Bistro Vatel, San Antonio, Texas Restaurant Details

Food:

I loved it.. great food and wine.. atmosphere was great!

Food:

They have some awesome French themed food here. It is pricy, but worth it.

Food:

Chez Vatel Bistro is highly regarded by reviewers and critics alike (Zagat 28/30 for food, best restaurant in the city), and I can now see why. My wife and I recently visited for a special occasion. Having sampled over 300+ restaurants in San Antonio alone at this point, I'm not easily impressed anymore. However, this was one of the best meals we've ever had in our lives.

We sat down in a fine-but-casual atmosphere and were promptly brought iced water and fresh bread with butter. The bread was great, but the butter was even better. As I've gotten older, I can see why Jacques Pépin always said that his last meal would be bread and butter: when you have high quality of each, there's really nothing better than this particular carb + fat combination. We ordered appetizers of raw oysters and the soup du jour, which was French onion soup. The oysters were as good as you can get in Texas: fresh and appetizing. The accompanying sauce took them over the edge. As for the French Onion Soup, if you expect Lipton French Onion Soup Mix with a cup or two of cheddar cheese, you'll be disappointed. Rather, the broth was deep in flavor without being too bold, the onions were balanced with the other flavors, and the bread was appropriately garnished with cheese as it sat in the midst of the bowl soaking up all the goodness. Concerning the entrees, we had the mixed seafood grill and the beef tenderloin with Bearnaise sauce. The mixed seafood grill came with steamed veggies and fingerling potatoes (both excellent) as well as perfectly cooked lobster, shrimp, denver sole, salmon, and mussels with a bed of lemon butter sauce underneath. I'm not sure that I've ever tasted seafood cooked and flavored so well, at least in San Antonio, even in relation to Wildfish and Sandbar. More importantly, the wife was immensely impressed. For my steak, it was simply the best steak I've ever had. Aside from being cooked to a perfect medium rare and surrounded by delicious Bearnaise, the meat was immensely flavorful, especially due to the crust that enveloped the entire steak. This was a thin, consistent crust of unami that I've only seen partially replicated once in an old Cajun restaurant in Louisiana. I had potatoes with my steak, and while I'm not certain of what they were, I do know they were amazing. They were essentially scalloped potatoes layered and formed into a square with a white sauce holding them together, probably a type of bechamel if I had to guess. We finished the night with two desserts, a creme brulee and a rose apple brulee tart. While neither are my favorite types of desserts, these were impressive. The creme brulee was technically perfect with an excellent flavor in the custard itself. The tart was layer-upon-layer of flaky goodness with custard and apples atop and drizzled with a red sauce.

In short, Chez Vatel exceeded our hopes and expectations as we were hoping for very good food that wouldn't ruin our night. However, we received excellent food, some of the best we've ever had in our lives. I noticed some reviews are less glowing - it's possible it was an off-night or they just weren't a fan of the dish. Nonetheless, I'd definitely recommend giving them a try and stick with the classics on your first visit.

Food:

Fantastic! Thanks Ray for the excellent service!! Food here is top notch and arguably best in city. Atmosphere great as well. Worth noting you can bring your own wine (which we did) corkage fee $30.

Food:

A visit to SA's Valero and Tesoro meant a business dinner at this fine restaurant. Que viva Chez Vatel!

It took a long time but San Antonio finally has decent food other than lousy Tex-Mex joints or the old decent but boring reliables like Luby's Cafeterias (pecan or pumpkin pie anyone?).

We loved Chez Vatel and it's top quality food. One night I had a double order of the appetizers that are to die for (pate foie gras w/ apple pie; and, the lobster tempura); next night, a double order of the pear gorgonzola salad (and got a tatste of the divine lobster w/ asparagus).

This is a great addition to the growing list of Texas fine dining.