The Maverick Restaurant

Before designing a single thing, Mark Cravotta and architect Chris Sanders spent a week in London doing research the only way it works: eating and drinking through the city's great rooms. The owner wanted to bring the European brasserie tradition to San Antonio: a large, serious restaurant with a historic building and a Texas soul. Before a single decision was made, Cravotta and Sanders Architecture principal Chris Sanders flew to London. A week of fieldwork through the city's great dining rooms, eating through them, drinking through them, understanding how they work and why they hold up, produced the ideas they brought home. Everything in The Maverick is custom. Tables, banquettes, wall cladding, bar, back bar, wine cage, all designed for this room and built for it. The custom stained glass window separating private dining from the patio shifts the light through the day, changing the character of the room by the hour. The identity, including the lonesome island steer that marks the building, was created by Pentagram Austin. At 220 seats in a San Antonio historic building, it remains one of the most fully realized restaurant projects in the firm's portfolio.