when you want, where you want.
Where to Eat in August
Illustration: Naomi Otsu
Welcome to Grub Street’s rundown of restaurant recommendations that aims to answer the endlessly recurring question: Where should we go? These are the spots that our food team thinks everyone should visit, for any reason (a new chef, the arrival of an exciting dish, or maybe there’s an opening that’s flown too far under the radar). This month: There’s a lot of great new Mexican in town.
Frijoleros (Greenpoint)
The other day, I got a DM from one of the guys I exclusively communicate with about restaurants. “New spot Frijoleros in GP is a stunner,” he wrote, with enticing photos of fish tacos and head-on shrimp sporting an attractive char. The Mexican cocktail bar was opened by Fabiola Juarez, and for anyone who just wants a drink, there are plenty of options — a paloma with Manzanilla sherry, a tequila-and-green-Chartreuse colada, sour tepache mingling with smoky Scotch — but anyone who isn’t eating will miss out on the memelas, little pucks of masa appointed with smeared black beans, queso fresco, and a hit of salsa de molcajete. Seafood is another solid choice: Go for the shrimp and drag them through some “Mexican beurre blanc.” Tuna is a nod to Contramar’s famous tostada: The fish is sliced a little thick and served with salsa-macha-aioli on a bubbly chicharron de harina. Finish with tacos de pescado, the fish fried in masa-beer batter, with all the usual accouterments: pickled onion, chipotle aioli, and guacamole. —Chris Crowley
Dolores (Bed-Stuy)
This new walk-in-only spot on Tompkins serves excellent tacos, but with only five on offer, it’s not trying to be a taqueria. The rest of the menu is filled out with botanas (Mexican small plates) and a larger, rotating plato del día. When I went on a recent Friday night (I was quoted two hours but got a bar seat in under 15 minutes), the special was sizzling, well-seasoned beef fajitas. The papadillas — fried corn tortillas stuffed with mashed potato — are a perfect confluence of comfort foods. Most dishes skew mild, aside from the aguachile verde campechano, which comes with fresh and spicy squid, octopus, and shrimp. There are no desserts, so get another “One Trick Pony” michelada, which is so thick with tomato and strawberry juice that it veers right into gazpacho territory. —Zach Schiffman
Olmo (Bed-Stuy)
This June, Olmo set down roots on a rapidly gentrifying corner of what one might call Further Bed-Stuy — a likely harbinger of more to come. (Already, there’s the rotisserie spot Badaboom and the new wine-and-oysters place Selune.) Olmo — decorated in a kind of Nü-Mexican style with stucco walls and an exterior elm-tree mura — comes with some pedigree. Its founders are alums of Cosme in New York and Pujol in Mexico City, and the short menu already has a number of tasty CDMX-style bites. I gobbled up a hot cazuela of queso fundido, and another of fideos secos, smoky and almost mole-ish with chorizo. Drinks are fun; try a michelada de reversa, with a frozen, stickless Clamato paleta melting into it. If desserts are mostly an afterthought, it’s hard to mind. A plate of very ripe mango dusted with panela sugar needs no improvement. It’s like Cinnamon Toast Fruit. —Matthew Schneier
Rose Marie (Williamsburg)
While Yellow Rose is an ode to the timelessness of Tex-Mex, its new sister spot in Williamsburg is more like an ode to that neighborhood circa 2008. It’s got cans of cheap regional beer (here, Utica Club), a menu that pays tribute to American bar food with buttery patty melts, loaded wedges of crispy potato, and fried cheese curds (the too-melty, not-at-all-squeaky interior failed to impress the University of Wisconsin grad at my table, but he once watched a roommate take down three platters of fried curds in a single sitting, and what could impress anyone who witnessed such a feat?), and locavore nods such as pink-radicchio salad and a pool of sweet Jimmy Nardello jam topping a jar of chicken-liver mousse. There are no tacos here, but Mexico’s influence is present, albeit mostly in the various tequilas, Topo Chico, and imported Coke on the drink list. They’ve got frozen G&Ts spinning in the slushy machine, too. It feels like a vacation inside — what more could you want during the tail end of summer? —Alan Sytsma
Cuerno (Midtown)
Within clear view of the Radio City marquee is this first New York outpost of a Mexican luxury-steakhouse chain. Wood grain and leather line everything, and service is heavy on table-side theater. The menu centers around a grass-fed and aged carne asada, and simplicity is the move. Before the beef, start with ceviche Regio, firm halibut swimming in leche de tigre with tostadas; and frijoles con veneno, refried beans garnished with red-chile stewed pork to be spooned into thin, warm flour tortillas. Tacos callejeros are the essential street-size steak taco, served in orders of four, heaped with coarsely chopped meat and an onion-cilantro sprinkle, one end of the plate drenched in warm salsa verde. More over-the-top is the taco richi, a seared slice of ribeye with avocado on a cheese-crisped flour tortilla. For wine, there are more than 70 selections from Mexico, like a sparkling rose from the Quretaro region, which was fruity enough to tango with the provided chips and five salsas. —Tammie Teclemariam
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