At Tatemó, James Beard-nominated chef Emmanuel Chavez is spotlighting heirloom maize in a Michelin-starred tasting menu that takes diners to many areas all through Mexico. Chavez says that “tortillas are the inspiration” for the 16-set tasting menu restaurant. He walks by means of a complete day of prep, from nixtamalizing maize within the morning for recent masa to the final taco on the finish of the meal.
First, A5 wagyu from Japan is seared for a carne asada. The meat is rested in a recado negro, a combination of toasted spices and tortilla, earlier than being plated with a cactus salad and a dusting of food-processed chapulines (roasted grasshoppers). “So the entire plate appears like high-quality eating, however while you eat it, it’s legitimately simply carne asada,” Chavez says.
On the four-year-old restaurant, each dish consists of maize, so step one is grounding up the nixtamal that soaked in a single day to make masa. Tortillas are sorted by shade, with sweeter blue and crimson ones paired with fried meals and was tostadas. The yellow variations are used for tacos and added to thicken soups.
Seafood tostada is prepped with tuna steaks which might be flattened, rolled out, and the nerves are painstakingly eliminated for a cleaner lower of uncooked fish. Excellent circles are lower out, seasoned with habanero oil, and stacked between parchment papers for service. A plantain tortilla comes subsequent, with the starch cooked down with mole spices earlier than being floor up in a meals processor with 5 spice and turmeric. A pretend masa varieties, that may be labored into tortillas for the enmolada dish, which additionally consists of duck carnitas and negro mole.
The home mole negro paste is made by roasting after which grinding down tomatillos, onions, extra tortillas, cookies, and an array of dried peppers, together with Oaxacan chile chilhuacle that Chavez calls “the A5 of chiles” due to its very earthy and smoky taste.
A duck confit within the fashion of carnitas are made with cured duck legs that get a tough sear for tremendous crispy pores and skin and are then cooked down in orange, garlic, cinnamon, avocado leaves, Mexican Coca-Cola, and leftover duck fats from earlier batches. The duck is pulled aside, tossed with extra herbs and spices, after which fastidiously tucked into rolls that go within the freezer earlier than being tempura fried for dinner service. Masa and tempura flours are mixed for the tempura coating. The fried duck carnitas are stacked on high of the mole negro and a yogurt sauce, served alongside the plantain tortilla.
Service will get began after a fast pep speak from Chavez. Dishes swirl all through the kitchen, together with a quesadilla impressed by Mexico Metropolis has by no means left the menu. Masa is filled with huitlacoche, cheese, and an fragrant herb known as epazote earlier than being fried up and served with “fancy guacamole and crispy chicatanas (flying ants).
“Houston is just not recognized for tasting menus,” Chavez recounts. “Individuals need choices. Individuals need large parts. So, it positively took us a complete to realize individuals’s belief.” He provides that he was impressed by cooks like Jon Yao at Kato, who constructed unconventional tasting menus primarily based on their background, serving to to open up diners to new cultural cuisines.
Watch the most recent episode of Mise en Place to see how Chavez and his staff put together dishes that spotlight cuisines from throughout Mexico at Tatemó.
