America's foremost Mexican chef resides, not in New York or L.A., but in Chicago. Author of celebrated cookbooks, host of several PBS series, and upset winner of Top Chef Masters Season One, Rick Bayless has finally become a familiar name. His restaurants are enormously successful in translating south-of-the-border gastronomy into both bistro and fine-dining idioms, making use of Mexico's vast catalog of herbs and chilies in a way that Midwesterners can enjoy—which means light on the chile heat, but heavy on flavor, while sticking with plebeian ingredients.
Unfortunately, Bayless has no restaurant here. Sure, New York has long had its ambitious, pan-regional Mexican restaurants—Pompano and the Rosa Mexicano chain come to mind—but none succeeded in matching Bayless's Windy City moves, instead erring by making their menus too effete and refined. Now, though, an Upper East Side newcomer has gotten it just right.
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