Ceviche on Mixtli's Chiapas menu includes hibiscus, swordfish, green apple, avocado salad, chayote, and charred Chilean salt.
The crayfish huarache on the Chiapas menu is a mixture of crayfish, black bean paste and plantains on the corn huarache of Mixtli. This is a progressive Mexican restaurant that moved this year from a boxcar near Olmos Park to a larger Southtown Space.
Tichinda is a dish on the Oaxaca menu. Mixtli's squid ink cake is mixed with mussels, dried shrimps and chili sauce, black sesame seeds and trout roe. This is a progressive Mexican restaurant from near Olmos Park. A boxcar was moved to a larger space in Nancheng this year.
The cocktail menu includes Mixtli Margarita and Cactus Sherbet, Foreground, and Mixtli’s Oaxacan Old Fashioned and mezcal, a progressive Mexican restaurant that moved this year from a boxcar near Olmos Park to a larger space in South Town.
The decoration of the Mixtli bar includes a cloud, which is inspired by the name of the restaurant, which means "cloud" in Nahuatl.
The dessert on the Chiapas menu is a cake soaked in honey water, mixed with vanilla honeycomb tuile, cinnamon sauce and cafe de olla ice cream in Mixtli, a progressive Mexican restaurant that was moved from a boxcar near Olmos Park Greater space in South Town. year.
Mixtli’s Chiapas menu includes ribs strangled with Chiapas-style moles, topped with candied mango, papaya and pineapple, served under a cherry wood smoke dome that rises on the table.
The Oaxaca dessert research in the Oaxaca menu includes almond cake, almond hazelnut soil and dehydrated banana, corn flour pudding ice cream and Mixtli’s Oaxaca chocolate.
The pickled mushroom tostadas on the Oaxaca menu include blue corn tostadas, white bean paste, pickled mushrooms, and Mixtli’s quesillo Oaxaca, a progressive Mexican restaurant that started from Olmos Park this year A nearby boxcar was moved to a larger space in South Town.
Mixtli's Chiapas menu includes a round tamale with shrimp on top and shrimp mole and dried shrimp on top.
Mixtli’s bar and lounge are quirky and comfortable. This is a progressive Mexican restaurant that moved this year from a boxcar near Olmos Park to a larger space in South Town.
Mixtli's new cocktail menu includes Jaguar (gin, corn, basil, mango, jalapeno, black tapioca), Front and Edgar's Paloma (tequila, grapefruit, campari).
Mixtli's Oaxaca menu includes calabacitas ceviche, zucchini, peas, pepitas, hoja santa vinegar charred cucumber, avocado salsa, peas and serrano granita, and flying ants called chicatanas.
Mixtli, a progressive Mexican restaurant, moved from a boxcar near Olmos Park to a larger space in South Town this year.
Mixtli, a progressive Mexican restaurant, moved from a boxcar near Olmos Park to a larger space in South Town this year.
Mixtli’s Oaxaca menu includes scallops, green apples, and coconut foam boiled in Chilean garlic butter, with seaweed and dry ice for a dramatic flavor.
Change is inevitable. When it happens, all gains must be weighed against all lost. Progress hangs in the balance.
The idea applies to Mixtli, a modernist Mexican restaurant that started as an experiment on a boxcar near Olmos Park eight years ago. With 12 seats and a dream, Chef Diego Galicia and Rico Torres set out to create a multi-course tasting menu, exploring the regions, styles, folklore and inspirations that promote the development of Mexican cuisine. In general, they succeeded.
For two consecutive years, the Express-News "Top 100 Dining" guide has named Mixtli as the best restaurant in San Antonio. In 2017, Torres and Galicia joined the ranks of the best new chefs in "Food and Wine" magazine.
Closed last year due to a pandemic, Mixtli briefly switched to a takeaway taquería model. But now is the time to surpass the 40 x 10 foot tram, and Mixtli announced plans to move into a larger space in Southtown, a move that finally happened in June.
Let's take stock of what they gained after leaving the cramped, dark, integrated kitchen and dining space of their old home.
Windows, on the one hand. They share a building complex with Pharm Table. The high ground leads to the courtyard, which allows light to enter the interior. The interior uses cool gray and golden wood tones and modern art is hung on the walls.
The Mixtli restaurant and kitchen operate side by side.
There is still room. Now it can accommodate almost three times the number of people, with tables for two, four or more people, and a separate private gathering space. There is now a full cocktail bar and a smart, matching wine list to replace the sporadic free wine pairing in the unlicensed space in the old location. Now, diners can choose their own pace — and their own company — instead of trying to keep up with strangers at the old public table.
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The food is still connected, served in a 10-course tasting menu, made by staff led by Galicia, Torres, and staff led by sous chef Alexana Cabrera and completed by pastry chef Sofia Tejeda, with varying degrees of tweezers complexity, all in one Still bring the chef and diners in the same room.
The menu rotates by theme every few months. The summer menu focuses on the state of Oaxaca, Mexico, and travels through this surf and turf wonderland from scratch to produce several edible works of art with flavors worthy of design.
The exhilarating calabacitas ceviche offers color, texture and flavor, paired with zucchini, peas, burnt cucumber and hoja santa vinaigrette, paired with peas and serrano granita, and the unexpected roasted nutty crunch of flying ants called chicatanas .
