Brave bugged-out snacks like the tlayuda con chapulines ($14). Crispy, chili-spiced grasshoppers smother a toasted tortilla, punctuated with cooling dollops of queso de rancho and avocado cream. And insects don’t stop at the plate: the salt rim of the sweet-corn-and-tequila Yum Kaax ($12) hints at chipotle, but ask the bartender, and you’ll learn that smoky bite actually comes from grated ants and Maguey worms. Those averse to Timon and Pumbaa–style feasting can opt for pest-free plates like punchy papaya ceviche de jurel ($13) with yellowtail tuna, blanched sea beans and minced serrano peppers, or hearty enchiladas de conejo ($24), which blankets tender braised rabbit in a velvety, tomato-chile sauce and lime-splashed figs.
A boldfaced date. Along with the daredevil bites and mescal-heavy quaffs like La Santa Hormiga (fresh cucumber, minty hoja santa leaves), the dark, moody den is a fun house of Aztec-patterned booths, black-and-white desert landscapes, bolero ballads and a rainbow-kissed Dalí-esque ant mural. If the buggy botanas don’t seal the deal for you, the caliente digs should nab you some bedroom brownie points.
A soon-to-be-unveiled garden is home to large Terracota pots of Mexican herbs and cacti, ideal for both scenery and a fresh supply of bar garnishes. Iron tables and chairs in the ceramic-tiled patio will offer 40 extra alfresco seats on warm-weather days, so that sun-soaked southern border won’t feel a ways away.
]]>The owners of Bar Henry branch out to Queens with this 40-seat Mexican eatery, specializing in the regional cuisine of Cintalapa, Chiapas. Brothers Cosme and Luis Aguilar, the chef and GM respectively, pay homage to their late mother with traditional plates, including some based on her recipes, such as chicken mole and cochinito chiapaneco (guajillo-marinated baby pork ribs). The white-painted spot features a garden and works from Queens artists.
Three California transplants dole out casual Mexican eats (tacos, quesadillas) and homemade aguas frescas at a colorful Chelsea Market stand, decked out with hand-painted signs.
Denisse Lina Chavez, known around these parts at the Queen of Carnitas, moved her cramped bodega–cum–taqueria from the south Bronx to central Brooklyn with this 32-seat Prospect Heights successor. Inside the cheery space–decorated with bright-green stools and pineapple-painted walls–find the central Mexican specialties that Chavez built her reputation on: The chef nixtamalizes blue corn via a Jalisco-imported custom masa machine to make tortillas, which hug everything from chicken tinga to chorizo to, yes, those juicy, immensely porky carnitas.
]]>The congenial, busy owners of this Mexican joint make their own fresh masa (corn dough) from grain soaked and ground on-site. This means tacos of spicy skate that’s been tucked into ethereal corn blankets for you, and for the kids—if the timing is right (try late morning or early afternoon)—the spectacle of a bright green machine spewing out tortillas. Once the show’s over, grab a table and share a mound of guac and chips, delicate mole-bathed chicken enchiladas or fluffy, well-spiced tamales.
You won’t need Spanish skills to gobble down $2.50 carnitas (pork seasoned with garlic, thyme and oregano) and garlicky, lime-marinated beef tacos at this tiny, fast-paced Mexican bodega. The two-layer tacos are easy for little ones to handle, as are the sopes (thick cornmeal tortillas) topped with cheese, beans and whatever meat you fancy. Work your way to the back of the store to find a handful of stools to eat at or, if weather permits, enjoy your feast at the Hell’s Kitchen Playground right across the street.
Gray-pocked guacamole, less-than-sizzling fajitas, watery frozen margaritas—for decades, that was the sad state of South of the Border eats in New York. But this low-lit, monochrome East Village cantina, from Ofrenda amigos Jorge Guzman and Mario Hernandez, busts out of the tortilla-wrapped norm, spotlighting tribal delicacies like grasshoppers, worms and, yes, the namesake ant. Hailing from the Dominican Republic and Cuernavaca, Mexico, respectively, the pair sources those creepy crawlers and the modern Mayan decor straight from their home states—there’s not a dollar-store sombrero in sight.
]]>New York is a rough town for newbies—whether it’s bright-eyed hopefuls yearning for a Swiftian utopia that doesn’t exist or an out-of-town chef who’s proven his culinary clout in the global arena, only to be chewed up and spat out by Gotham’s surly dining public. This city has devoured the best of them: Spain’s Dani García, Toronto’s Susur Lee and, most glaringly, France’s Alain Ducasse.
Enter Enrique Olvera, the megawatt Mexico City talent behind Pujol, regularly ranked one of the 20 best restaurants in the world. His stateside debut Cosme, a bare-concrete Flatiron dining room, wasn’t met with the disregard that crippled his carpet-bagging comrades. Instead, the opposite: a bellow of buzz that hit before doors were even hinged, let alone opened.
That’s because this is the Mexican restaurant New York has been missing. Olvera’s elegant, high-gear small plates—pristine, pricey and as market-fresh as anything coming out of Thomas Keller’s kitchen—more than fills that gap in New York dining. It steamrolls right over it.
Tacos make a solitary appearance on the menu, in an atypically generous portion of duck carnitas ($49), cooked to the sinful midpoint of unctuous fat and seared flesh. But Olvera’s single-corn tortillas pop up frequently, from a complimentary starter of crackly blue-corn tortillas with chile-kicked pumpkin-seed butter to dense, crispy tostadas ($17) dabbed with bone-marrow salsa and creamy tongues of uni.
Those soft corn rounds accompany the cobia al pastor ($23), a beautifully toned-down take on the original, with slips of delicate white fish whispered with pasilla, guajillo and tart pineapple sauce. And they’re there to cradle supple, roasted hunks of lobster pipil ($25), nestled in a heady pool of black-bean–chorizo puree.
But it’s that face-melting, savory-sweet, Instagrammed-to-death husk meringue ($14), with its fine, ash-dusted hull giving way to a velvety, supercharged corn mousse, that cements Olvera’s status as not only one of the country’s premier haute-Mex ambassadors but also the corn whisperer of New York dining. And what damn fine dining it is.
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