Hi everyone, welcome to Potluck Food Talks. Today I have a special guest, my friend Luis. I can make a very personal introduction about Luis. I've known him for over 20 years. So I've seen his complete progress since he started working as a chef until now. He was already an engineer when he started cooking. Then I visited him working and graduating from the Venezuelan Gastronomic Academy, SEGA. And next thing I know he's sous chef at Cosmed
and chef tournante at Blanca. And now he's running a place in Brooklyn called Ensenada, which is focused on seafood, cooked in the style of Baja California. And it got featured on the Michelin Guide this year as well. So what's up, Luis? What's up guys? How you doing? Thank you for having me here. So like the main topic of Ensenada, we could say are the guachiles, right? Or at least a very important feature in the menu.
Yeah. So Ensenada was born this year, beginning of this year. Actually, I started conversation with my partner, Bryce, I would say like September, 2021, just to explain a little bit about the restaurant. My partner Bryce, he had the space already called Black Flamingo. So he had a vegan taco restaurant upstairs and then a nightclub downstairs. After the pandemic, of course, you know, all the rules changed. Basically there was no rules. He always had this dream,
this idea of like having a coastal Mexican restaurant. And he was looking for a space. And after the pandemic, because that Black Flamingo wasn't doing that great, you know, we met through a mutual friend, Maria, we used to be a bartending there. And he was like, you know what, I'm going to close this shit down. It's not working out. It's not what I want to do. I don't like vegan cuisine anymore. So you want to transform the space
into here. I'm like, I mean, I was never honestly planning on opening a Mexican seafood restaurant. That was not in my cards, but I was like, oh, like, you know, I love to do that. This one loves to do. I love Mexican food. Why not? You know, and then we switched up the concept. We kept the club downstairs. So we still have a club Friday and Saturdays and we open in February of this year. It's been a nice ride. So we, yeah, we do, we call it
a Latin American seafood concept, but it's not, I would say it's like 95% Mexican. I would say the aguachiles are the backbone of the menu. It's my favorite part. So you have the aguachiles and everything like stands from that. I got to know it for the first time. I would say not so long ago, about six, seven years ago is first time I heard about it. And I remember having one at Ojasanta in Barcelona.
How would you explain it and how is it different from ceviche, which is perhaps better known worldwide? Yeah. So I mean, ceviche, the first time I heard about ceviche was obviously through the Peruvian cuisine, which has a very strong influence in Venezuela, where we grew up and like we went to culinary school. Like, you know about ceviche since you're a kid, you know, and as a Venezuelan, you obviously know when you hear ceviche, you think about Peru, you know, ceviche is Peruvian period.
Then it's funny because I would say that there is this own style of ceviche in Venezuela in Caracas. Yeah. For instance, I like the ají dulce, which is really characteristic of Venezuelan cuisine. And you won't find that in Peru. You won't make a ceviche without it in Caracas. That is true. That is very true. What type of pepper do they use in Peru? Ají amarillo usually and rocoto it depends. No, and ají limón. I think that there are like different, yeah, different approaches.
Interesting. Yeah. I mean, that's crazy because I always thought because, you know, that's how I learned to make ceviche. Ceviche was fish, lime juice, red onion, ají dulce and cilantro. Exactly. Exactly. Yeah. I always thought that the Peruvians had ají dulce as well. And I thought I was like, okay, this is Peruvian. And then, you know, you start like doing research, you start traveling, you start seeing other things. You see how they use like the sweet potato. They put the
sweet potato in it. There's a variation with the hominy corn as well, you know, and the rocoto and the ají amarillo and all that. So, it's interesting. Turns out Mexicans have ceviche as well. And their ceviche is pretty interesting because it's like the fish is like mad cooked. It's like marinated for days in the lime juice. So, it's a fish that is like, I mean, in my opinion, overcooked, you know. It's that kind of ceviche that, you
know, you would take to the beach with your friends. You like mix like a bunch of fish with lime juice and onions and peppers in a cooler and they bring it to the beach. And then you eat that for like three or four days. You know. So, the ceviche I make at the restaurant is more towards Peruvian flavors than the Mexican. Me and Bryce went to Ensenada back in May to do some research to eat. Ensenada is a region, a village, what exactly? It's a city. It's a city. Okay.
