Mexican Cafés Without Meat | The New Yorker

"I sat at a table outside her namesake Greenpoint café, opened last December by chef Justin Bazdarich and his partner Chris Walton as a spinoff of Oxomoco, and between bites of a glorious masa pancake—bronzed and bubbled, its texture a harmonious balance of fluff and grit, with a scoop of salted butter sliding down its slight dome—I sipped atole that here is strained and chilled into something more like horchata. Masa, made with an heirloom variety of dried corn imported from Mexico but nixtamalized in‑house, figures in almost every dish, sometimes starring and sometimes supporting humbler ingredients: mid‑morning tostadas arrive as crunchy pedestals for guacamole and sky‑high curds of dense, velvety sunset‑hued scrambled egg topped with sharp Cheddar and an inky hazelnut salsa macha, while evening tostadas are spread with a silky purée of navy beans and carrot, then layered with serrano peppers, caramelized soy‑marinated onions, a carrot‑top salsa verde, and tender spears of carrot braised in carrot juice, then charred and maple‑glazed. I learned that Xilonen does not, as a rule, serve meat, poultry, or fish, and that its Mexican‑American chef de cuisine, Alan Delgado, who grew up in El Paso cooking vegetarian food for his mother, has designed plant‑forward dishes that never feel like an absence but rather a honing‑in—inviting close attention to things like a creamy, nutty purple potato smashed between a soft tortilla and a lacy disk of griddled vegan mozzarella or a guajillo‑based fruity hot sauce—and the plating and décor are austerely yet invitingly chic, sun‑baked even on a cloudy day." - Hannah Goldfield