This week on the “bigcitysmalltown” podcast, host and San Antonio Report founder Robert Rivard explores the remarkable 25-year history of Biga on the Banks with owner and chef Bruce Auden.
Biga partner and director of special events Perny Shea joins Rivard and Auden to discuss Biga’s origins on the River Walk, its growth and acclaim and how Auden and his kitchen have impacted San Antonio’s culinary scene.
Rivard shares his own remembrance of interviewing for a job in San Antonio in the late 1980s and meeting Auden at Polo’s, the Fairmount Hotel restaurant that revolutionized local fine dining. Then a world-traveling correspondent for Newsweek, Rivard went to dinner with George B. Irish, then the publisher of the San Antonio Light.
As a correspondent living in New York at the time, Rivard had dined at some exclusive restaurants. Polo’s made an impression. “I was quite surprised,” Rivard recalled in the podcast. He told Irish, “This is really good.”
Auden’s kitchen excellence attracted the attention of national media. It grew after he left Polo’s.
“I met a lot of great people from the kitchen that went with me from the Fairmount to open the first Biga, which was in the Monte Vista area on Locust Street,” Auden said. “And we had a good run there. Nine years.”
From Monte Vista, Auden moved Biga to its present location on the River Walk.
Listen to the episode below to hear more about how Biga has influenced the careers of many notable chefs in the region, the impact of San Antonio’s designation as a UNESCO City of Gastronomy on local culinary practices and a look at an upcoming 25th anniversary celebration that will benefit the San Antonio Food Bank and St. Philip’s Culinary and Hospitality School.