It's about an hour and a half drive south from Tijuana. It's like a road city, you know, like, and it's a big port. To me, it was like a very ugly, a lot of like outlaw kind of vibe, you know, like renegades and all that shit. They go to high there, strip clubs. They have the two bars that they both claim that they invented the margarita. You know,
it has like an interesting culture, but the food is like next level. So, about the ceviche there is interesting because the traditional ceviches in Ensenada, they put the fish in a food processor. So, they basically make almost like a puree of fish. Very, very blended. Put the lime juice and you basically end up with like canned fish texture. Like, you know what I mean? And then they spread that on a costada. That's the ceviche.
Oh really? Okay. Yeah. Because in Peru it's quite common. Like the leche de tigre, which it literally means tiger milk. Yeah. The marinade for the ceviche, it's quite common to use like fish broth and this kind of things, pieces of the fish and mix it with vegetables and lots of lime juice and chili. Yeah. So, that's what I do at the restaurant. I do a leche de tigre for the ceviche. We have like a huele de la vida as well. So yeah,
the leche de tigre is basically, this is the way I learned it. You incorporate all the elements of the ceviche into a blender, including pieces of fish. You do a fish stock with the bones of the fish. That's your base and then you blend everything up and that's your like juice for the ceviche along with the lime juice. The ceviche itself is the pureed fish. And then you basically add like a sashimi to it. Not even. No, no, no. No, no, no. That's a ceviche.
No, no. But I mean at Ensenada you put like pieces of raw fish on top. Ah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So they're like in Ensenada at the restaurant, I mix it with raw fish. Exactly. Yeah. Very lightly marinated in lime juice. So it's barely cooked on the outside. I'm not a fan of that super like cooked in citrus fish. You know, I'd
rather keep it raw. That's also something I learned, as you said, many times when you learned ceviche from home cooks, you get to hear this marinated for some hours or this kind of things. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. When I went to Peru, like in ceviche bars or even in let's say a buffet in a hotel, you will have like a ceviche chef and he will mix it in front of you and serve it to you. So the fish is going to be just a few minutes and then marinate. And that's also the way I like it.
And that's the way they do aguachile in Mexico. You know, aguachile, like you were asking about the difference between aguachile and ceviche. Aguachile, first of all, is very slightly marinated fish. So it's like pretty much raw as like the Peruvian ceviche and usually spicier. And then you can do many types of it. As I understand it, aguachile
is originating in Sinaloa. It's a Sinaloan dish that actually started as a, it didn't even start as a being a seafood dish because what they used to do, so it's in the Sinaloan Maltes, obviously they didn't have any fish. What they did was boil meat with chiles. So it's literally water, agua, and chile, chile, you know. So they boil the meat in like this
chile broth basically. And that was the birth of the aguachile. Eventually when, you know, they started immigrating down to the cities and to the coast, they started incorporating this recipe into seafood, you know. But aguachile is a very like, this is as far as I understand, very humble and you know, poor people recipe that started out as just like boil water with chiles. And sometimes I read somewhere that sometimes people didn't even have meat, you
know, to put on the dish. So it was literally water with chiles, the happy thing called these hueso paseado, where it's just like a bone of meat and then you pass it to the different dishes to at least get some like of the meat flavor. And then it was just like water, chile, and they eat that with tortillas. That was it. You mentioned before, vuelve la vida. I would like to make a zoom on that. Vuelve la vida is something you get in Venezuela when you go to the beach and these are usually like
street food vendors and they usually have vuelve la vida, siete potencias. I don't know if it uses the same thing with a different name, but there are like this variation of basically is boiled seafood, seafood, like fruto de mare, where there are lots of things they put like ketchup, Worcestershire sauce, Tabasco, lime juice. I don't know what else. What's your version of it? So the version I do at the restaurant is the Venezuela one. These little like variations
of things is like why we don't dare to like really call it a Mexican place. Although that's what we're like labeled as. But you know, the vuelve la vida is one of those hints to Venezuela that I like to keep because that's what I grew up eating. I learned later. We had it in Ensenada. We used to do it at Cosme. Like there's a vuelve la vida in Mexico as well. Oh, wow. I didn't know that. And you can find it in Ensenada in the city. You can find it in any like, you know, those
