateway to Southtown, with house-made pastas and a wood-burning oven. The 1920s firehouse architecture does most of the room's work.

Three French chef-owners opened this Pearl brasserie and it has stayed at the top of the city's French scene since. Onion soup, escargots, steak frites — done as well as anywhere in Texas.

Chef Jeff Balfour's Pearl restaurant inside the original Pearl Brewery building, with a coastal-Southern menu and 15 house-brewed beers on tap. Perennial Bib Gourmand pick.

Chef Berty Richter's modern Mediterranean grill house at Pearl, drawing on the Judeo-Spanish migration route from Spain through North Africa to the Levant. Bib Gourmand winner and CultureMap Restaurant of the Year.

A Sonoran-Mexican restaurant inside Pullman Market at Pearl, focused on grilled meats, flour tortillas, and sharp cocktails. Bib Gourmand pick.

A Michelin-starred Texas tasting-menu room inside Pullman Market, drawing on hyper-seasonal Texas ingredients with a wine program built around Texas vineyards. NYT named it one of America's 50 best restaurants.

A walk-in brunch counter in a bungalow off the St. Mary's strip, serving French-style omelets, brisket breakfast sandwiches, and serious bloody marys. Bib Gourmand pick and the city's most-loved breakfast room.

Chef Nicola Blaque's Caribbean-and-Jamaican spot on the far west side, with jerk chicken, oxtail, and curry goat that draw drives from across the city. Bib Gourmand.

Chef Jennifer Hwa Dobbertin's Asian-American restaurant in a historic Pearl house, with a menu spanning cashew chicken, tom yum noodles, and a daily dim sum brunch. James Beard semifinalist for Emerging Chef.

A downtown steakhouse in a restored 1917 building on Houston Street, with prime beef, an extensive wine list, and live jazz on weekends. AAA Four-Diamond and the city's classic special-occasion room.

A North Loop 1604 steakhouse routinely ranked the city's best by both the Express-News and OpenTable diners. The room is dark and clubby; the steaks are dry-aged USDA Prime.

An Alamo Heights stalwart since 1977, serving steaks, seafood, and contemporary American comfort food under a canopy of oak trees on Broadway. The brunch landed on OpenTable's national top 100.

Housed in a pink former convent on South Alamo, with an eclectic menu of in-house everything — bread, charcuterie, pasta, ice cream — and a deep, weird wine list. The building leans noticeably to one side; that's part of the charm.

A daily-changing menu in a stone bungalow between Beacon Hill and Monte Vista, served Thursday through Saturday only. Owners Paul Sartory and Peggy Howe grow a lot of the produce in the side garden.

A small family-run Italian on the city's northwest side, with house-made pasta, a renowned lasagna, and an owner-host who treats every table like a regular. Texas Monthly three stars.

An unassuming family-owned Italian off Nacogdoches Road making everything in-house — pasta, bread, sauces, dressings, lemonade. Sean and Gini Archer run the dining room personally.

Neapolitan-style pizza in Southtown that has landed on 50 Top Pizza's Best in USA list four years running. House-made coppa and prosciutto, locally sourced vegetables, and a proper wood-fired crust.

A long-running Neapolitan pizzeria with a 900-degree brick oven and house-made mozzarella, voted the city's best pizza by the Express-News and San Antonio Magazine repeatedly. The Blanco Road location is the original.

An eight-mile paved south leg of the Riverwalk linking downtown to the four UNESCO missions, flat and shaded enough for a stroller or a road bike. Locals use it as a car-free route to all four missions in a morning.

The two-mile paved north leg of the Riverwalk from downtown to the Pearl, passing under public art installations including the F.I.S.H. lights at Camden Street. Best done as a 45-minute one-way walk with a coffee at the end.

Twelve thousand acres of Hill Country hiking northwest of the city, with 40+ miles of trails, dinosaur tracks visible on a back loop, and elevation gain unique in San Antonio. The Outer Loop is the harder option.

Ten miles of trails on the city's far northwest side, with steep hills, deep canyons, and habitat for the endangered Golden-cheeked Warbler. The Forest Range Trail is the moderate option; the Main Loop is the spring bird-watching draw.

