Co-owner and general manager Corbin Azambuja is excited about the evolution of Chismoso since opening last May. The menu has slowly changed under the leadership of Chef Will Stagg and with the recent addition of one of his friends and the city’s greatest culinary talent, Chef Mauro Chavez, the evolution continues. The two recently launched a new menu and Urban Woman and I stopped by to sample what’s new.
Corbin said they wanted to push Latin American cuisine “beyond chips, queso and fajitas.” Anyway, we started with the chips and queso (sorry!) and Urban Woman said it was the best queso she’d ever had. After that, we got a little more experimental.
A real focus of the restaurant is the use of local, fresh food, with vegetables being prominent on the current menu (it’s summer and the vegetables are great!). We enjoyed four different dishes, three vegetable dishes and one meat dish, all of which we shared as we ate. The chefs are so keen to highlight the local provenance of the food that the origin is often reflected in the names of the dishes.
We started by sharing the Mountain Roots Blistered Shishito Peppers (cilantro, garlic chili crunch, cotija, pork rind powder) and I have to spoil the exciting ending by admitting that this was my favorite dish. Not extremely spicy, but extremely tasty. Alongside this, we enjoyed the Myers Brother’s Farm Grilled Zucchini (ET mushrooms, crispy leeks, yellow squash, salsa macha, and pumpkin blossom butter).
It tasted as fresh as you’d imagine and was Urban Woman’s pick of the night, although she said it was close between the other dishes. I liked the mushrooms the best and could have eaten a plate of them alone. As a bonus, we added a Spencer Mountain tomato salad (shredded green tomatoes, cilantro, toasted seeds, Cholula Ranch) which was very light and flavorful.
For mains, we had the Chicken Enchilada Stack (homemade tortillas, jack cheese, red sauce, lime cream, lettuce, red onion, radish, cilantro, avocado, jalapeno, queso fresco) which we shared. Even though we shared everything, it was too much food. This was Urban Woman’s favorite dish and we both loved it. Even though it was a meat dish, there were, by my count, four vegetables in it. The avocado was perfect.
Before we left, I had a quick chat with chefs Will and Mauro, who seemed very excited to be working together full-time. Mauro was the executive chef at JC Holdway, where he’d worked for seven years while he and Will ran pop-ups on the side, including at Plaid Apron. They liked it so much they decided to see what they could each do together for a whole week.
Chef Will said the tomato salad is their collaborative creation and they feel they get great tomatoes from Spencer Mountain Farms and that really makes the dish. He said they combine the ingredients in a simple way so the ingredients speak for themselves. Chef Mauro, who is from Mexico, said the food they produce now is a result of their time working in the pop-ups. His father is Peruvian and that heritage comes through in his dishes as well. He said you can expect more small plates of local vegetables combined with Latin American spices.
The pair said you can expect meat and tortillas, but also a lot more. They want to help people get past their expectations of “rice and beans” when they think of Mexican or Latin American food. “There are a lot more flavors out there.” The pair are fueling their creativity and are already planning the next menu, so if you like what you see on this menu, you might want to head there. “Mauro brings a lot of knowledge and creativity to the team.
Chismoso is open Tuesday to Thursday from 4pm to 10pm and Friday and Saturday from 4pm to midnight.
