Why Mixtli in San Antonio is Nominated for the Outstanding Service Award by the James Beard Foundation | Eater Austin
"Walking into the bar feels like entering a wonderland: a night-sky palette of deep purples and navy blues with fluffy, transparent, hand-blown glass clouds overhead. The bar experience is highly theatrical and carefully choreographed by bar manager Lauren Beckman, who greets guests (reservations not required for the bar), coordinates via earpiece and clipboard, sets them up with a drink while they watch a live stream of the open kitchen, and vigilantly matches each cocktail to its course. That same meticulous, research-driven service defines the entire tasting-menu restaurant, which opened in 2013 in a 12-seat train car and moved to Southtown in 2021; it is currently the city’s only Michelin-starred restaurant and has received multiple James Beard nominations and industry recognition for its chefs. Seasonal menus—recently themed “Mexico 1848: The Treaty of Hidalgo”—are the product of deep archival research using nearly 3,000 Mexican cookbooks from UTSA’s Special Collections; chefs audition dishes, then present each plate at the table alongside its historical context so diners leave with a richer understanding of Mexican culinary history. Dishes are inventive and evocative (for example, an acorn mole served over roasted root vegetables with amaranth that highlights Indigenous techniques and European sauce-making influences), service is collective (every team member touches each table, chefs are responsible from product arrival to plating, and staff watch guests’ reactions closely), and the hospitality is famously exacting—so much so that the sommelier and Beckman won Michelin’s Service Award in Texas and the restaurant recently earned its first nod for Outstanding Hospitality. Attention to detail extends to the dining room design (custom tables with built-in drawers to streamline courses) and to small gestures—chefs will even replace a fallen napkin—reflecting a culture of urgency, care, and continual improvement." - Courtney E. Smith