An urban park north of downtown with the Robert L.B. Tobin Land Bridge — a vegetated overpass over six lanes of Wurzbach Parkway connecting the east and west halves. Mostly flat, family-friendly, and popular with stroller-pushers.

A 318-acre Hill Country park on the city's north side with a half dozen trails of varying difficulty and a stone observation tower at the high point. The perimeter loop covers the full park in about 90 minutes.

Nearly 1,000 acres of north-side park with a Blue Loop perimeter trail popular with mountain bikers, runners, and hikers. The most-used trail in the city by review count.

A 30-mile paved greenway running along Salado Creek through the city's east side, connecting parks and neighborhoods in a near-continuous linear corridor. Rideable end-to-end for serious cyclists.

A small (200-acre) northwest natural area with a 1.5-mile mixed paved-and-dirt loop including a canopy-level bridge overlook into a forested canyon. Almost always quiet and parking is reliable.

A 96-acre northeast-side park crowned by a stone tower built in the 1920s as part of a planned home that was never finished. Short trails and a steep-but-quick climb to the tower.

A small north-side park preserving prehistoric Native American sites, with short interpretive trails and a wooded creek loop. Lower-traffic than the named hiking parks.

A flat 0.8-mile family loop around the perimeter of Olmos Basin Park north of downtown, the easiest accessible trail in the central city. Stroller-and-wheelchair friendly throughout.

A 100-year-old natural-history-and-culture museum in Brackenridge Park, with permanent galleries on Texas wildlife, dinosaurs, and South Texas history plus a strong rotating exhibit calendar. The 4-story HEB Body Adventure has free-fall and climbing for kids.

A Mediterranean-style mansion on Austin Highway housing the country's first museum of modern art, with works by Picasso, Cezanne, O'Keeffe, and Matisse. Free admission Thursday afternoons keeps the local count high.

Housed in the restored Lone Star Brewery on the Museum Reach of the Riverwalk, with one of the country's strongest Latin American collections plus Asian, Egyptian, and contemporary wings. The river-level entrance is the better one.

A focused Western and Texas art museum in a 1930 Carnegie library on the Riverwalk, with paintings, sculpture, and photography of the American West. Manageable size — a serious 90-minute visit covers it.

An interactive children's museum on Broadway with hands-on exhibits, a maker's space, water-play yard, and a giant outdoor climbing structure. Built specifically for ages 3 to 10.

A 38-acre garden on the east side of central San Antonio with themed beds, a conservatory complex, and a Texas Native Trail. Stronger in spring and fall than midsummer.

A 60-acre zoo in Brackenridge Park with 9,000 animals across 750 species, a mini-train, and a butterfly garden. Walking-friendly layout makes it doable in three hours with kids.

A 19th-century downtown saloon turned taxidermy-and-Texas-Rangers museum, with the original 1880s bar, hundreds of mounted heads, and a serious oddity factor. Quirky in a way that lands or doesn't.

A 20,000-square-foot immersive-art experience downtown on Navarro Street, with 14 walk-through installations from international artists. The ball pit, the maze, and the bag room are the social-media draws.

A 1929 atmospheric movie palace on Houston Street with a faux-Spanish-courtyard interior, restored as a Broadway-touring and concert venue. The lobby and ceiling are worth showing up early for.

A 1914 vaudeville theater on Houston Street next to the Majestic, restored and run by the Tobin Center for smaller concerts and comedy. More intimate than the Majestic — fewer than 900 seats.

A 2014 multi-venue performing arts complex on the Museum Reach, home to the symphony, opera, ballet, and a Broadway series. Two halls and a riverside terrace.

A 1926 movie palace with Mesoamerican-inspired decor — carved jaguar columns, Mayan-glyph ceiling — restored as a 1,500-seat concert venue. The interior is a destination separate from any show.

A 400-capacity music venue and burger restaurant near the Pearl, voted Best Live Music Venue by San Antonio readers and host to acts like Gary Clark Jr. and Jason Isbell. The room is intimate enough that every seat is good.

