The $98 Tasting Menu I Need in My Life
Corima is a Modern Mexican stunner, plus short takes on the focaccia pizza at Superiority Burger, and a really good steak sandwich
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Corima Is My Favorite New Splurge in NYC!
I’m going to eat the blue corn quesadilla at Corima again. Soon. And when I do, I’ll text photos of the stretchy, cheesy wonder to at least two friends and one ex.
Is that a layer of black truffles on top? It sure is.
New York has lots of cool new restaurants right now: neo-power venues, chic Nordic joints, fried chicken spots that book up two weeks out. But nothing comes close to how this Modern Mexican hangout — by Sofia Ostos and chef Fidel Caballero — has hijacked my brain’s pleasure center.
I think about Corima and its $98 tasting in the same obsessive way that other folks think about tickets to The Eras Tour, or a stupid Stanley tumbler. Maybe you’ll feel the same way too when you try the refried beans here; they’re so rich and smooth a physicist would classify them as chocolate pudding (seems like something a physicist would do).
Falling hard for a restaurant isn’t something I admit to often. That doesn’t mean I’m a robot incapable of emotion; I’m not issuing Supreme Court rulings in this fun little newsletter. It’s just that I try to remain at least somewhat detached, even after a billsful night of steak and martinis (what a job). I could write about 8,000 words on why, but it all boils down the fact that we all like different things, and the most useful tool I have as a critic isn’t unbridled enthusiasm, but my ability to tell persuasive, truthful stories. I call that skill journalism.
Liking things is not a skill.
But again, I’m going to break with character here, because I suppose there’s some value in you knowing that this Chinatown spot is my restaurant crush right now. I like how the chef’s counter smells like smoke — thanks to a good binchotan grill — and how the a la carte bar smells like fresh surf clams and good perfume.
An alligator skin purse sits on the counter while bartenders shake gin cocktails spiked with sea urchin. Jesus! The drink looks like liquefied orange sherbet. And it tastes like booze spiked with lemon, sugar, and just a little bit of dry-aged Pacific ocean.
Señor Kino plays through the speakers, though an audible crunch echoes through the room when someone chomps into a beef tlayuda. The meat is as red as tomatoes on pizza. And underneath lies…edamame guacamole? That’s right.
Corima tips its hat to Chihuaha and Sonora, but also to China and Japan. I can’t think of another venue that that serves both serious sashimi platters — with Baja-style salsa — and oversized flour tortillas cooked on the back of a wok. The latter dish is the tasting menu’s bread course. Caballero, who grew up along the border in El Paso and Juárez, tells me his creation is a simultaneous nod to (giant) sobaquera tortillas and Chinese scallion pancakes.
And yet…the bread is so impossibly soft and stretchy I like to think it’s really modeled after a childhood bouncy castle.
Behind the paywall: Your Cheat Sheet to Corima, Plus Steak and Pizza!
What you’ll get with the seven-course tasting
Contemplating the $24 truffle quesadilla
Clutch a la carte recommendations — including the sashimi-shellfish plateau
Bonus: Superiority’s amazing focaccia is back
Bonus: Some of NYC’s best pizza, right across from Corima
Bonus: A steak sandwich for the ages
Scroll down for the rest of my Corima review. But first, a few words on Modern Mexican Fare in NYC…
There’s been a lot of smart talk about the city’s contemporary Korean scene, a very cool phenomenon I often reported on during my Eater days. “A cohort of forward-thinking Korean contenders now dominate the city’s high-end restaurant scene the way French cuisine used to,” Pete Wells wrote in a column last August. Michelin has paid attention to these venues as well, having awarded stars to nine of them. Right on.
But now it’s time to have a parallel conversation. It’s time to talk about our city’s Modern Mexican restaurants. In its latest guide, Michelin only found a single venue in this category to be worthy of a star
Make no mistake. This movement isn’t about meeting the opaque standards of a petty French tire company. It’s about serving deliciously creative food — and shattering preconceived notions of ambitious, expensive dining.
When I think of Modern Mexican, I think of Corima’s crowds, and its ayocote beans, sitting underneath a layer of pig’s ear. And I think about quite a few other places that I really, really, like.
A decade ago, Enrique Olvera rolled into town and opened the groundbreaking Cosme, a hotspot that helped push New York Mexican fare into an era where it didn’t need to focus on false notions of authenticity or cheapness. Good uni tostadas and corn husk meringues will change minds fast. And so the story goes that Cosme paved the way for sister spot, Atla, as well as Aldama (hit-or-miss on a recent visit), Ensenada (fish tacos!) Claro, Quique Crudo, and now, Corima.
Sure, this motley collection of restaurants might throw around black truffles on occasion, but they espouse a distinctive approach to luxury that most diners would never mistake as European or American.
They’re places for innovative takes on al pastor with silky pineapple butter. They’re places for moles negros served alone, without any stuff, because the mole is the stuff you’re here for, not an imaginary protein. They use chapulines without a single menu mention at times, as an invisibly delicious seasoning. They dabble in modernist techniques — a bit of habenero gel on a taco, or an architectural cecina — but they’re not afraid to be rustic with a really good aguachile.
They might not offer tacos, but they often pair gorgeously plated mains with small stacks of tortillas — so even a jewel box of a lobster becomes a seriously messy taco.
They feature dining rooms that feel wonderfully bilingual, among patrons, staffers, and playlists. They go heavy on the chiles; this type of heat would not pass muster at a sushi spot or a Gallic temple. Sometimes, they highlight the modern fare of Mexico City. Other times, they show off regions like Oaxaca, Baja, and elsewhere.
