I cook forty covers a night because that is the number of people one fire can look after honestly. You will sit close to strangers and closer to us. The menu is short and it changes when the farm tells it to, not when we do.

Come hungry, come unhurried. Bring your mother, your questions, your slow Spanish or your fast English — both are spoken here, at volume, with love. Aquí se cena despacio.

Our tomatoes are the Zapotec pleat varietal, grown dry-farmed at Cerro Alto Farm, forty minutes east, picked the morning you eat them. The lamb is grass-finished at Dos Hermanas Ranch and arrives whole; we use everything, and the shanks go to Sunday. The oak is felled and split by the Reyes family, seasoned two summers, because green wood lies to the meat.

None of this is a slogan. It is simply the shortest honest distance between a field and your fork, and we drive it twice a week.

Rosa cooked nine years in other people's kitchens — the wood station at a two-star in San Sebastián, then the hearth of a much-loved Austin room — before she stopped and asked what all that fire was for. The answer was this: forty chairs, her grandmother's flan, and a neighborhood that says her name right. She is at the pass most nights, not in an office; if the lamb is late, she will come tell you herself.

The cellar is Marisol Vega's book — forty bottles, mostly Spanish, chosen to be drunk, not collected. Tell her what you like and what you want to spend, out loud. Nobody flinches at either number here.

La cocina habla español primero, inglés después, y fuego siempre.

The menu changes with the season and never apologizes for it. Most tables do well with two things to start, one from the garden, and one from the fire between every two people. A full evening lands around 70–95 a head with a glass or two.

Last read aloud June 28 · demo prices, shown small on purpose

The wine list is forty bottles long and mostly Spanish — Marisol's book. Tell us what you like and your budget, and we will not embarrass either. Bringing your own? Corkage is 40 a bottle, two bottles at most, and we waive one for every bottle you buy from the list. Fair warning: Marisol will try to talk you into the cellar anyway.

The bar keeps its own rules. It takes no reservations, pours the whole list, and serves everything the dining room does — plus a few things it doesn't. Snacks run 6 to 12 all evening. After nine on Wednesdays and Thursdays, bar snacks go half price and stay that way until the fire is embers.

Sundays the cellar list is half off by the bottle, which is how neighbors are made. And yes — there is a burger. Griddled over oak, aged trim from the ribeyes, only at the bar, never printed. Nineteen. Ask quietly.

Sin reservación, la barra es tuya.

Two seatings, Wednesday through Sunday. The chef's counter seats six and watches the fire. Private dining is the back table, one party, one long conversation. Takeout exists for the lamb only, and catering when the fire can travel.

If we are full, we are full — but the book turns over more often than you would think, and we keep it honestly. The policies below are the whole of the fine print; there is no smaller print anywhere.

The tables that matter most in a life are long ones — quinceañeras, rehearsal dinners, bautizos, the graduation your mother flew in for, the deal that deserved better than a conference room. We build those evenings around the fire, family-style, the way the table was always meant to work.

Nuestra coordinadora de eventos habla español — and the front desk below takes inquiries in either language, at any hour.

How it works, plainly: set menus run 95 to 135 a person plus beverage, food-and-beverage minimums vary by day and season, a 25 percent deposit holds the date, and we take your final count 72 hours out. Tell the front desk your date, headcount, and the occasion — a human writes back within one business day with a proposal, not a brochure.

Catering, a la leña. For thirty guests or more we will build a fire where you are — a ranch, a backyard, a courtyard that deserves better than chafing dishes. By inquiry only, through the front desk, and only on dates the room can spare us.

The holiday lamb. Thanksgiving and Christmas, the shoulder goes home with you — feeds four generously, 78, with tortillas, frijoles, and both salsas. Pre-order two weeks ahead, pick up on the eve. There is no daily delivery and there never will be: fire food does not ride well in a car, and we won't pretend otherwise.

Gift cards. Digital, 25 to 500, delivered by email, no expiration. Physical cards live at the host stand. Ask the front desk and it is done in a minute.

You will find us at the corner of Calavera and Pecan — 1214 Calavera Street, San Antonio, Texas. A demo address for a demo restaurant; your corner goes here.

Parking, since you were about to ask: complimentary valet Friday and Saturday, the lot behind the building every other night, and the street is free after six. Nobody has ever missed a seating over parking and you will not be the first.