MEXICO CITY.- Chef Arturo Rivera Martínez, recently awarded a Michelin starstood on Wednesday in front of an incredibly hot grill in the first place of tacos Mexicans who get a coveted star from the French restaurant guide, and did exactly the same thing they’ve been doing for 20 years: browning meat.
Although Michelin representatives approached the restaurant on May 15 to give him one of their immaculate, long-sleeved white chef jackets, he did not wear it. In this small business measuring three by three meters, the intense heat roasts the meat.
At Tacos El Califa de León, in Mexico City, there are only four things on the menu, all tacos, and all of them rib, loin, or beef shank.
The secret is the simplicity of our taco. The taco only has one tortilla. Green and red sauce. That is. That’s the cue. That and the quality of the meat, said Rivera Martínez. He is also probably the only Michelin star chef who, when asked what drink he should accompany his meal with, answers: I like a Coke.
Actually, it’s more complicated than that. El Califa de León is the only taco stand among the 16 Mexican restaurants that received one star, as well as two locations that earned two stars. Almost all the others are very elegant businesses.
In fact, outside of a street food stall in Bangkok, El Califa de León is possibly the smallest restaurant to have earned a Michelin star: half of the establishment’s 9.29 square meter space is occupied by a grill of plates of solid steel that is hotter than sauce.
The other half is packed with customers standing, clutching their plastic plates and ladling sauce onto themselves. An assistant constantly spreads the tortilla dough on a griddle.
In a way, The Caliph of Len is a tribute to resistance to change. He has gotten here by doing exactly the same four things he has done since 1968.
Thousands of times a day, Rivera Martínez takes a fresh beef steak, cut into thin slices, and puts it on the super-hot steel grill.
He adds a pinch of salt, squeezes half a lemon over it and takes a freshly kneaded soft dough tortilla to place it on the solid metal plate until it puffs up.
chef Arturo Rivera Martínez-AP.jpg
AP/Fernando Plain
It takes less than a minute. She doesn’t say exactly how long because that’s a secret, she flips the meat with a spatula and then the tortilla and, very quickly, takes it to a plastic plate to place the meat on top. Then she says out loud the name of the customer who ordered it.
Any sauce – fiery red or equally atomic green – is added by the customer. There is no place to sit and at some times of the day there is no place to stand because the sidewalk in front of the business was taken over years ago by street vendors selling socks, batteries and accessories for mobile phones.
It’s not that anyone really wants to eat inside the small taquera. The heat on a spring day is oppressive.
Temperature is one of the few secrets that Rivera Martínez shares. The steel grill needs to be heated to a staggering 360 degrees Celsius.
When asked what it felt like to get a Michelin star, he responded in classic Mexico City slang: It’s cool… It’s cool (very good).
Taco quality and price
The prices are quite high by Mexican standards. A single taco, generous but not huge, costs almost five dollars. But many customers are convinced that it is the best.
It’s the quality of the meat, said Alberto Muoz, who has been coming here for about eight years. He has never let me down. I have always recommended him and, now that he has the star, with even more reason.
For Muoz’s son, Alan, who was waiting for a beef taco with his father, he considers it a historic moment for Mexican gastronomy. “…and we are here to witness it.
Really, it’s about not changing anything: the freshness of the tortillas, the menu, the layout of the restaurant. Its owner, Mario Hernández Alonso, does not even reveal where he buys the meat.
However, times have changed. El Califa de León’s most loyal clientele originally came from the former ruling party, the PRI, whose headquarters are about five blocks away. But the political organization lost the presidency in 2018 and has entered a constant decline. Now it’s rare to see someone in a suit ah.
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AP/Fernando Plain
Hernandez Alonso points out that his father, Juan, who founded the business, never bothered to trademark the name Califa, so a well-financed, upscale taco chain has opened about 15 restaurants under that name in upscale neighborhoods.
Hernndez Alonso has been toying with the idea of taking the business to social media, but that depends on his grandchildren.
By law, after the coronavirus pandemic, restaurants in Mexico City were allowed to open areas with street seating. But El Califa de León doesn’t even have a sidewalk for customers to eat because of all the street vendors, so now diners are elbow to elbow with display stands and plastic mannequins.
When asked if he would like to have space left for a seating area on the street, Hernández Alonso expressed that if it isn’t broken, don’t fix it.
The saying goes and it says well: why improvements or changes; What is well done does not require any repairs, he said, pointing to the street vendors. That is what God commands and we must adapt to it.
FUENTE: AP
