In an especially good year for food, New York Times‘ restaurant critic Pete Wells said he could have easily picked 15 of New York City’s best restaurants if necessary (he was capped at 10). Topping out his list of places that had NYers salivating was Mexican restaurant Cosme – the brainchild of famed chef Enrique Olvera.
Empellón’s Alex Stupak, was once quoted telling the NY Times “For better or worse, at a Mexican restaurant in the United States, people order guacamole and a margarita before they even look at the menu.” But according to Wells, Olvera, whose D.F. restaurant Pujol is considered one of the best of the world, “built a restaurant that instantly made passé our salt-rimmed preconceptions about his native cuisine.” Thank god.
Cosme was the stuff of breathless food blogs for months before it opened, and in the year since, it’s been packed to the gills (even #dreamsquad Adele, Jennifer Lawrence, and Emma Stone were spotted eating there recently.)
Olvera’s restaurant has been perhaps the most visible harbinger of NYC’s Mexican food moment; a rebuttal to the prevailing wisdom that NYC can’t hold its own compared to the Mexican food out West.
As far as what to eat at Cosme, Wells praised the lobster, duck carnitas, and fried pork skin. “It isn’t the kind of Mexican cooking that can be learned on a vacation,” he wrote. “It has to be lived and for that there are no shortcuts.”
So save up that end of year bonus (if you’re so lucky) and make a reservation stat. Dinner for two after tax and tip clocks in at around $200, so this one is definitely a splurge.