seafood food trucks. In my experience from what I had or what I tried is way like, you know how vuelve la vida in Venezuela is like a little thick because it's traditionally used made with ketchup. The Mexican version is way more loose. It's more watery. I don't think they use ketchup in general. I think it's more like a clamado base cocktail. And then they use this like, you know, a little Valentina, a little Cholula. That's the spice
they use for the cocktail versus us using like ketchup as a base. I do Worcestershire. I do lime juice. I do vinegar, a little pureed onion and garlic and cilantro chopped in there. And what kind of seafoods do you use for the vuelve la vida? So basically your menu is relatively small, but then you can do any aguachile, any ceviche, any vuelve la vida. You can do either just fish. You can do either just shrimp or you
can do a campechano, which is a mix of all the seafood that we have available. So you can do a scallop, octopus, fish and shrimp. Basically you build your marinade and your fish and you build your own combination. Yeah, exactly. So what is like three, four dishes, it end up being like 20 different niches that you can play with. A unique thing about the place is the vibe because it doesn't feel luxurious at all,
but it doesn't feel casual either. So it's like you feel you're like in a well prepared restaurant, but whatever the waiter is wearing sneakers. And that's coherent with a restaurant located in Brooklyn, at least for me. I was with a Basque friend and she wouldn't eat so much spicy. So we had like the less spicy version of it, which was still a little bit spicy, but still she said she would happily return with her family if she's back in New
York. I think it was, could it be scallop or do you don't serve scallop? I think I have the memory of scallop in my aguachile. We do have scallops. Yeah, we do have scallops. There's a, so we have a scallop tostada that is not traditional at all. Ah, yeah, exactly. The scallop was in the tostada. Yeah, that was amazing that one. Yeah, I do it. So it's a base of labneh. Raw scallops are marinated with a sauce that I
make with toasted seeds. Like I call it salsa seca. So it's basically this bunch of seeds that have been fried in olive oil with shallots, garlic, add a little bit of pepper flakes. So I don't know. I think there's some Italian about it. And then just like a little julienne of jicama and green apple on top and some cilantro. That's it. Where do you get your products from? Like in general, like your fish and seafood?
I work with two purveyors that have been working here in New York for years and they're, you know, like very well known in the industry. One is called Lipre Sons, basically run by this amazing lady called Sherry. I think it's second generation. Her father started the
company based in Long Island. You know, they're like Jewish from Long Island and it's crazy how she, it's basically like a one woman operation because she, no matter where she is, like you see her Instagram and she's slinging fucking cancun on vacation and she's taking the orders. Like you text her at midnight and she says thank you and she says the order the next day. You know what I mean? We get a lot of like fish from Long Island, Maltauk, New Jersey.
So she's got like my local fish purveyor. And then I work with another one called Aquabase. They're based in Chinatown and they're like third generation also. So the kids are running the place now that their grandparents founded in Chinatown. I would say he's more globally oriented. Like he's like, yo, like, like I go there and check what he has. And he's like, yo, I got it plucking in Sonata. I'm flying there tomorrow. Like, you know, we're trying
to get local fish from there. So I'll tell you what we have. So anything you need, like, you know, like we can like fly like overnight, basically, you know? So what I get with them, I get the octopus from Spain. I get some very, very nice blue shrimp from South Asia, East Asia, you know? And then he have like Japanese stuff and like all that. So I play with both of them, you know, based on what they have. Our idea with the restaurant was
to, I think we thought it was going to be more casual than what it became. It was going to be more like Tascamites and Yuko Mien and you know, it's loud and like the presentation doesn't necessarily need to be like as nice as perfect. I like, I don't know why, just organically or GM Jen, she also worked with me at Cosme. She's working like Michel Star places. So she's got like a, her standard of service is a little higher than we anticipated.
Like we, we started out with like paper napkins and now we have like Liden napkins and those kinds of things. And like we resettle the plates for every course, you know, we were never like thinking of having like a course style of being, you know, basically like the reference we had, like when we opened the restaurant, we like most of the reference
we had was like Aguachile's places in New York, you know? And we kind of want to do like that, but with our twist of flavors are like kind of being like known like, oh yeah, we have the, you know, the green and red Aguachile. We want to like push it a little bit further, especially when it came to flavor. So it organically became this thing that you experienced and it was like, kind of like a nice restaurant, but not fancy, you know, and kind of like good service, but not like uptight, you know?