These establishments aren’t necessarily as shiny or sedate as other styles of fine dining. But their numbers are growing. In fact, I’d say New York’s Modern Mexican restaurants now represent — along with Korean venues and a small group of edgy East Village hangouts — the city’s creative vanguard, the way French and New American spots once did. Voilà.
Get the tasting on your first Corima visit!
The first course at Corima is a single white crisp with some green stuff inside. It looks like something you’d pop in your mouth and forget about nine seconds later, akin to any wedding hors d’oeuvre. Trust me: You will not forget it.
It’s a mash of bigeye tuna with fatalli peppers, all sandwiched into a paper thin chicharrón. It pops in the mouth like a small firecracker, a hit of umami laced with fruity, habanero-style heat.
This brings up my first piece of advice about Corima: Get the tasting on your first visit, for a not-too-expensive tour of the kitchen’s full capabilities. Do it at the at the back counter. There, you’ll spend two hours overlooking the big open kitchen where chefs carefully brush meats over a fiery binchotan grill.
Like at Contra, where Caballero once worked, the menu changes frequently, but these days patrons can expect a textured earthenware jar, no larger than a teacup, filled with udon soup. If that sounds too ordinary, take a sip, and you’ll see how the corn husk dashi and tortilla oil give the broth an earthy, sunbaked finish.
What are those sauces oozing around on a plate of soft gai lan and celtuce? A nutty green pipian, and a deliciously funky XO, fortified with chicatana ants and grasshoppers. Use your accompanying flour tortilla — folded up like a futuristic Zaha Hadid sketch — to sop up all the delicious drippings.
If a chef hands you a dish of mandolin-thin persimmon slices, you’re in luck. Underneath you’ll find a musky dry-aged duck breast — as tender as pie filling — and refried beans doing their best impression of Robuchon potatoes. Caballero cuts the frijoles with dry-aged beef fat, and drizzles a rich chile colarado jus next to the meat. Eat it all with a knife and fork, or put the duck atop a slice of that fruit, to make a nice little persimmon taco.
A la carte advice, and a serious sashimi platter
I thought about titling this column “the high-end Mexican spot where you need to eat right now,” but like I said, we all have our own individual preferences. Indeed, that’s why critics tend to be more in the business of assessing a restaurant, rather than giving a venue the hard sell.
On that note, it’s worth keeping in mind that Caballero isn’t afraid to toy around with strong flavors, especially with the a la carte offerings.
Take the seasonal sashimi, a breathtaking stand-in for the type of fancy shellfish platters you’d find at a chic brasserie. Oysters don’t come naked or neutral; they’re topped with a spruce kosho that vibrates on the tongue. Hiramasa is simple enough, until you glide it through a cured duck egg in soy, a sauce that’s as rich as syrup. And mackerel is dry-aged to jazz up its rich taste of the sea. Tame that oily fish with a tan aioli — a charred allium sauce that packs the flavor of smoked wheat. Or toss in some chiles torreados, a dice of serranos, jalapenos, and orange trout roe.
Ayocote beans with head cheese sounds like a mild-mannered stew. Not here. Cabellero doesn’t go for a soft, gelatinous affair. He laces his queso de puerco with pig’s ear, giving the slices a satisfying snap. The legumes, in turn, sit in a Chihuahua-inspired spicy whey broth, full of umami and tang. I could eat this every day.
I’m curious to try the rustic duck enmoladas, as well as the carne asada. As for dessert, flan was overcooked on my first visit, but sweet potato ice cream — as savory as it is sweet — was damn good, especially with little nuggets of cashew brittle and mandarin segments.
One last thing…get the black truffle quesadilla!
At a certain point during the tasting, a staffer will ask if you’d like a supplemental quesadilla as a “cheese course.” The correct answer is “yes.”
Quesadillas don’t occupy much (or any) real estate on high-end Mexican menus in New York. Corima bucks that trend, and gives the snack a fine dining price to boot ($24); it’s also available at the a la carte bar.
Think of it less as an ode to fromage, however, and more of a study in earthiness. The crisp blue exterior is toasty, like good popcorn. Shaved black truffles give a whiff of fertile soil, as does a stuffing of huitalacoche, a corn fungus that’s heady with the flavor of sweet mushrooms. Then, the milk kicks in with a luscious softness.
What a restaurant. The cheese course is a quesadilla and the bread course is a tortilla. I reckon we’ll see this sort of thing elsewhere, in other fancy restaurants, because Modern Mexican food is New York food, and because New York food is Modern Mexican food. And these restaurants are packed, even without Michelin’s benediction. 3 Allen Street, Chinatown
How about a nice slice at Scarr’s after your fancy meal?:
After my last dinner at Corima, I ended up walking over to Scarr’s for a slice. One of the luxuries of living in New York is that you might leave a super posh restaurant and find yourself just a block or two away from one of the city’s top pizzerias.
I hadn’t had the opportunity to revisit Scarr Pimentel’s shop since it moved across the street, but I’m happy to report it still slaps quite hard. And there’s still a proper queue outside.
Scarr’s tomato sauce doesn’t wow me as much as at Fini. The naturally-leavened bread isn’t as complex as at L’Industrie. But inasmuch as Scarr’s is trying to improve upon the classic New York slice — with bubbly, oven-burnished cheese and a gently crisp crust — it might just stand alone in that category. It is an ultra-light slice, so airy you could easily wolf down two as a late night snack. 35 Orchard Street, Lower East Side