I knew something was up when the carajillos started flowing.
Until recently, the carajillo — a coffee cocktail that practically runs on tap in Mexico City — took some effort to find here. (I went searching after visiting Mexico’s capital in 2019.) Now you can find them in places expected and unexpected: at Bar Nena as a “carajito” with mezcal; at the British restaurant Dame, shaken with cold brew; and served according to the original recipe — equal parts espresso and Licor 43 — at Winona’s.
There’s no denying that New York City has influenced Mexico City — see Priya Krishna’s story, out this week, about that very subject — but the reverse is also true. “Mexico City-inspired” has become a tagline for restaurants, bakeries, taco stands and cantinas, regardless of where their owners are from (though many of them hail from Mexico.) And here, just like there, diners can’t seem to get enough.
It’s not a bar, it’s a cantina
Mexico has invented so many cures for the hangover that sooner or later it should be nominated for a Nobel Prize. There’s menudo, the ruddy tripe soup, and vuelve a la vida, a seafood cocktail whose name means “come back to life.” And then there’s the piedra: a bracing mix of Fernet, tequila and anise liquor rumored to not only cure hangovers, but also prevent them. Sold!
I hadn’t heard of the piedra until I dined at Olmo, a three-month-old restaurant in Bed-Stuy that takes some cues from Mexico City cantinas. What does that mean? In some cases, the kitchen comes second to the bar. You could order grilled branzino or a steak with a chipotle béarnaise sauce, but the more I eat at Olmo, the more I gravitate to the snacks (that’s what I would do in a cantina, anyway): sopes the size of silver dollar pancakes and messy chicharron preparado, heaped with slaw and escabeche. They’re ideal for pairing with one of the cantina-style cocktails I haven’t seen anywhere else, like the batanga (tequila, Coca-Cola, lime and salt) or Olmo’s michelada served with a frozen tomato ice pop that melts as you sip.
103 Saratoga Avenue (Decatur Street), Bed-Stuy
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