The team behind Martina, the four-star Argentine-Italian restaurant in Linden Hills, have gone Tex-Mex.
Tex-Oaxacan to be exact. Colita, which opens Tuesday, Oct. 16, is bringing the cuisine of this southern Mexican state to the Armatage neighborhood of south Minneapolis.
Chef Daniel del Prado, formerly of Minneapolis's Bar La Grassa and Burch Steak and Pizza Bar, follows up his acclaimed Martina with his latest venture in a former service station on the corner of 54th St. and Penn Av.
On the (entirely gluten-free) menu are moles and raw seafood; creamy corn elote and whole blue prawns; and tortillas, painstakingly made to order from imported Oaxacan heirloom corn ground by hand with stones. One section of the menu is devoted to smoked meats, a nod to del Prado's first plan for this to be a barbecue restaurant. Del Prado's vision is for diners to order a variety of dishes and share.
Along with Jose Alarcon's recently opened Centro and Popol Vuh in northeast Minneapolis, and Ann Kim's plans to open a taqueria in the former Lucia's space in Uptown Minneapolis, Colita is part of a wave of Mexican eateries opening in the Twin Cities.
"You have to cook food that you like to eat," del Prado said in an interview Friday at a media preview of the new restaurant. "I didn't want to do the traditional, what people think of as Mexican food. I wanted to play with that. I needed a focus, and that's where Oaxaca came in. And then it was like, where do I come into the menu?"
Buenos Aires-born del Prado sprinkled the menu with influences of his own Italian heritage, like in a layered tostada blanketed in cheese and dusted with cracked black pepper, cacio e pepe style.
"I'm not afraid of using burrata on the menu. Or cacio e pepe," he said. "I want to be respectful to Mexican cuisine. But also have me on the menu."
