"When chef Silvana Salcido Esparza (a James Beard nominee and semi-finalist many times over) opened this art-filled, white-tablecloth restaurant in 2002, she rejected the usual Mexican restaurant tropes to illustrate how sophisticated Mexican cooking could be, mashing pomegranate-studded guacamole tableside and plunking down baskets of bread and butter instead of the requisite chips and salsa. Her regional menu still features smoky, achiote-rubbed cochinita pibil from the Yucatan, nut- and dried fruit-studded chiles en nogada from Puebla, and velvety chicken mole, which may be draped in one of four different classic Oaxacan sauces. Start with a fun cocktail (the restaurant’s tequila selection is enormous) and finish with dessert churros, crunchy with sugar and drizzled with goat’s milk caramel." - Nikki Buchanan
