Stacked with interesting Chicago destinations, Los Angeles taco trucks and plenty of spots in the Big Apple, the New York Times’ list of “41 of the Greatest Mexican Restaurants Across the United States” does include one Detroit entry.
Vecino, a two-year-old Midtown Detroit favorite, made the Times article, impressing its food writer, Brett Anderson.
The moody, upscale restaurant specializing in cuisine from Mexico City had already earned bales of local accolades. The year Vecino opened, it earned a rare four-star restaurant review from The Detroit News, and made our list of Best New Restaurants of 2024. The 66-seat restaurant also made Esquire’s “Best New Restaurants in America” list in 2024, and was a semifinalists for the James Beard Award for Best New Restaurant the following year.
“Vecino opened two years ago in Midtown Detroit, but its roots run to the city’s working-class southwest,” reads the blurb in the New York Times’ list. “That’s where Adriana Jiménez, a co-owner, spent much of her childhood, in a family of restaurateurs who fled violence in Mexico City in the 1990s. Ms. Jiménez didn’t return to the city of her birth until adulthood, after the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program made her a permanent legal resident of the United States. Edgar Torres, a former chef de cuisine at Alinea in Chicago, was recruited to bring Vecino into conversation with the modern cuisine that has bloomed in Mexico City since Ms. Jiménez’s family left.”
“The results — butterflied whole snapper painted with verde and roja salsas, airy tetelas stuffed with carrot tinga, luscious sikil pak pumpkin seed salsa — carry the thrill of what Ms. Jiménez discovered when she finally returned: a valuable inheritance she didn’t know she had,” writes Anderson.
Modeled after the upscale restaurants in Mexico City, Vecino has custom touches, exposed brick walls, large windows and Spanish moss native to Mexico hanging here and there.
The menu’s two main sections are small plates using masa, like enchiladas, tostadas and tlayuda, and items from the wood-fired hearth that include intricate vegetable dishes and large meat-centric entrees. Jiménez and her team bring organic, non-GMO corn from Mexico and make their own corn dough via a special, indigenous technique.
Vecino, 4100 3rd Ave in Detroit, is open for dinner Tues.-Sun. Call (313) 500-1615 or visit vecinodetroit.com.
mbaetens@detroitnews.com
This article originally appeared on The Detroit News: Detroit spot named on NY Times’ list of ‘greatest’ Mexican restaurants
Reporting by Melody Baetens, The Detroit News / The Detroit News
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
By Melody Baetens, The Detroit News | USA TODAY Network
