Not everything is tacos, margaritas and guacamole
New York it is to gastronomy what K2 is to mountaineering. that's how you see it Enrique Olvera , the famous Mexican chef who set out to climb the culinary mecca and has risen to the top with his restaurant Cosme, which opened last October in the resurgent Flatiron District. Once on top, with the first three-star review given by the New York Times in more than half a year and full every night , Olvera doesn't look like he's going to come down from there. What's more, from up there, he has started a revolution in the way Mexican cuisine is viewed in New York. Because not everything is tacos, margaritas and guacamole. Although there is also all that in ** Cosme **. And to understand his revolution, here are seven reasons.
Enrique Olvera, the Mexican revolutionary (on the decks)
1. ENRIQUE OLVERA
The chilango chef is the first of the reasons. Since he opened Pujol in Mexico City in 2000, Olvera has been climbing the ranks in international cuisine by adding creativity to traditional recipes. Pujol is now one of the 20 best restaurants in the world. And Olvera continues to innovate there and now in Cosmo in New York , a city to which he always dreamed of returning because it is where he trained as a cook at the Culinary Institute of America, after spending his childhood helping in his grandparents' bakeries.
“I understand that the work we have done has had global repercussions in the gastronomic world, in the normal world they do not know who I am. But that's not the goal my goal has always been to have good restaurants with a value proposition ”, explains Olvera a few hours before opening for dinner. "It's a good time for us," Olvera says of Cosme's opening just as in the city the tacos were baptized as the new hamburger . “Mexican cuisine of this level had not been practiced in New York. Maybe in Chicago what Rick Bayless does or here what Alex Stupak does, but it's a new market and I think that's part of the success. It's very exciting for people to try something they've never tried before."
The first reason to step on Cosme
two. THE CORN
“ The part of the tortillas was fundamental, a Mexican restaurant without good tortillas is like a French restaurant without good bread,” says Olvera. “We had to have. It is very important to approach the corn how do you approach coffee or wine ”. And that is why it is the basic food that they bring from Mexico in its different varieties that are rotated in the kitchen. "Every day you arrive you find a different type of corn And that's how people get to know him." They also bring beans and dried chilies.
Almost everything else is found in and around New York. “Since I am Mexican, the flavors have something Mexican, but I know that I am in New York, a city with a diversity in terms of culture and a very rich production of vegetables in the world. hudson valley or the availability of food from all over the world that it would be absurd not to take advantage of”, explains Olvera. “We have tried to be smart, all cultures are mixtures of many more and are always on the move. Being Mexican does not mean being encapsulated in your ingredients and not open yourself to the rest, but on the contrary”.
Here the magic works
3. GUACAMOLE? WHAT GUACAMOLE?
With an asterisk in a corner of the letter: that is the space relegated to guacamole in Cosme . There's guacamole because there has to be guacamole, and it's also great here, because a New Yorker wouldn't understand a Mexican restaurant without it, but so they understand that it's not a fundamental dish. “The stereotypes of other cultures had already been overcome in New York, but not yet in Mexican food and it was time to make the leap. There are no more Italian restaurants with checkered tablecloths Oliver says.
Four. IF INSTAGRAM SAYS IT...
“The meringue thing on Instagram is nonsense”, says Olvera, surprised by the number of people he photographs each night the star dish and dessert on your menu and upload it to the social network. And I attest: the meringue worth every hashtag , every photo and every sigh. The mixture of meringue and corn mousse (of course!) coming out of a crispy corn shell is even worth a trip to New York.
Instagram sin, amen
5. SERVE YOURSELF, PLEASE
Slow Cooked Duck Carnitas with Orange and Coca-Cola They are another of those crazy things that sweep the restaurant, first, and on Instagram later. First and foremost, because of how rich they are, of course. The fact that they are to share and a more than generous portion for two people also helps. But also: “I feel that people in the United States I thought tacos were always served , but it's not like that, and I think it's funny,” says Olvera. The carnitas come on one side and the corn tortillas (from the week's corn) on the side.
Cosmas Hall
6. HEALTH!
“We have come to have fun,” says Enrique Olvera, pointing to the large bar in Cosme, almost larger than the restaurant part. “I had always wanted to have a stronger bar, although you can also dine at the high tables” he continues. The importance of the bar, he also understood in the field work he did every month prior to the opening of Cosme, visiting and taking ideas from the most successful places in New York. Then he realized something: "In New York private spaces are very small, you like to get to a place where you feel better than at home," says Olvera. And, for that reason, Cosme devised it” leaving aside and l fine dining , with louder music, a fun place…”. "And it looks like we got it right."
The cocktail menu at the bar is very extensive. With an international list of wines and a long list of mezcal, always prioritizing small producers. "Mezcal has many possibilities in cocktails and I think that can define us as a restaurant in terms of proposal," he explains. 7. Neither skulls nor Mexican rose. “I identify very little with folkloric Mexico. There are no pyramids or mariachis in the streets, you know there are, you see them at celebrations, but my house is not a Mexican rose, nor do I have skulls”, Olvera says of why the decoration is sober, in gray tones and with “very Japanese” heavy wooden tables. “That way I identify myself more. There are small references, like the concrete floor, or the paintings by Siqueiros, one of the great Mexican muralists”.
Not even the name sounds very Mexican. "Near the house where my grandfather lived there was a house called Cosme and I always liked the name, I wanted to give it to one of my children, but he told me it was a dog's name," he confesses. It doesn't sound very Mexican, it has to do with the cosmopolitan, the Greek reference is a person who likes things well done . I like proper names, that the word becomes the restaurant –as happened with Pujol–“. In that case, and given the success, Cosme could not be more perfect.
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Guacamole, what guacamole?
That there is no lack of acapulco where to rest the menu