"At Tatemó, James Beard-nominated chef Emmanuel Chavez is spotlighting heirloom maize in a Michelin-starred tasting menu that takes diners to many regions throughout Mexico. Chavez says that "tortillas are the foundation" for the 16-set tasting menu restaurant. He walks through a whole day of prep, from nixtamalizing maize in the morning for fresh masa to the last taco at the end of the meal."
"First, A5 wagyu from Japan is seared for a carne asada. The meat is rested in a recado negro, a mixture of toasted spices and tortilla, before being plated with a cactus salad and a dusting of food-processed chapulines (roasted grasshoppers). "So the whole plate looks like fine dining, but when you eat it, it's legitimately just carne asada," Chavez says."
"At the four-year-old restaurant, every dish includes maize, so the first step is grounding up the nixtamal that soaked overnight to make masa. Tortillas are sorted by color, with sweeter blue and red ones paired with fried foods and turned into tostadas. The yellow versions are used for tacos and added to thicken soups. Seafood tostada is prepped with tuna steaks that are flattened, rolled out, and the nerves are painstakingly removed for a cleaner cut of raw fish. Perfect circles are cut out, seasoned with habanero oil, and stacked between parchment papers for service."
Tatemó constructs a 16-set tasting menu anchored in heirloom maize and freshly nixtamalized masa, with tortillas serving as the foundational element of each dish. Tortillas are color-sorted and assigned roles: blue and red for tostadas and fried preparations, yellow for tacos and to thicken soups. Preparations begin each morning with nixtamal grinding. Dishes range from A5 wagyu carne asada rested in a recado negro and topped with cactus salad and chapulines, to meticulous seafood tostadas, a plantain-based faux masa for enmolada, and a house mole negro made with roasted tomatillos, tortillas, cookies, and dried chilhuacle chiles.
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