Mark your calendars
An ode to northern Mexico arrives in NYC next week
On Sunday, June 7th, the East Village will host, in my opinion, the most exciting project in recent memory. Tacos Domingo, just days away from beginning service on 1st Ave and Saint Marks Place, is the first US project from Guia Domingo, a small team that, for years, has been publishing some of the most exciting projects in food media.
I was first introduced to the work of Nico Meehan and his family through Matt Sartwell—Matt is the most important person to know in New York’s food world. The managing director of Kitchen Arts & Letters, New York’s 40+ year old treasure trove of cookbooks and food literature, for over a decade and a book editor before that, Matt knows it all. He spends every day speaking with professional chefs and home cooks, authors and publishers, and understands better than anyone what’s happening in food, in New York and around the world.
I see Matt a fair amount, visits where the most exciting part is my brief tour through the publications Matt is most interested in. In a store like Kitchen Arts, having a knowledgeable guide that can sift through shelves upon shelves of baking books, parse through the deluge of celebrity chef monographs, and source publications from around the world, is irreplaceable. He’s seen it all, from best-sellers he found uninteresting to independent publications he can sell fifty of at a time. Matt doesn’t like just anything, and his recommendations are hard-fought.
Guia Domingo’s books spoke for themselves—their three existing editions, primarily in Spanish and surpassing a $90 MSRP, are a true feat in bookmaking. They’re distinct from the cookbooks you see gracing the Kitchen Art’s walls—solid colored cases with their signature block texts and small smiley suns adorn the cover of each, and promise to hold something exceptional. The series covers three (soon to be four) cities in Mexico, a local celebration of taqueros across the country. By focusing on one city at a time, they’ve created an authentic, meaningful, honest celebration of how food, culture, tacos vary—a refusal to muddle their culture. Each book features carefully shot photography, interviews, and a dive into the best tacos in their city of choice: CDMX, Tijuana, Guadalajara, and a fourth as of mid-June, on Monterrey.
Each book starts with a list of 200 of the best tacos in the city of note, compiled from friends, chefs, and community members. The Guia Domingo team, Nico and his cousin Alberto, his brother Alex, their writer Pedro Reyes, alongside a council of chefs and writers, will try every single taco over the course of 2 weeks. That’s tacos for three meals a day, at least, for anywhere from 14-21 consecutive days. The team makes their notes, and narrows each city to about 35 essential tacos.
Nico tells me that photographers, designers, and writers included in the projects is local—the books are concentrated efforts to achieve their main ethos: to celebrate and uplift a piece of Mexican culture that too often gets glossed over, and goes uncelebrated. The books, alongside their inaugural magazine and their upcoming fourth edition on Monterrey, where Nico and his brother are from, are proudly displayed on the corner of 1st Ave and East 9th Street below a sign that reads “Tacos, Libros & Revistas.”
This is just one of many windows on the corner unit that, next week, will be Tacos Domingo. The new joint will be an ode to Mundo Domingo, the world that Nico and his family have built, and an extension of their taquerias in CDMX and Monterrey. This project will take a slightly different approach, though. The menu is small, with only one kind of taco available—a carne asada prepared with NY strip to top a homemade flour tortilla. Your options are with or without Monterrey Jack cheese, and your pick of available toppings: salsas, guacamole, varying levels of spice to complete your bite. The menu is rounded out with a quesadilla, a bean and cheese taco, and two kinds of potatoes. As is traditional in northern Mexico, baby potatoes will be fried whole and served with or without their signature beef.
I saw the nearly complete space this weekend—an immersion blender whirring as finishing touches on salsas were made, a pristine mixer in the basement waiting to churn hundreds of flour tortillas each day, clean wooden bookshelves and a sleek silver island below a glowing yellow sign. The layout is similar to what you' may have experienced at Los Tacos no.1, where customers will work with the taquero behind the counter to assemble their plate. Their team prioritized this interaction between customers and the taqueros—in New York dining, it’s not uncommon to never speak to the person preparing your food, in a kitchen slicing, assembling, and grilling. In northern Mexico, that’s never the case—maintaining interaction between each guest as they pick up their taco and select their toppings is central to the Domingo ethos.
The space will look even better in just a few days when it is full of hungry New Yorkers grappling over the new-in-town taco.
Despite having such a robust base of knowledge about the best tacos in major Mexican cities, Nico and his team weren’t sitting at each spot during their taco expedition trying to take recipes for their own shop. Instead, Tacos Domingo is what Nico describes as a “cravable” taco, a simple marriage of flour tortillas and carne asada. Tortillas will be made fresh every day, and each component of the tacos comes from recipes from Nico’s family in Monterrey.
What I find most exciting about Tacos Domingo is that they are doing one thing and doing it well—they’re not trying to be the best at everything, but rather share a piece of their own story, bringing their culture to a city where it’s largely underrepresented.
And it’s a welcome addition to New York and the East Village—their team’s keen eye for what’s cool and exciting has landed them insane collaborations with chefs and brands, and it’s only a matter of time before their merch spreads across the city. I’ll be wearing my Tacos Domingo hat until I can get my hands on their t-shirts…
Most importantly, they’ll be open until 1am each night, and until 3am on weekends. See you then…or on Thursday at Apollo where they’ll be serving a special collab bagel that I will be in line for.
In other news, free Table Talk this week for fun:
Just Opened
Lonnies from much-adored neighborhood spot Ingas Bar, has arrived, flush with a frozen piña colada and a morel toast I would like to eat soon. Good menu design.
Socceria, the third concept from Taqueria Ramirez, just hosted a sold-out viewing part for the Arsenal-PSG game this weekend, and I know those seats will be hard-fought once we’re in full-swing with the World Cup. Their team is genius!!!
Little Falcon is just one month old—a new neighborhood spot replacing Fort Greene’s Third Falcon. I’m very exciting to dive into this French menu this week…
Morgenstern’s is back, and thank god Bananas is gone. All is right in SoHo.
Wallace will be my new neighborhood favorite, I fear. The Black Mountain Wine House alums opened the cutest little bar on Vanderbilt. Looking forward to investigating the snack situation.
Something New
I was surprised, and delighted, to see that Oberon, the restaurant opening in the newly renovated New Museum, is being helmed by the group that brought us Rucola, Anaïs, June and Rhodora. I can’t wait for this June opening and to see what kind of whacky design ends up in the very sharp, minimal OMA building.
Another One!
King’s Co, aka my main source for cold sesame noodles in the summer, is coming to Park Slope. Great news.
Friedman’s and Suram Sushi are opening right next to each other on Greenwich Street on Tribeca which, I find relatively uninteresting apart from the fact that this area of Tribeca feels really quiet as far as exciting businesses go, with a lot of potential.
Bed-Stuy favorite Lady Moo Moo has opened in Bushwick which is somehow even further away from me but is massive. I will continue my evening walks to Heap’s, instead.
Closures
Devastated to see that Rose Marie is closing after a year, but thank GOD it is going to be Yellow Rose 2.0.
Larry’s Ca Phe closed like one second after I finally went for the first time. Refusing to believe I’ll never have that matcha again.
See you next week and, if you can’t wait that long, I’ll be here posting everything I’m eating.
CANT WAIT
i crave papas like that on the regular....