12 Legs Travel

This post is a farewell ode to a perfect bar in a crooked house in a Texas city.

The Liberty Bar, a San Antonio icon, is known as much for the building it occupied for 25 years as it is for generous pours and mouth-watering food. But as of June, Liberty doesn’t live in a crooked house anymore. The bar still serves great cocktails and cuisine — just in a new location three miles away.

Thankfully, Scott and I got to experience the charm of the original Liberty Bar a couple of months before the big move.

The Liberty Bar’s old shell lists like a drunk. Viewed from the front, it leans left at its middle and right at its roofline, sort of like the letter “S”. The house was built in the 1890s and later crippled by flood damage and slapdash additions. Its interior walls tilt forward and its floors roll like wooden waves. The house looks like something out of a nursery rhyme or Tim Burton movie.

Ironically, the Liberty Bar did not relocate because the old house is about to fall down, but because a new landlord raised the rent. That’s sad. I can’t imagine a better tenant for the place.

Located a stone’s throw from an I-35 freeway overpass, the old Liberty Bar was a regulars kind of joint. I’m sure it remains so. It is rumored to be a fave of Tommy Lee Jones. We found Liberty Bar thanks to a tip from Scott’s former boss, a native Texan who is a fan of fine local food and knows a thing or two about San Antonio. (We are forever in debt to travel-savvy friends who help transform our whirlwind itineraries into 24-hour masterpieces.)

The Liberty Bar we experienced had plenty of character. It creaked and groaned. While sitting at the bar, I felt like the place could come crumbling down on our heads at anytime. And this was after only two drinks. Who knows how much the walls might have swayed after another couple of rounds?

The bar was quiet on the Saturday we visited. The bartender found the emptiness curious but not troubling. He chatted with us about worthwhile places to visit in San Antonio, and, like most bartenders, he know the ins and outs of cheap dining and drinking. Behind us, tubes of neon light framed each large window, adding a rosy blush to the ornate wood of the bar and the liquor bottles arranged neatly behind it. The entire room glowed red.

It must be noted that Scott and I ordered only a couple rounds of whiskey and an appetizer, therefore I can’t begin to rave about the cuisine with any real authority. But I can only imagine the wild-boar sausage or quail with green mole would make anyone love the Liberty Bar. Just typing the names of those featured menu items makes me drool.

One bite of the goat cheese appetizer sucked me into the Liberty Bar fan club — and to think I almost passed on it in favor of the grilled poblanos. But good fortune seated me next to Steve Collins, a fine-art photographer who lives at the bar — literally. His apartment occupies the upstairs floor of the old building. (Brave man.) Collins is a Liberty Bar menu expert, and he wasn’t shy about second-guessing my order. I took his advice and thanked him profusely after the dish arrived.

Served on a small plate, it’s a generous portion of local Texas goat cheese whipped with cream cheese, garlic and chile morita (a smoked and dried red jalapeno pepper), and then formed into a cake. The magic lives in the sauce, which is made from melted piloncillo (Mexican dark brown sugar) and heavy whipping cream combined with three peppers: chile morita, chipotle and ancho. You spread the whole glorious mixture over grilled bread.

It is sweet and salty. It is spicy and creamy. It’s ridiculously rich. The dish isn’t beautiful, but its flavor might make you shed a tear of joy.

If you visit San Antonio, find Liberty Bar and give the goat cheese a try. Just don’t make the mistake of driving down Josephine looking for the lopsided building by the freeway. Instead, make your way to South Alamo Street and keep your eye out for a two-story former convent that’s boldly painted salmon pink. You can’t miss it.

The Liberty Bar might not be crooked anymore, but I suspect the food and drink are still straight-up awesome.

—Jill