Rating: Once was enough
With a tap wall full of beer, a patio overlooking a stretch of Stone Oak greenbelt and a bar that dominates the room like a command center, Embers Wood Fire Kitchen & Tap is more of a bar and grill than a single-minded pizza place.
That’s fine for wings and queso, maybe even for ribs and chicken and pasta, but pizza needs all the attention it can get. At Embers, pizza gives off a formulaic corporate air, dressed out in fussy overkill with extras like arugula and chicken and drizzled with sauces that got lost on their way to the salad bar.
Embers isn’t a sprawling franchise like Chili’s or Applebee’s, even if it carries itself that way. It’s locally owned, with the original off Interstate 10 on the Northwest Side that opened in 2015 and this Stone Oak location that came along in 2018. Both stand adjacent to Drury Inn & Suites hotels, where they benefit from travelers looking for a little of everything and something cold to wash it down.
Right now, the bar and patio scene is kept to a low buzz by COVID-19 precautions, and that puts more pressure on the food to perform. It performs the way it should for a clientele that’s just passing through, but in San Antonio’s robust market, it’s not a place I’d visit again for pizza.
More Information
Locations: 819 N. Loop 1604 E., 210-888-1083; 9818 Interstate 10 W., 210-562-3075; emberstap.com
Hours: 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Sunday-Thursday; 11 a.m.-10 p.m. Friday-Saturday
Takeout/delivery: Both available, with delivery through third-party apps.
On ExpressNews.com: 52 Weeks of Pizza: Truth Pizzeria restaurant rocks a hybrid New York-Neapolitan style
Best pizza: “Wood Fire” isn’t just for show. It’s burning right there in the small pizza oven and the grill that turned out the sirloin steak on the S&M pizza ($14). The initials stand for steak and mushroom, the building blocks of a pie finished out with white sauce, which makes sense, along with arugula and balsamic reduction, which don’t. Either way, the steak carried the weight, scored with grill marks and full of backyard barbecue flavor.
Other pizzas: All the pizzas are the same size at Embers, about a medium at most places. And to the pizza maker’s credit, the crusts on all four pies in this report carried a bubbled and brushed finish, like a garlic-butter varnish, with a uniform toasted crunch. It’s hard to pin down the style. Call it all-American takeout.
The American influence produced two pizzas with small, hard nuggets of chicken. The Buff Chick ($13.50), was a dissociative mess of hot sauce, bacon, white sauce, ranch dressing and arugula that paid respect neither to pizza nor Buffalo wings.
Chicken performed better on the Maui Waui ($13.50), where pineapple kept it hydrated. But I lost interest somewhere between the bacon and teriyaki sauce.
On a more traditional note, the Butchers Block ($14) went with classic red sauce and a dress of Italian sausage and pepperoni. It could have stopped there and been better for it, but bacon and rings of pepperoncini knocked the flavors out of balance.
Mike Sutter is a food and drink reporter and restaurant critic in the San Antonio and Bexar County area. To read more from Mike, become a subscriber. msutter@express-news.net | Twitter: @fedmanwalking | Instagram: @fedmanwalking
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July 17, 2020 at 09:00PM
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52 Weeks of Pizza: The fire never lights at Embers Wood Fire Kitchen & Tap restaurant in San Antonio’s Stone Oak - San Antonio Express-News
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