And another dish that we had that was super fun to eat was like this appetizer that was like tortillas with eight different sauces. Like are these like all Mexican sauces or are there also like twists from other places? No, sorry. Just like straight up Mexican sauces that I learned with the years, like with my time in Cosme, we like going down to Mexico and eating, I just like looking up books and recipes, you know? So they're very like, I would say like standard, you know, like, like
traditional Mexican sauces. We have the matcha, which the matcha is like, it's been, I wouldn't say controversial, but it's been like in everybody's mouths in the past couple of years in New York. Like everybody knows what it is at this point. What is it exactly? Salsa matcha. So salsa matcha is a, is a very typical sauce that consists in dried chilies
that are fried in oil and they just process with any type of nut or seed. So traditionally it's like the one I've seen the most is made with peanuts and then you usually have a smoky chili in the mix. So you see the morita or pasilla mije or chipotle, you know, it's got some smokiness to it, but there's like a thousand different ways that you can go about it. You know, you can do, you can do any type of nut, you can do almonds, you can do peanuts, you
can do all those. I remember there was one of my friends from Cosme, Milton, he's a sous chef there now. He started like a matcha business during the pandemic. He was called to matcha nyc.com and he was, I mean, I tried a couple of those and they were pretty good. And he would like do a new recipe every week. So he would come up with like salt flour seed matcha this week. We have a pine nut one. This was the one with pumpkin seeds in your version?
Oh no, that's the sikilpak. So that one is like a, like a Mayan recipe that is basically more like a dip. Has sikilpak is like Mayan for, I don't remember what it stands for, but it's like tomato and pumpkin seed basically. So it's basically like a dip, like a spicy dip. That's one of my favorite sauces.
Yeah, I remember that one. And the other one that I remember that was addictive was pineapple butter that came with the fish, al pastor, the fish was cut like in a butterfly and then brushed with an adobo if I'm not wrong, roasted and then some vegetables on top and the pineapple butter. The pineapple butter, the man, that's he, like everybody loves that. Like everybody like leaks the restaurant talking about it because he's, he's just so good. That's, that's
a recipe that I stole from Cosme straight up. I can take credit for that. I think that's a classic classic from Olvera if I'm not wrong. Yeah, yeah. I think he had it at Pujol. He used to do like a tataki. So like a barely seared fish. So actually like that's the first time I saw a pastor recipe not being applied to port. Like it was the first one I saw him doing it. And then we've did a version at Cosme when I started there back in 2014 in the opening menu, it was a cobia tataki al
pastor. And then it came with this like pineapple puree and just like this baby pineapple slices on top and then tortillas on the side. So basically the brancino is my kind of like my old true that, you know, like seafood restaurant, uh, Mexican, you gotta have some fish al pastor, you know, and then like everybody does it now. Like I remember there's a restaurant here
called Taqueria Ramirez, which is pretty good. It's like one of the, I would say probably the only taqueria that I know in New York that actually does like Mexico city style, you know, the choricera, they throw everything in, they cook everything in the lard and then just like put in the taco. That's it. But they did a pop up a few months ago and they did a monkfish al pastor and they made a trompo with monkfish pieces, rub al pastor with the
pineapple on top, which was very interesting. So there's people doing creative stuff, you know, there's people like switching it up. Yeah. Another dish I wanted to ask you about and I, I couldn't have that one. I already ate too much at that point. What's the, the softshell crab. What can you say about that dish? Oh yeah. That's gone now. Cause that's a softshell crab. It's in the summer. It's in every restaurant
in New York. That's one of those like staple, like East, North East coast thing that like, I mean, it's so good that it's hard to not put it on the menu. And there's like a million variations. People usually fry it. That's, that's the one I've seen the most here in New York. So basically the season, I would say it's like mid July to mid September. It's really a short season is when it's warmer. It's when the crabs go out of the water and
they start like changing the shell. So at that exact time is when they catch it. And you know, it's like member like, like texture, you touch the shell and it's like soft, like jelly. Like a cartilage, something like that. Right? Yeah. Yeah. So like kind of like chewy, but like kind of crunchy also depends on how you cook it. So you can eat the whole fucking crap. Amazing. You know, summer is a very interesting season for restaurants in New York. Cause you have everything available. You have the
best tomatoes, you know, you have the best seafood. So I did a version. It was crazy cause I was trying to do a Thai papaya salad version with softshell crab. I mean, Thai food here is big and it's one of my favorite foods to eat when I go out in New York. There's so many good places. It was, it was actually, I beat that dish by accident, honestly, cause I was like trying to do a papaya salad with softshell crab, which I didn't want to fry.
