How to Ace the Menu at Esse Taco by Enrique Olvera
How to Ace the Menu at Esse Taco by Enrique Olvera
The Williamsburg hotspot makes a solid ribeye taco but other items aren't quite ready for the Memorial Day crowds
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That Williamsburg Taco Vibe…
Last Wednesday evening, half of North Brooklyn, it seemed, descended upon Esse Taco on Bedford. When one of the world’s most famous Mexican chefs opens his first local taqueria, people show up. A lot of people.
Scores squeezed into the standing-only room. They walked around in tight leather pants and loose army fatigues. They drank $13 mezcal margaritas from plastic cups. They ate tacos off of fancy oil drums and, out on Bedford, off of real traffic barriers. They danced Cumbia. And one person held a silky “best-in-show” poodle in the same hand as a YSL tote.
Is that a dapper gent with a copy of Paul Murray’s “The Bee Sting” (656 pages)? You bet it is. Easy, breezy taco reading!
The vibes are very Nouveau Williamsburg.
Esse — just a few weeks old — comes to us courtesy of Enrique Olvera, the chef who rose to fame with spendier affairs like the fine dining gem that is Cosme and the chic-casual Atla.
Esse is more affordable, with tacos running just $5 or $6. Though patrons still like to play dress-up; check out this person next to me carrying a Louis Vuitton pochette (~$1,900), no bigger than a quesadilla or two. Somehow, I feel like this is a good time to tell you that that Esse posts a nice sign explaining how to eat a taco.
In case there’s any confusion, lol.
Early acclaim is already coming in from the influencers — of course it is — who are showing up with their “this is the best thing in the world” spiels. So yes, the lines are long. But the wait rarely extends past 25 minutes or so. Not bad for a venue that serves some very good beef tacos. And a uniquely lousy al pastor.
The case against touchscreen tacos…
In the not too distant past, it wasn’t unusual to hear derisive remarks about New York’s taco scene.
Those comments are less frequent these days, thanks in no small part to a growing class of thoughtful tortilla makers, small molinos, and excellent taqueros — folks fluent in the language of birria, campechano, suadero, blowtorched trippa, longanisa, and nose-to-tail carnitas. Our city no longer needs comparisons to Los Angeles, because New York is a taco town in its own right, a metropolis where you can stick your head inside a popular spot, inhale all sorts of meaty perfumes, and watch staffers shaving crimson pork off a tall, spinning trompo.
Esse Taco, alas, doesn’t really feel like it’s in conversation with that promising movement.
The ribeye notwithstanding, Esse is a place that serves fairly basic and often forgettable tacos. Chicken. Mushroom. Pork. Olvera is not on track “to transform U.S. taco culture,” as one headline asserts. A fine dining chef — however accomplished — will rarely revolutionize a style of eating that so many small-scale operators have been working hard at for quite some time.
If Esse is going to play a role in tweaking anyone’s approach to Mexican fare, it’s going to be in a direction that feels more corporate and kitschy. The restaurant flaunts aromas as neutral as a Sweetgreen — or an unused copper pot sitting atop a double kitchen island in the Hamptons.
It’s all what one might expect from a taqueria where you order via touch screens.
Wanna know how they work?
A computer asks for your phone number for a rewards program (lol). It then asks for your choice of taco, and you hit enter, but it’s “greyed out,” because you still need to put in a choice of tortilla. You fix the error and tap again. And again. And again. Finally it goes through (the touch screen was glitchy last week). Then you enter your name via a digital keyboard. Then you enter your phone number again to be informed when your order is ready (at this point, I was ready to take out my health insurance card and a photo of my passport). Then you pay. Then you add your crappy finger “signature.” Then you enter your email for a receipt, if you like.
I’m old enough to remember when you could just ask a human for a taco and tap your iPhone 15 Pro on an NFC reader to pay. The glory days, right?
After a few minutes of data entry, you go wait for your order near the semi-open kitchen. This is where you’ll notice there are no spinning trompos for the al pastor, but, instead, chefs heating up individual slabs of marinated pork loin.
It is not very good al pastor.
The lean meat — which sits on toasty, house made tortillas — is tender and textureless, with a subtle warmth. Pineapple butter, a supremely rich condiment at other Olvera institutions, tastes diluted here. The net result feels as if someone reworked al pastor for the wellness section of a glossy supermarket magazine. It’s a dish designed for a clientele that doesn’t want to experience the umami-packed spices, savory porcine fats, succulent charred bits, and bright fruit of superior versions elsewhere — often made with shoulder meat shaved off a rotating spit.
This isn’t so much an issue of bad execution as it is a flawed recipe.
You can also try a skinless, flabby, chicken taco, with mild and forgettable spices. It tastes like something you’d get inside Penn Station while waiting for the train to an Islanders game. Or you can order a generically earthy mushroom taco, if you’re in the mood for that sort of thing.
The case for ribeye tacos
“You gonna get that mushroom taco?,” a bro asked his bro friend last week while queuing up at Esse on Sunday. “Fuuuck that,” he replied, as if eating a fungi somehow revealed a deep character flaw. That remarkable gentleman (lol) instead committed to ordering a few ribeye tacos.
It pains me to say this but the ribeye taco is the right move here, though I should offer a warning: Many of you will not recognize this creation as a ribeye steak.
This is really a roast beef taco. And that’s a good thing.
The kitchen wields a deli slicer at such an extreme setting that the meat is at least twice as thin as the tortillas. A cook then sears it on a super hot plancha with garlic oil. And that’s about it. Salsa and onions round out the taco. It’s super bare bones; the meat portion is so light you really need to close your eyes and concentrate to detect the beefy punch.
It’s almost too subtle, but that’s not a terrible problem to have. In a city that likes to overload its tacos to the point that they mimic sandwiches, Olvera smartly understands the importance of the snack-sized taco. Most of the specimens here are about as light and crushable as what you’d find from Taqueria Ramirez, which is to say you can easily eat four as a quick meal.
For something that packs a louder bovine kick, consider the gringa, which subs in a Caramelo flour tortilla and adds a slice of melty chihuahua cheese (I’ve always preferred flour for steak, as the delicate flavors of beef call for a less robust wrap). The griddled tortilla does its best to get out of the way of the meat, and the result is a taco that flaunts a caramelized plancha punch that’s only a degree or two less powerful than a good smash burger. Raw onions add crunch, while peach-hued guacachile, powered by the force of habaneros, keeps things floral and zippy. Cost: $7.
This is a very good taco. And let the record state that a single good taco is a solid achievement for a weeks-old venue. Still, it’s hard not to expect more from Olvera, who helped pave the way for New York’s thriving Modern Mexican scene.
Esse’s offerings are sometimes so distinctly middle-of-the-road (or mid) that it seems as if the team spent more time researching fast casual spots or business expansion plans than actually eating at our city’s powerfully distinctive taquerias.
Indeed, on the subject of expansion, Olvera told Fine Dining Lovers that he might open four or five new branches in New York in the coming years. I’m willing to bet he and his Casamata team get things right long before then, but for now, I’m sorry to say that the young Esse Taco is not yet ready for prime time eating.
Behind the Paywall: Two Quick Takes
The tasty barbacoa platter at Atla
The very good Dover sole at Cosme
