Sol de Mexico
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On July 14 a lightning rod sprang up on the culinary chat site LTHForum.com. “After a psychically draining day (no, week, no, month, no, . . . year) I picked up Himself . . . and suggested we stop for supper before heading home,” the poster wrote. In the window of a storefront on Cicero near Belmont she’d seen a hand-painted sign advertising “tortillas hecho a mano,” handmade tortillas. She and her husband went in to dine on lamb in mole negro and pork in mole manchamanteles–both excellent, she reported–along with sopecitos, small stuffed masa cups. The restaurant, she wrote, is BYO and has been open just a few months; its chef-owner, Carlos Tello, is engaged to the sister of Geno Bahena, well-known for the now shuttered Chilpancingo and Ixcapuzalco (Geno’s brother Tomas runs Ixcapuzalco/La Bonita). Within 48 hours Sol de Mexico was filling up with foodies who know a hot tip when they get one.
A portrait of Bahena (alongside one of Rick Bayless) features prominently in the Maxwell Street panorama that hangs inside the restaurant’s front door. Tello says that when he drew up the plans for the place Bahena was generous with advice but insisted that Tello dream up the menu on his own: “Geno said he could do it for me but it would mean nothing because the menu had to come from me, from my heart. I learned from that, and I want my guests to feel the passion and love I put into my food.” Sol de Mexico is a family affair: Clementina Flores, Bahena’s mother, consulted on the dishes.
Tello says customers aren’t always ready for authenticity but are learning quickly. “A man came in and ordered enchiladas in mole rojo. He asked for cheese on it, because that’s how he always had it. I said I could do that, sure, but the cheese is going to steal all the flavors from the mole. Why don’t you try it the more simple way? So he tried it, and he liked it because he could really taste the natural flavors. Now he comes back for it.”
