34 WORLD’S BEST RESTAURANTS SEPTEMBER 2019
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ALFONSINA ISN’T FAMOUS YET.
But it should be. Chef Jorge León,
who got his start at Casa Oaxaca
in Oaxaca City and then spent five
years at Pujol in Mexico City, runs
the place with his mother, Elvia León
Hernández. (Alfonsina is the name of
Elvia’s mother, Jorge’s grandmother.)
Located in the bottom floor of the
León family home, about 20 minutes
outside of the city center, the restau-
rant setting is as personal as dining
can be. When you arrive, you sit on
a patio next to a tree where chickens
roost. A family member brings you
the agua of the day, perhaps flavored
with fresh mango or passion fruit.
My five-course lunch had elements
of deep tradition and striking moder-
nity. It began with a tostada topped
with raw slices of corvina, sautéed
mushrooms, and crispy sticks of
ALFONSINA
OAXACA, MEXICO
BLUE HILL AT
STONE BARNS
THERE IS A MOMENT during your meal
at Dan Barber’s Blue Hill at Stone
Barns when a trio of parsnips might
arrive at the table, slathered in beef
tallow and strung up on something
that looks like a medieval torture de-
vice. As they swing from their strings,
a cook or server will explain that
parsnips are usually picked young to
avoid woodiness, but these parsnips
have been left in the soil—the ground
just beyond the large windows of the
restaurant—for a full 18 months, being
allowed to freeze and thaw and freeze
again. They are then dipped in beef
tallow and allowed to dry age for a
week, mellowing out their woodiness
and developing their sugars, before
being pressed with similarly treated
carrots and served as parsnip and
carrot “steak.”
There are many moments like this
during a meal at Blue Hill at Stone
Barns, which shares its grounds
with a farm and a school, in an old
dairy barn on former Rockefeller
land in Pocantico Hills, New York.
At one point, your server will invite
you to follow him or her out of the
dining room and into an alcove filled
with sacks of flour. You are about
to get a lesson on grain—about the
growing and milling of wheat, about
the density and flavor of various
flours—delivered by an engaging em-
ployee who is bread-obsessed. You
are instructed to sample the bread,
along with “single-udder butter,”
the udder belonging to a cow named
Alice.
If all of this sounds rather cere-
bral, well, it is. But the folks here
never forget that you are here for
pleasure, and the theater of the
swinging parsnips is part of the
grand show. This restaurant may be
an ever-evolving experiment, but
also it is still, 15 years on, one of the
most delightful dining experiences
around.
TARRYTOWN, NEW YORK, USA
Sausage tostada with
purslane, seepweed,
avocado, and onions.
leek. Next came a white mole, a
pre-Hispanic recipe, Jorge’s made
from cauliflower and fresh corn
kernels, topped with sautéed shrimp
and a pile of delicate squash blos-
soms. Huauzontle, a wild green with
an herbaceous flavor, is dipped in a
light tempura batter and fried, then
laid delicately over fresh cheese and
a verdant salsa macha. Elvia’s gor-
geous, supple tortillas are served with
a pool of brick-red mole and topped
with a swirl of julienned and pickled
nopales. There is so much depth to
this food, in the corn-rich tortillas, in
the dusky mole, in the righteous and
hallowed combination of the two.
Alfonsina exemplifies what makes
Mexico perhaps the most exciting
place in the world to eat in 2019.
The wisdom of the mother is treated
with the same respect as the ambi-
tion of the son. Together, they create
something unique to this place and
time—something extraordinary.
PHOTOGRAPHY: CLAUDIO CASTRO
