A Chef’s Mexican Fantasia at Empellón in Midtown

Manhattan once offered a glimpse into other cultures and cuisines, but has devolved, and is now nothing more than an elitist bubble, exposing the full irony that has become Manhattan dining - a trip to nowhere - no longer attracting soulful cooks and customers.

I was there last week. Cliché service. Silly food. I'll stick with a slice at Penn Station next time.

Great couple of lines: Even the action-painting bloops of salsa and mole radiated tension. I loved the flavors, but sometimes it seemed as if Mr. Stupak didn’t have the heart to tell his food that somebody was going to try to eat it.

Yes, yes! I love Alex Stupak, even though we have not met. And this review shows why Pete Wells is such a master of his craft "getting" and telling so descriptively and artfully the delightfully serious playing of a master chef and his creations.
It makes me happy knowing Alex Stupak is creating wildly fun and delicious desserts after moving to the savory side of the kitchen. I have long enjoyed reading about Alex Stupak's adventures -- and dining in his restaurants -- traveling to Mexico City to learn the Al Pastor technique -- before opening Empellon Al Pastor. The playfulness of his offering seven salsas at Empellon Cocina.
I admire his creativity as a pastry chef and then the courage to jump over to the savory side and develop his unique craft. This review was a treat to read. And I still love A.S.

Surprise surprise... The NYTimes and Mr. Wells gives it's first 3 start review to a "Mexican" restaurant that a)does not serve Mexican food and the one thing that resembles Mexican food, tacos, he suggests you "write off" and stay away from, and b) It is not by a Mexican Chef.

Mr. Wells wrote not long ago that he choose not to review Noma Mexico in part because of his consideration on how a place fits in it's context, wether a restaurant provides something a location already has.

In choosing to review an Americanized version of bad Mexican food and proclaimed the Chef does not understand tacos but award it nevertheless with 3 stars Mr. Wells has just stopped making sense. He has also diminished the work of Mexican Chefs and restauranteurs living and working in New York City by crowning their American counterparts and ignoring the former.

But this is nothing new. The Times considers real Mexican food restaurants only worth of doing their cute whole in the wall review but not good enough for their proper restaurant reviews. Unless of course is about Cosme or Empellon, the only two Mexican restaurants that Mr. Wells seems to know.

It's a restaurant review, not a sociology paper.

Pete, do me a favor and come to Mexico City. I'd be happy to squire you around to try some actual Mexican food. There's a lot of modern restaurant cooking here that's similar in concept to that invented (and I use that term in its true sense) by Mr. Stupak, but the real-deal wonders of traditional Mexican cooking are to be had at much simpler settings. A tour of a Mexican market would make your eyes pop, and I'd be delighted to be your guide.

Would that this newly 3-starred restaurant were actually serving Mexican food. Using Mexican ingredients to prepare dishes of the sort you describe doesn't make the food Mexican, any more than a plate of meatloaf, mashed potatoes, and green beans--made entirely of ingredients bought and prepared in my neighborhood tianguis (moveable street market)--makes my Mexico City dinner a Mexican meal.

And short ribs accompanied by picadillo? A meat dish with a side of a meat dish?

Oh, and by the way, fajitas aren't from Mexico.

http://www.mexicocooks.typepad.com

Great line "sometimes it seemed as if Mr. Stupak didn’t have the
heart to tell his food that somebody was going to try to eat it." What is Ketchup Oil? Oil squeezed from the seeds of the ketchup tree?

"A waffle cone folded into the shape of a hard-shell tortilla is stuffed with a delicious ice cream flavored by corn and salt. It might be Empellón’s answer to the corn husk meringue at Cosme. It might be a tribute to Corn Pops."

OR, it might be a Choco Taco® that was reduced by culinary referentialism to a highly refined shadow of its originally joyous self.

Three stars? I find that capricious and arbitrary!

Applause, applause, Chef Alex. I've loved your cuisine from the opening of your first Empellon -- and now to Midtown. We enjoyed a "Ladies Who Lunch" there in March - a week after your opening and as Mr. Wells review notes - the dishes were a magical fantasy that elicited sighs of delight -- and a bit of disbelief as to what we were seeing. The Eyes Eat First, after all. It was all such a culinary adventure. Hat's in the air to you and the team, chef. This is why one goes out to eat. And kudos to Mr. Wells for a compelling, fantasy-laced, delicious review! Cheers.

Unfortunately, I am too far to visit on a spur of a moment Mr. Wells's latest recommendation. In the slides, I liked most "a theatrical scalloped balcony over the main floor" -- this is where i would have liked to dine.

I would like Pete Wells' job, should he decide to move on and write about politics, like his predecessor has.

Reading a review like this, in which the labor that has gone into the food is clearly as important as the imagination, one is acutely cognisant of the degree to which food has become a form of social display, effective in part because it is so ephemeral. The contrast between this and what most Americans eat is begin to be as stark as the gaps between the housing conditions of rich and poor in countries like Brazil and South Africa. It makes the food at old New York luxury standbys of a half century ago look positively democratic. The New York Times should spend more time telling us how the 90% live and why it matters. More column inches are lavished on meals like this than on natural disasters in places like West Virginia or for that matter conditions in Newark.

Great writing as always, but I have to take at least some exception with the notion that a restaurant featuring Mexican cuisine, and one in which the owner has long had tacos as a staple, can be exceptional even though the tacos are of the negligible and even throwaway variety (according to Pete at least). At an NY Times three-star reviewed restaurant that places tacos front and center, there's simply no excuse for them being so bad. I hope Stupak will take note, and either ditch the tacos or, better still, make something genuinely special (instead of weird and quirky) out of them.

$125 for a taco?

Are you nuts?

Is it just me, or does the Strawberries for the Table dish look like a well used ashtray?

Wow Pete Wells, 3 stars? I'm happy to see Mexican cuisine finally receiving the attention, accolades, and respect it so deserves.