“But when from a long-distant past nothing subsists, after the people are dead, after the things are broken and scattered, taste and smell alone, more fragile but more enduring … remain poised a long time, like souls…; and bear unflinchingly … the vast structure of recollection.” — Marcel Proust, In Search of Lost Time
Chef Carlos Olivar and Michael McDermott are two very different men on two very similar missions. That is, they are both devoted to sharing their love of Mexican cuisine with the people of the Twin Cities metro area. Both Olivar, a Mexican chef born in a small town in Puebla, and McDermott, the son of the founder of the Chi-Chi’s restaurant chain, are fueled by fond childhood memories of Mexico. Nevertheless, like with most culinary conflicts, the main point of contention is a matter of soul.
We first encountered Olivar via a comment on our Churn post about Rojo Mexican Grill, a new restaurant that was set to open in St. Louis Park. Owned by McDermott and his partner, Jason Merritt, Rojo followed on the heels of Sauce Pizza and Wine, their previous venture at the Shops at West End. A quote by McDermott in their press release states, “We wanted to make great, authentic Mexican food more accessible and in an environment that’s warm, comfortable, and familiar.”
Taking on the rugged alias of “Lobo Negro” (“black wolf” for the Spanish-deficient), Olivar challenged, “So they think they have what it takes to do autentic [sic] mexican food … mexican food is not [about] burritos, tacos, and enchiladas, [it’s about] tradition.” He tore into the culinary aesthetic of Rojo and its peers, railing against the supremacy of Tex-Mex in their interpretation of authentic Mexican cuisine.
As it turned out, however, Olivar (pictured below) wasn’t just your run-of-the-mill, pissed-off food blog commenter: He is also the executive chef at Pairings Food & Wine Market in Minnetonka. Despite Pairings’ French bistro theme, Olivar has managed to sneak some Mexican classics onto the regular menu, and also hosts monthly, four-course Mexican beer pairing dinners at the restaurant.
Minnetonka is hardly a Mexican-American community, but Olivar prefers the challenge of educating the Chipotle crowd. “People have come up to me after the beer dinners to say, ‘I didn’t know Mexican food could be like this!'” His menus feature such dishes as a huitlacoche quesadilla (made with Oaxacan cheese, squash flowers, and a rare corn fungus), ceviche, Au Bon Canard duck mole enchiladas, Oaxacan rabbit tamales, and cochinita pibil, or suckling pig slow-roasted in banana leaves.
“I want to combine traditional Mexican cuisine with modern techniques without compromising the soul of the food,” says Olivar. He admits that most traditional Mexican food, while incredibly delicious, is simply “ugly.” “[Mexican] ingredients are beautiful ingredients, and I want the dish to be beautiful, too.”
His approach sounds very similar to McDermott’s, which purports to deliver “authentic … Mexican cuisine with a modern twist.” (By the way, who do we need to talk to in order to get restaurants to stop using the word “twist” in their advertising?) “We wanted to open something that wasn’t your traditional, Mexican-themed restaurant, like Don Pablo’s… Rojo isn’t strictly Mexican, but it feels and looks Mexican.”
Though he didn’t grow up in Mexico, he can still claim a little bit of street cred. “Our family always took trips to Mexico as I was growing up, and we always ate what the locals ate. It was really authentic stuff, and we ate it in the city backstreets.”
He’s no chef, but McDermott designed Rojo’s menu himself. “I grew up around Mexican food. I know what I like and I can look at a recipe and I’ll know if it’ll be successful.” The menu includes tortilla soup, freshly mixed guacamole, enchiladas with pasilla chile sauce, a burger paired with chipotle mayonnaise, and churros, the ubiquitous Spanish doughnut. He and his partner home-tested countless recipes before presenting them to focus groups and tweaking them further; despite that, he maintains that “everything on our menu is authentic.”
McDermott is a veteran of the restaurant business, and has already had a lot of experience feeling out the varying ways in which different American regions receive Mexican cuisine. He and his partner are already working on a second Rojo location in his home state of Arizona, and he admits that the menu will probably diverge from its Minnesota predecessor’s.
“For example, gazpacho soup just wouldn’t work in Minnesota… maybe it’s because of the weather. But in Arizona, gazpacho is huge.” One can only wait and see what Rojo will add to Arizona’s already robust Mexican culinary scene; despite recent backlash against Mexicans themselves, Arizonans are still aficionados of the cuisine.
For both of these men, the search for an “authentic” way to present Mexican food amounts to an obsession. But still, there are limits to the definition. For instance, it would be absurd to expect a restaurateur to have a food historian on speed dial for every menu change.
No, what these two men are grasping at is something much more abstract. Similarly to how Marcel Proust was inspired to write a seven-volume autobiographical novel as he took a bite of a madeleine, these men can be transported back into their childhoods by the taste of an enchilada. How does one measure the soul of a dish? The answer lies in the deep, instinctual triggers that fire in the mind when you taste something that makes you see the trajectory of history and tradition.
Michael McDermott sees his parents, Marno and Chi-Chi McDermott, slinging deep-fried ice cream and chimichangas in suburban Minnesota. Chef Carlos Olivar sees his mother hawking quesadilla on the streets of their small town in Puebla. They may see “authentic” Mexican cuisine in different lights, but for both of them, it means “home.”
My wife and I ate at Rojo the other night and really enjoyed it.
The chips and salsa were good, not the usual ketchupy salsa most chain places serve but a fresh tasting salsa served with nice, crispy chips.
I had the black chile. It had nice sides, very good beans and slaw. The meat was tender and the sauce was flavorful, I only wish there had been more of it as it did get a bit dry. However, Cafe 28 serves an almost identical dish that is superior to it.
I never got the feeling that it was a place overly concerned with being authentic and I have no problem with that because it’s not trying to be another tex-mex chain with the typical dishes that you’d find at Don Pablo’s and the like either.
Typical of a lot of restaurants though their beer menu is multiple versions of the same pale lager along with Summit EPA. I was pleased to see that they at least had Bohemia which is my favorite Mexican lager but it would be nice to see a few more options.
Hello Heavypeople,
Thanks for the daily doses of delectable reads. I know you must have a large list or basket of stories on queue but can you add Jalsa Indian fast food and Tahtianna’s in Camden neighborhood to your growing list? I would just love to see your take and all the food that you guys order. Thanks!
Not gonna lie, I am still very dubious about the “authenticity” of this restaurant. I will reserve judgment until I eat there myself, but a Chi-Chi’s pedigree–no matter how many trips you make to Mexico as a child (come on!)–and focus groups do not authentic Mexican food make. I am also really perplexed by the gabacho creating the menu when he has a chef from Mexico!
i love heavy table, but am a little let down by this article. what about the food???? i was hoping for a review of Rojo but it’s just as much about Pairings (another place I’m interested in hearing more about). How is the “authenticity”? What should I order if I go there and what should I skip?
Please don’t politicize your articles or make overly broad generalizations. I grew up in Arizona and in no way support their new laws. There are also plenty of people in the state, like my parents, who do not support it as well. However, you are correct, we do know our Mexican food. I have been to Rojo twice and love it. I would not say it is incredibly authentic, but it is some of the best Mexican food I have had in MN.
Dave
Please don’t be overly ridiculous about peripheral political commentary and Facts! Arizona has passed a very politically charged and controversial law and to acknowledge it doesn’t generalize anything. It is a simple fact.