A St. Mary's Strip mid-sized music venue with two stages, hosting indie rock, metal, hip-hop, and DJ nights. Best Music Venue winner two years running per the local press.

A children's professional theater in Hemisfair Park doing hour-long shows based on great children's literature for ages three and up. Tickets are cheap and the productions are unexpectedly polished.

A 150-mile-radius producers-only farmers market in the heart of the Pearl District, running Saturday mornings year-round and Sunday mornings in season. Live music, hot food, and the produce that supplies most Pearl restaurants.

An outdoor seven-tiered amphitheater on the Museum Reach river adjacent to Hotel Emma, hosting free concerts, movies, and yoga in spring and fall. The setting is the draw — terraced grass with the river behind.

The 1836 mission-fortress at the center of Texas mythology, smaller in person than postcards suggest and free to walk through. The shaded oak grove and Long Barrack museum are the parts most visitors rush past.

The largest and most intact of the four UNESCO World Heritage missions south of downtown, with restored stone walls, a working parish church, and the famous Rose Window carved in 1775. The visitor center here doubles as the National Park headquarters.

The oldest unrestored stone church still standing in the country, with original 1755 frescoes faintly visible on interior walls if you know to look up. Smaller and quieter than San Jose, which is why locals send first-timers here second.

The southernmost mission still in active use, set among working farm fields irrigated by the original Spanish acequia system. The walking trail behind the church demonstrates how the missions actually fed themselves.

The smallest and most remote of the four missions, with a graceful arched bell tower and the Espada Aqueduct half a mile away — the oldest functioning Spanish aqueduct in the US. The drive between missions is half the experience.

The downtown loop is a 2.5-mile cypress-shaded walk one story below street level, lined with restaurants and stone bridges; locals will tell you to skip the busiest tourist stretch and head north to Museum Reach or south to Mission Reach instead. All three sections connect into a single 15-mile linear park.

One of the oldest active cathedrals in the US, with a nightly 24-minute light show projected on the limestone facade telling the story of San Antonio. The interior, restored after a 2003 lightning strike, is worth the daytime visit on its own.

The 750-foot 1968 World's Fair tower in Hemisfair Park, with an observation deck and a slowly revolving restaurant on top. Worth doing once for the orientation it gives you over downtown and the surrounding mission sprawl.

A free walled garden built into an old limestone quarry north of downtown, with stone bridges, koi ponds, a 60-foot waterfall, and a thatched pavilion at the top. Smaller than expected and best treated as a 45-minute stop, not a half-day.

Tree-lined streets of restored 1880s German immigrant mansions south of downtown, walkable in an hour at a leisurely pace. The neighborhood has no single must-see; it's the houses and the mature pecans that make it.

A repurposed 19th-century brewery campus turned mixed-use neighborhood, with the Saturday farmers market, Hotel Emma, and a stretch of the Museum Reach river running through it. The point is the wandering, not any one stop.

A small block of 18th- and 19th-century buildings restored as artist studios and shops on the south end of downtown, right above the Riverwalk. Worth 30 minutes if you're already nearby; not a destination on its own.

The 64-acre 1968 World's Fair grounds reimagined as a downtown park, with the Tower of the Americas, splash pads, the Magik Theatre, and a Yanaguana children's playground that locals use as much as visitors. Still a work in progress — sections continue to open.

A 1749 single-story adobe-and-stucco residence one block off Main Plaza, the only surviving aristocratic Spanish colonial townhouse in Texas. National Geographic once called it the most beautiful building in San Antonio; the small interior takes 30 minutes.

A 343-acre park north of downtown built around the headwaters of the San Antonio River, holding the zoo, Japanese Tea Garden, the Witte Museum, and several miles of shaded walking trails. Most visitors only see one corner; the park rewards a half-day.

The largest Mexican market in the US, three blocks of indoor and outdoor stalls selling crafts, food, and tourist-grade souvenirs west of downtown. Crowded and uneven — go for the atmosphere and a meal at Mi Tierra rather than serious shopping.