We were doing it like butter based on a pan, which I think it like preserves the, like the crab flavor way better. You still get that like chewy, but like also crunchy texture of the crab, you know? And I remember the papayas that they came in and they weren't green enough. They were like kind of ripe. And I was like, damn, I'm not going to be
able to pull this off. And one of my friends was like, why don't you use mellow? We have a sheet of melon downstairs and I grabbed like a honeydew melon and I shaped it like in the same way you would do a papaya for a Thai salad. And you know, it became this like sweet and sour and like salty dish that worked really well with the, with the brightness of the crab. So it became being like a mellow salad. Yeah. I think melon works super well and savory. Yes. It's like a cucumber and the sweetness
is like the one you want in a super sweet tomato. Exactly. So if you add salt and let's say olive oil or whatever, it works super well. It was one of those like crazy good accidents that happened in the kitchen. And honestly, that dish was like created by mistake. And then what I did was like all the, like the trimmings of the crab, I made a broth
and I did kind of like a dashi. So that was like the base for the dish. And then just like you would do a papaya salad, you would toss the melon with some fish sauce, sesame oil, you know, lime juice, lots of serrano peppers, crushed peanuts, cilantro, onions. And then I would finish it with some like light lister, salt-boiled tomatoes, which
that's another thing that you can only find here for like a mall. For those who don't know salt-boiled tomatoes is like this little like cherry tomato that's yellow that I haven't seen anywhere else, but like Northeast coast, you know, in the United States. And it's my favorite tomato ever. It's like the sweetest tomato you could ever try. So people go crazy about that during the summer as well. Like people do dishes that are just like salt-boiled
tomatoes, you know, salt-boiled tomatoes everywhere, salt-boiled tomato pizza. You see it everywhere in the summer. One last topic I wanted to talk about with you is what we were talking just before the interview, like how has been the reception from the public, you being Venezuelan and cooking Mexican cuisine, how do people perceive it? Are there any critics? How do you respond to them in general? I think that subject here in New York being the melting pot that it is, is not really
an issue. People don't really care as long as the food is good. And you know, like you're like presenting a culture with respect, you know, like me being Latin America and I somehow, you know, feel identified with like, we went through like a very similar shit, you know,
with all the colonization and all that. And I think I have a lot of respect for Mexican culture in a sense that I'm almost like envious of how well they were able to preserve the pre-Hispanic culture, like astronomically speaking, but like generally speaking, you know, they were able to like, I don't know if there was like more documentation before the fucking Spaniards came or what was it, but like, you don't really see that in Venezuela.
Like you don't really see when you try like Venezuelan food or Colombian or like, you know, like I would say like South American food in general, like except for Peruvian
maybe like it's way more influenced by Hispanic culture than Mexican. I mean, you obviously see the ingredients and all it's like, you have like fish ala vera cruzada, which is basically like a clash of the two cultures, but like they pretty much cooking how they were cooking before the Spaniards came, you know, that's very admirable. What's the, this dish you just mentioned, this fish ala vera cruzada, well, fish ala vera cruzada is basically like a, you know, like vaca lao and tomate.
Yeah. It's that, it's basically that. Yeah, like the viscaina sauce, something like that. Exactly. It's exciting like that. So for me, I always put that as an example that that's one of the few Mexican dishes that like, you can really see the Hispanic influence in their food, you know? Yeah. For instance, for me, it's crazy. And it's something I mentioned a lot is the Venezuelan ayaca, which is the Christmas dish is basically a tamal with a stew that can be pork or some
other meats. But this stew usually has red wine and raisins and olives, which are like super Eurocentric ingredients.
Yeah. And, and I think it would be really interesting to make versions of that dish that are decolonized, you know, like you can pickle some, let's say almonds or whatever produce you can find in Venezuela and, and get a very similar taste and the ones from olives, you know, you can replicate the, this kind of flavors without having to import them every time, which could be interesting. Try to do like a pre-Hispanic ayaca.
Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. There are also all these myths around the ayaca and many other dishes like how they were created. And most of them are probably invented. Yeah. I mean, if you do that, then you have a tamal. Basically. When I went to culinary school with our founder, Rafael Novena, rest in peace, we would have this conversation. Like, you know, there was these two theories about a yacca where, you know, the main one that, and it's like, I think it's the most popular one was that it
was created by slaves with leftover product from like what their owners would cook. So then they would take like all these like leftover meat and these olives here and there, and they would, they've made the ayaca and they say it was like a slave dish, but like, then you think about all the, I mean, like, you know, Mexicans were doing tamales since like before the fucking times. So the other thing about the yacas is that the packages with plantain leaves and those
came from Africa. And then you have the stew that is very Spanish and the tamales, which are native American. But you know, you know, Mexicans do, I don't know, I don't know, I'm not sure if they did it from before Spaniards came, but Mexicans do tamales in wrapping plantain leaves as well. There's two versions. There's the corn husk one and then there's this plantain leaf one.
Yeah. Which makes perfect sense. Yeah. That's also a clash of cultures, you know, knowing that the plantains came from Africa. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. They use a lot of plantains too, but I mean, going back to your question about being, you know, not being Mexican. I mean, I've gotten a couple of comments, like I've got a like Mexican, and it's from friends usually, like people, Mexican friends coming in and then they're asking like, who hears from Esenada? Like, what do you, would
you call it Esenada? And I was like, well, like Esenada, first of all, like it means literally like an inlet of water, like an Ensenada, like it's not even the city. That's where the city is called Esenada, you know? And second of all, like we said, like I've seen like a couple of reviews too, that says like, food is good, but it doesn't feel authentic, you know, which is like, I'm sure it's probably known like a Mexican person. Like I've had
better food in Mexico city, you know? And the fight is like, I'm not trying to necessarily make it authentic. I'm trying to make it as respectful as possible to the culture, to the ingredients, you know, we're in a time in New York where like you can find like any Mexican ingredient you want. So that makes it easier to do as opposed to Venezuelan food, for example, that like finding some ingredients like Venezuelan food is sometimes a struggle
in terms of finding the products. So that makes things easier. But you know, I've also like made it a point to like, not necessarily be 100% traditional. I like Como Wimona, which is like an aguachile, and like we have an aguachile amarillo in the menu, which is like aji amarillo base, for example, and I use turmeric and ginger and lemongrass, you know? So that's not traditional at all, but it's interesting to like play with those flavors. Your chefs are from all over Latin America, right?
Yeah, my chef is Mexican, he's on his way out. I hired a new chef now that's Ecuadorian, but grew up in LA, you know? So that's, that's part of like what it is. But yeah, like I was saying, like here in New York, I don't think that's like a, I don't think they crucify you for that because everybody's doing like, like there's two Mexican restaurants. There's only this, there's only this three Mexican restaurants that have one Michelin star in
New York. Two of them, the chefs are American. You know what I mean? Yeah, I mean, I agree. I feel like I could open a Japanese restaurant if I wanted to, you know, like I don't feel that there should be these boundaries as long as you're respectful with what you're doing and, and, and you're honoring the culture that you're offering, you know? That's what it takes. And I mean, I'm not really cooking Venezuelan food at this moment.
I'm not saying that I'm never going to cook Venezuelan food again, but right now I'm like very invested in learning more about Mexican culture, Mexican food, traveling there every year, eating, you know, talking to people, talking to people that are like trying to like import products here. You know, we have a very good relationship with the people that gives us the masa. We get masa fresh every day from our friends at this restaurant called
For All Things Good. They have a very good masa program. We get our tostadas from these other Mexican places also. There's a couple that I met that have a company called Tamoa that they're doing also like herringbone corn imported from Mexico and a lot of types of beans, a lot of types of chilies, you know? So for me, that's like what it's all about. It's like having that relationship. I'm just like, I'm moving like Latin American culture
for you. Like I would say it's like, it's bigger than just saying Mexican or the same Venezuelan or just saying Colombian, you know, like here in New York, there's like room for so much steel, you know, that I don't think people are worried about all these Venezuelans with Mexican food now.