Beyond the dry aging cabinet of meats at the front of Cured sits a table for four by the kitchen. A white tablecloth chef’s table.
Guests are treated to a five-course menu prepared by Steven McHugh, a six-time James Beard-nominated chef. Each tableside dish is unique, the meat regionally-sourced, the ingredients native to Texas.
Call it farm-to-table with tales from McHugh. He tells stories about the rabbit he confits and where it was farmed, stories about the dry-aged pork and the cured flavors in the kitchen, stories about sourcing details from local farms and ranches.
One centers on the 28-day, dry-aged Akaushi Prime Texas beef from HeartBrand Beef, a company run by fifth-generation cattle ranchers in Flatonia.
“Akaushi beef is extraordinarily tender with intense marbling,” McHugh said, “resulting in a distinct buttery flavor.”
Wine and beverage pairings are curated by bar manager Robert Rodriguez for each chef’s table experience. “I find genuine satisfaction in discovering that perfect balance between your personal taste and the distinctive flavors showcased throughout the menu,” Rodriguez said. “It’s these mindful connections between what’s in your glass and on your plate that truly elevate the dining experience.”
Embedded in the restaurant’s name is a double meaning, a deeper story.
McHugh is a cancer survivor. He arrived in San Antonio in 2011, battling non-Hodgkin lymphoma. In 2013, he opened Cured at Pearl with the disease in remission and a vision: He wanted to prolong moments with family and friends over food.
Restaurant and chef earned national acclaim. Cured evolved with rotating menus and creative flavorings. The chef’s table ($150-plus per person) is the latest addition of an expanding culinary repertoire.
“Cured’s menu is very fluid,” McHugh said. “It’s constantly changing. With the chef’s table, we wanted to step out and create something that takes a little bit more time.”
For example?
“We’re going to do a little rabbit tasting with a rabbit sausage made of the belly with the loin,” he said. “And we’ve got chicken-fried rabbit leg that we’re going to confit and then buttermilk brine and deep fry and serve with some pickled okra.”
The chef’s table is a tribute to preserved foods, the “magic dust,” as McHugh calls it, of his culinary journey.
“Curing is where it all started for me: preserving ingredients by packing them in salt,” McHugh wrote in his cookbook, “Cured: Cooking with Ferments, Pickles, Preserves & More.” “Salt pulls either a little water out of food, which improves flavor and texture, or a lot of water, which renders the ingredient inhospitable to harmful bacteria and extends its edibility.”
McHugh grew up on a dairy farm in Wisconsin, one of seven brothers whose parents raised hogs and chickens, geese and ducks. There, he learned canning, pickling and fermenting. Farm-to-table was his life.
In his teens, McHugh took a job as a dishwasher and cook and fell in love with the kitchen. Encouraged by his father, he enrolled at the Culinary Institute of America in New York, where he thrived.
McHugh found post-CIA work in New Orleans. Under the mentorship of celebrity chef John Besh, McHugh refined his culinary chops in the renowned kitchen at August.
“I was very lucky early on in New Orleans,” McHugh said. “I worked for a chef that won the James Beard award. I felt extremely proud. And not just for him, but for myself and the entire team.”
At August, McHugh had a chance encounter with former Spurs coach Gregg Popovich. The two met in an upstairs hallway about 20 years ago.
“I said, ‘Coach!’ And he said, ‘How are you,’” McHugh recalled. “And we just started talking. That was back when, believe it or not, Chris Paul was playing in New Orleans. And we started talking about what a great player he was.”
Years later, Popovich stepped into Cured. Chef and coach laughed about their long ago meeting and began a culinary connection.
“He doesn’t particularly stick to one thing,” McHugh said. “He’s all over the menu, which is great. He likes to try new things. I remember the time he came in and said, ‘Wow, you have fried chicken livers? I can’t remember the last time I had those. Let’s order ‘em.’”
McHugh divides his time between Cured and The Spurs Club, a private social club and restaurant at The Rock at La Cantera, where he serves as executive curating chef. At a recent Fiesta event at the Spurs Club, he prepared smoked brisket tacos and New Orleans-style barbecue shrimp.
“It’s been a great partnership,” McHugh said. “It gives people who live on the North Side the ability to taste some of the things we do here without having to come all the way down to the Pearl.”
The Pearl is home. The chef’s table a new adventure. An upcoming menu item: escargot. Yes, that’s the French word for snail.
“There’s something about the texture of the escargot and the fattiness of the marrow,” McHugh said. “You’re spreading it on some bread and it all works really well with a really great herby compound butter that’s full of garlic and spices.
“Cured has always been that place that never fit any box. It’s always been that place where we just cook with what we have and where our fancies are. It’s probably why we’ve been so successful and why we continue to push and push the barrier and try to make ourselves better every day and not rest on what we did yesterday.”
