Mole Olé: Great Oaxacan Restaurants

As if Mexican food weren’t already wonderful enough, Oaxacan cuisine adds another layer of subtlety and complexity. Avocados, squash blossoms, chocolate, nopales, almonds, corn, bananas, tomatoes, peanuts, beans, green olives, cinnamon—the list goes on and on.  Add to this the remarkable palette of chiles and local herbs such as chepil, epazote, and hierba santa. And a special niche in gastronomic heaven should be reserved for Oaxaca’s delicious string cheese, or quesillo. It’s impossible to describe how something so prosaic can be so good. During a recent stay at La Casa de los Milagros, the centerpiece of our favorite breakfast was melted string cheese (quesillo a la plancha) topped with a tangy salsa verde.

Oaxaca is known as the land of the seven moles, but visitors to its capital city will find that those are just the seven basic moles. Restaurants regularly feature negro (black), amarillo (yellow), coloradito (reddish), almendrado (with almonds), verde (green), rojo (red), and manchamanteles (translated as “tablecloth stainer”). But chefs are continually experimenting and adjusting, adding a pinch more or less of this or that to their moles, which can include 30 or more ingredients.

And, lest I forget, there’s mescal—tequila’s smokier, earthier relative. Forget all that you’ve heard about the worm in the bottle and mescal’s rough edge. Undoubtedly, factories somewhere churn out firewater complete with the requisite maguey worm. But the best of the artisanal mescals are surprisingly smooth, with flavors as complex as moles.

Following are five of our favorite restaurants in the city of Oaxaca, all of which share an emphasis on creative renditions and the freshest ingredients possible:

CASA OAXACA EL RESTAURANTE
Constitución #104

Casa Oaxaca is probably the city’s top-shelf hotel, filled with art, flowers, and Oaxacan textiles. In its restaurant, chef Alejandro Ruíz specializes in seafood, which he has flown in from Oaxaca’s coast.  There is a dining room in the hotel proper, on García Vigil #407, which caters to the hotel’s guests, as well as another space on Constitución, near Santo Domingo, where we ate. A narrow pool forms the centerpiece, with some tables straddling the water. Our server brought out a immense platter of raw seafood for us to peruse that included red snapper and large camarones. We chose roasted sea bass and grilled shrimp in a garlic sauce with hierba santa, both of which were superb, and finished with pumpkin and coconut flans.

LOS DANZANTES
Macedonio Alcalá #403

Translated as “the dancers,” this restaurant serves nuevo Mexican cuisine. The setting is half the treat: Stepping in from the street, you enter a sanctuary with soaring adobe walls, columns, and fountains that is half open to the sky. We had lunch there, and particularly enjoyed the pasta with wild mushrooms and pasilla chiles. Other standouts were the duck enchiladas with a pumpkin-seed sauce, and the roasted hierba santa appetizer stuffed with Oaxacan and goat cheeses and topped with a tomatillo sauce. At night, the courtyard is beautifully lit, and its hip little bar even offers “hand-rolled organic cigars”.

EL NARANJO
Trujano #203

Chef Iliana de la Vega’s restaurant, a block or so from the zócalo, has received much press coverage and acclaim, including a prominent feature in Bon Appetit. The patio setting revolves around a fountain and the orange tree that gave the restaurant its name. We began our meal with a robust guacamole and an organic spinach, lettuce, and jicama salad with a hibicus-flower vinaigrette. For my entree I chose the poblano relleno de flor de calabaza, a poblano chile stuffed with queso fresco, squash blossoms, and fresh corn, served with an almond sauce. John ventured into his first authentic mole experience, trying the coloradito, a red mole replete with ancho and other chiles, almonds, raisins, bananas, tomatoes, chocolate, and a touch of cinnamon. Even with all this food, we couldn’t resist the great whole-wheat bread served with two spreads, one a chicken-liver pâté, the other a blend of butter with orange zest and piquin chile. Iliana, who is fluent in English, stopped by our table to see how we were faring, and we signed up for one of her cooking classes on the spot.

LA BIZNAGA
Garcia Vigil #512

Biznaga, named after a type of cactus, was our special find in Oaxaca. It serves "cocina mestiza" in an open-air courtyard—with retractable roof—surrounded by an art gallery. The menu begins on one huge chalk board and continues across the courtyard on a second. We liked the romantic, upscale bohemian atmosphere, which included music by unexpected favorites like Tom Waits, Miles Davis, and Radiohead. We ate dinner there twice, and each night began with excellent, tart margaritas. We ate fairly lightly both nights (one day we had taken Iliana’s cooking class and feasted on a late lunch), savoring their huge salads and unusual appetizers, including quesadillas featuring three different flavors of tortillas, each filled with mushrooms, squash blossoms, sauteed onions, chiles, and cheese.

LA OLLA CAFE-GALERIA
Reforma #402-1

Two blocks from the stunning church of Santo Domingo, this restaurant is affiliated with the Las Bugambilias B&B. For those tired of moles and other heavy Oaxacan cuisine, its inexpensive comida corrida or a la carte choices are a welcome change. The space is cozy, with local art work for sale and ochre-colored walls. We ate lunch here twice, and enjoyed the tlayuda azteca, a thick tortilla laden with chicken, avocados, and quesillo, as well as excellent, unusual sandwiches and salads. Chef Pilar Cabrera and her assistants bake their whole-wheat bread—still a rarity in Mexico—and say that they even make their own mayonnaise from scratch, a claim I have no reason to doubt.  Vegetarians will be very happy here, and you can finish off your meal with locally roasted coffee, vanilla flan, or a house-made granita.