San Antonio Versus Austin

And Which One I Picked

San Jose Mission in San Antonio. The Alamo isn’t the only beautiful mission in town!

When I told my New Mexico friends I was moving to Texas three months ago, they often assumed I meant Austin. Like, I had to mean Austin, right? RIGHT? Progressive Austin. Austin, with its kaleidoscope murals and curated supposed weirdness. Austin, the darling of digital nomads, Joe Rogan bros, and start-up refugees dressed in what I can only call Unicycle Skynardcore. Austin, where every food truck is a concept and every concept is a competition.

And I did spend a month in Austin to see how I liked it. I gave it a real shot. I subbed in classrooms, sampled the food, walked the neighborhoods, and sat alone in coffeeshops that looked like Pinterest boards. And what I learned is this: Austin is interesting and beautiful, but also the least authentic place I’ve ever been. And I’ve been to a McDonald’s knockoff in Havana.

That’s not a dig—it’s an observation. Austin is a city made not of people but of personas. People there seem to be playing roles: the ‘Weird’ Girl, the Cowboy Tech Bro, the Punk Who Works in UX. It’s a costume party with no end. And in a place where everyone is performing, authenticity gets treated like boring sentimentality—something embarrassing. Something earnest. Something to be side-eyed by people too cool to care.

Culinary fusion in Austin reflects this cultural dynamic perfectly. It’s aggressive, clever, performative. It’s kimchi on ice cream, or brisket boba, like ‘look how many Othered people’s foods I can make badly and stuff together for no reason in a turmeric waffle cone!’ It’s shock-value gastronomy aimed at the hipsters’ evangelical great-granny in Fredericksburg. The food asks, "Aren’t you impressed by how transgressive I am?" It’s cuisine as stunt. It results in the dumbest queso I’ve ever tasted because someone stirred entire cilantro stalks into it. Queso with the gag-worthy texture a bathroom sink drain clog. And sure, some of it’s delicious—but it rarely feels like it came from someone’s soul. It feels like an obscure and unpopular TEDx Talk you can eat.

And then there’s San Antonio.

I spent a month here, too, before I went to Austin. I told myself I’d take my time and make the right choice between the two Texas cities that appealed most to me. And after a month in Austin, I promptly came back to San Antonio. I signed a yearlong lease on a great renovated shotgun house in Dignowity Hill last week. The shift coming back was tectonic. I can breathe again. San Antonio has no exhausting “look at me” ego. It doesn’t need you to think its weird. It just exists. And it is fabulous. Every bit as progressive as Austin, but far less needy and narcissistic. It doesn’t care if you’re impressed. It cares if you’re hungry.

San Antonio is sincerity personified. It’s the cultural abuelita matriarch of Texas. If Austin is the rebellious teenager acting out to irritate its parents, San Antonio is the parents. While Austin is loudly flashing its boobs at Zilker Park, San Antonio is quietly carrying history, cooking from memory, opening the front door even when they don’t know you. San Antonio’s culture isn’t curated; it’s inherited.

It’s real.

And that shows up in the food. Fusion here in SanAn isn’t about shock. It’s about love. It’s every bit as innovative as Austin’s, but compassionately and deliciously so. It’s a young Chicana chef crafting vegan breakfast tacos that taste like the ones her Tía Licha made on Sundays—but without the lard, because she wants her auntie to be around for a few more years. It’s a Palestinian-Texan baker folding cardamom into pan dulce because that’s what his grandmother used in Gaza. It’s not a stunt. It’s a story.

Here, food isn’t made to go viral. It’s made to go home.

In essence, that’s why I chose San Antonio. Because I’m tired of playing characters in cities that reward performance over presence. Because I’ve lived long enough to crave community over clout. Because I want to live in a place where a good traditional enchilada can make you cry, and nobody rolls their eyes because you didn’t put miso and THC in the mole.

In San Antonio, you can be who you are, even if you’re humble. And if you cook, you cook from the soul. And if you eat, you eat like your abuela is coming over to hug you, not like she’s shaking her head about your Wheatabix Birria Bowl.

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