The Houston area continues to celebrate the most recent Michelin Guide honors as six restaurants received a one-star rating.
Those restaurants include, BCN Taste and Tradition, CorkScrew BBQ, Le Jardinier, March, Musaafer, TATEMO.
If you’re not familiar, the guide was created more than 100 years ago by the tire company to get more people to travel and put wear and tear on their tires. The hope was that people would then need to buy more tires.
Today, the guide is all about the food.
A three-star rating means, “exceptional cuisine, worth a special journey.” Two stars means “excellent cooking, worth a detour.”
READ MORE: Houston restaurants awarded 6 stars as Michelin Guide announces first-ever Texas selections
The one-star rating means it is a “very good restaurant.”
KPRC2’S Sofia Ojeda traveled to the Northwest side and met with Chef Emmanuel Chavez, the creator behind TATEMO, to find out what it takes to make the now pretty prestigious list.
“I like to tell people that my second wind or how I fell in love with cooking again was when I moved back to Houston,” said TATEMO Chef Emmanuel Chavez.
Chef Emmanuel Chavez has spent his whole life in a restaurant kitchen, but after thirteen years as a chef he says he didn’t know anything about Mexican cuisine.
“And because I was ashamed of it I was very intrigued to do the research and talk to farmers in Mexico …”
During COVID, Chef Chavez started making tortillas in his apartment in Montrose.
“That whole lockdown was learning how to actually make the proper tortilla. All I knew was what I thought (that) a tortilla was open a bag of flour, add water, and there you go. And I was so far off and so wrong,” said Chef Chavez.
He worked tirelessly to rediscover the foundation of the Mexican cuisine. The maize. At TATEMO, it’s imported from Mexico and goes through a process before they grind it fresh in house.
The ritual all a huge part of the mission at TATEMO.
“To remind people that Mexican food is not cheap. If you’re going to go to a sushi place or an Italian place and buy a bowl of pasta for 30 dollars knowing that’s two ingredients, wheat and water, why can’t we have that same respect for Mexican cuisine when you go eat tacos knowing it’s basically the same thing maize and water?”
TATEMO offers an eight course tasting menu. Each course with a story or history about the dish. Chef Chavez calls it an experience.
“When you are welcome in, you’re being treated like it was your home by a team member and that team member is going to make sure you go on this journey of different textures and flavors that you’ve never had before I think you’ll end up really excited at the end of the meal,” said Chef Chavez.
When the Michelin Guide made its way to Texas and Chef Chavez learned TATEMO was on the list of honors, Chef Chavez was elated.
“So that was like a sense of peace like oh my God, it’s happening. I think people are going to see it’s possible to achieve something massive on a small business scale and that’s really going to catapult the next five or six incredible Hispanic chefs in our city,” said Chef Chavez.
The restaurant is not like others, they don’t advertise, they don’t have a phone number or a sign on the building, they don’t take walk-ins. You have to make a reservation online. The restaurant is booked out the rest of year.
