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Five Things to Know About Scorpion in San Antonio

Before you head to the San Antonio hotspot, here are some things that make it a unique destination.

By Team Made InJan 13, 2022
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โ€œScorpion is about resilience,โ€ says Jake Scott, the Creative Director of Scorpion, the San Antonio neighborhood wine bar, coffee shop, and restaurant showcasing Peruvian inspired cuisine. โ€œWe wanted to make something thatโ€™s complex, yet accessible.โ€

The team has certainly achieved their goal. With Chef Kenny Loo and Chef Juan Mesa helming the kitchen, and Scott designing the place from floor to ceiling, walking into the space couldnโ€™t be more inviting.

Whether youโ€™re headed to Scorpion soon, or want to learn more about it, here are five things that make the restaurant special.

1. Yes, thatโ€™s limestone plaster on the walls.

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In an effort to make things more sustainable and local, and accentuating theย  unique atmosphere, Scott used limestone from local quarries in the area to create stucco-inspired walls. The end result is a space that is therapeutic and calming, yet minimalist.

It is liminal in the best way, with the sense that you could be in Greece, or maybe a Mission, or anywhere really. โ€œThe most important thing,โ€ Scott says, โ€œwas that I really wanted Chef Looโ€™s dishes to stand out, to be the bouquets on the tables, in a sense.โ€

2. Chef Looโ€™s menu is heavily influenced by Peruvian cuisine.

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Chifas, which Chef Loo describes as Chinese-Peruvian restaurants throughout Peru, helped shape the menu. โ€œGrowing up in Peru, I was always around restaurants,โ€ he said.ย  โ€œI really couldnโ€™t imagine doing anything else with my life.โ€

Whether itโ€™s the Lengua Saltado, a modernized Lomo Saltado, or the quinotto, many of the dishes are a peek into Chef Looโ€™s childhood, as well as a taste ofSan Antonio. โ€œOne of my favorite dishes to tell people about,โ€ says Scott, โ€œis the Causa, which is a traditional Peruvian dish, but is completely different here.โ€ Scott describes the dish as โ€œa snake on a plate.โ€ โ€œThereโ€™s nothing quite like it Iโ€™ve ever had,โ€ he adds.

3. Make no mistake, the chefs are a pair.

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Chef Kenny Looโ€™s partner in the kitchen is Chef Juan Mesa, who previously worked at Olamaie in Austin. โ€œKenny has given me such trust over plating and presenting our visions,โ€ says Chef Juan. โ€œItโ€™s such a privilege to help tell Kennyโ€™s story, our story, through the dishes we create together.โ€

4. Itโ€™s one of the first natural wine spots in the city.

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โ€œSurprisingly, there werenโ€™t and arenโ€™t that many natural wine spots in San Antonio,โ€ Scott says, and so we really wanted to be one of the first.

Sourcing biodynamic wines from across the world, they aim to make natural wine drinking accessible, fun, and always interesting, as well as sustainable. โ€œI think thatโ€™s the goal of the whole thing really,โ€ Scott adds. โ€œWe want to be different, something maybe youโ€™ve never had before, but always approachable and inviting.โ€

5. It all started with coffee.

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Scott says that Scorpion is the offshoot of an original coffee business he ran where he met Chef Loo because he was a regular. They ended up bringing him on to run the coffee shopโ€™s food program, which was limited, but he was coming up with some crazy biscuit sandwiches and empanadas, and they quickly realized his talent.

โ€œWe want to build you a kitchen,โ€ Scott said, โ€œitโ€™s going to take some time, but we want to have you run it.โ€ Scorpion is the culmination of that promise.