Mushroom tostadas are added with white bean paste, pickled mushrooms and a mild cheese called quesillo Oaxaca to get a satisfying taste, such as beans and cheese with a turbocharged center. This is where the simple concept stops, because the trip to Oaxaca includes a nautically inspired squid ink cake with chopped mussels and trout roe, which looks like an edible bitcoin symbol, presented in matte black.
The Oaxaca menu features scallops, green apples and coconut foam boiled in Chilean garlic butter, with seaweed on dry ice, presenting a dramatic flavor in Mixtli.
But the wonderful moment of Oaxaca came on dry ice, a bowl of misty seaweed with a shell on top and a scallop on top, cooked with Chilean garlic butter and green apple and coconut foam. This dish has a bite "Wow" euphoria to match the show.
The current menu focuses on Chiapas, the southernmost state of Mexico, famous for coffee, jungle, cheese, corn, seafood and mild peppers-Torres' tableside preface let me know all of this.
Throughout the menu, these elements play with each other like children in a bouncy castle, where everyone’s birthday is: bread made of fragrant coffee butter; a swordfish ceviche dyed scarlet with hibiscus Marinated fish; bouncy ball tamales with bright shrimp moles; a sweet vegetable raisin picadillo that contrasts sharply with queso de bola, a double skin and creamy center from Chiapas Cheese.
Mixtli’s Chiapas menu includes ribs strangled with Chiapas-style moles, topped with candied mango, papaya and pineapple, served under a cherry wood smoke dome that rises on the table.
There is always a moment of standing applause in Mixtli, where the spectacle bows with the food behind it. There are two Chiapas menus. The first is the smoked pork ribs, topped with dried tropical fruits. It is shrouded in a glass dome full of cherry wood smoke, raising the side of the table to welcome the smoky entrance that the prince would like.
Then there is a satisfying crayfish huarache with black beans and plantain puree. This is a roadside snack in a wooden box that will play jungle sounds when opened, just like Anthony Bourdain's Hallmark card.
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Sometimes the show can't save the performer, which happened several times in Mixtli. Seafood barbacoa becomes a homogeneous, spicy pile, like taquería's mixed seafood barbecue—not good. Even with the same style of seaweed litter as scallops, crab chili soup has no chance because the seaweed smells like the sad part of the beach.
A pair of proteins missed the high-standard flavor and sparkle of Mixtli. One was a pork disc on a rubbery, smooth peanut mole, and the other was just a pile of dominoes, camped next to moles and sweet potato mud.
Now let's explain what Mixtli has lost from the full glare of the bohemian guided edge to the formal dining space.
The intimacy of Mixtli is its super power. The captured audience sitting on the 12-seat table means that the stories behind the dishes—a refinement of weeks of research on history and food—can be played out in a longer narrative form because they only need to be told once. Now, they are told a dozen or more times a night, and these stories have been reduced to recitations with some regional footnotes.
In the boxcar, the logistics of moving 10 courses up close means the performance ends in less than 90 minutes. My dinner time in the new space is much longer. Ask people who feel that they are a year old when watching the new James Bond movie, if time sometimes becomes unhappy passengers in the car.
The bar menu includes Mixtli's suadero tacos.
The core of Mixtli is still the tasting menu. When the new bar plan was announced, the concept of the a la carte Mixtli bar menu was interesting. But it's just a few things-bread that night, suadero tacos, some cheese-rather than peeking plate by plate in the big show. Nevertheless, the bar is an independent and private pre-match space suitable for paloma or Oaxacan Old Fashioned and mezcal and a majestic ice cube with the Mixtli brand printed on it.
812 S. Alamo St., Suite 103, 210-338-0746, restaurantmixtli.com
Fast food: The progressive Mexican restaurant serves a multi-course menu of chef Diego Galicia and Rico Torres
Hits: Shrimp tamal, calabacitas ceviche, squid ink Martha chopped mussels
Miss: seafood barbacoa, crab chili soup
Opening hours: Tuesday to Saturday from 6 pm to 9:30 pm, ticket reservations only. Only for dine-in. The bar is open seating.
Price range: fixed-price multi-course menu, $125 plus tax and 20% service charge per person; wine pairing for $50; bar a la carte dishes, about $8-18
Alcohol: cocktails, wine and beer
***** Very good, almost perfect experience
**** Not bad, among the best in the city
*** On average, there are a few outstanding
** Poor, there are one or two redemption factors
Express-News dining critics pay for all meals.
So, what remains unresolved?
I prefer the old Mixtli. Not because I am a deep-rooted nostalgic, but because there is nothing like this, an independent culinary library in operation, through the food, chapter by chapter, undisturbed examination of the history of a country.
But I also like the new Mixtli. This is a similar story, told in an era of distraction. An Internet cafe instead of a library, small mouths satisfy our appetite and curiosity. Progress, recalibrate to adapt to the new space and time.
msutter@express-news.net | Twitter: @fedmanwalking | Instagram: @fedmanwalking
Mike Sutter is an Express-News restaurant critic. Before joining the Taste Team in 2016, he served as a restaurant critic for Austin American-Statesman and an editor for FedManWalking.com. He appeared in NPR's "All Things Considered", ABC's "Tell the Truth", and wrote articles for The Guardian, Good Appetite, and The Wall Street Journal.