Isidore

Isidore is the flagship restaurant inside Pullman Market, the food hall and market development that reworked a stretch of San Antonio's near-downtown, and it operates at the top end of the city's dining. Its non-alcoholic drinks are worth attention for one specific reason: the products behind them.

The Maravilla Margarita is rebuilt with Almave blanco. Almave is a non-alcoholic agave distillate made from blue agave rather than assembled from botanical extracts, and it is one of very few zero-proof spirits that survives being the base of a margarita — the drink is so spirit-forward that a weak substitute simply collapses into limeade. The Labrador Spritz uses Tenneyson Black Ginger, a non-alcoholic aperitif built around bitterness and ginger heat.

Both choices point the same way. These are expensive, specialist products with exactly one use: serving people who are not drinking. A restaurant that stocks them has spent money on a customer most kitchens accommodate with soda water and a lime. It also means the drinks can be genuinely dry and bitter rather than sweet, which is the single most common failure in the category.

That Tenneyson turns up again at Double Standard, across downtown, is worth noting — San Antonio's better bars have converged on the same short list of NA products that actually perform, which is a sign of a scene talking to itself rather than each venue improvising alone.

Isidore serves dinner only, 5pm to 10pm, closed Mondays. Pullman Market itself is worth arriving early for, and the surrounding development puts several other options within a short walk, including Idle Beer Hall and Tony's Siesta on Brooklyn Avenue. For a visitor prepared to spend properly on dinner, it is the strongest argument in the city that a zero-proof pairing can be as considered as a wine list. The kitchen changes with the seasons, so the specific drinks will move; what should persist is the willingness to build around real non-alcoholic spirits rather than fruit juice, which is the part that took investment.