trends in Latin cooking

[shroomgirl]

Several Central and South American restaurants are hitting the USA, Argentinian is coming to the mid-west specifically STL....Island foods....what do you see happening around the country? Is there a fusion or more authentic foods.....
What's happening with Mexican food?

[phatch]

This is something I wanted to comment on too. My neck of the woods has had a fairly diverse Central and South American scene because of the LDS missionaries. They come back with a love of food and country and occasionally a spouse. Then some other family or friend takes the opportunity to immigrate and now I can think of multiple Peruvian restaurants, a bunch of Churascarria, Salvadoran, and Argentinian. Few if any are fancy mostly serving homey peasant food on the cheap. Fun to explore though.

Of the bunch, I find the Peruvian and Salvadoran more interesting than the Brazilian and Argentinian. However, the Brazilian and Argentinian are more likely to enter markets first IMHO because they have a more mainstream cuisine I consider heavily influenced by their European immigrants. The churascarria are doing big business here right now.

What I can't think of are Chilean or Bolivian or so many other smaller countries. But I also don't know if their foods are particularly different from what is available.

But I have no view on it Nationally and could easily be seeing something local.

Phil

[shroomgirl]

nope, STL in the past two years has had Peruvian, a couple of Argentinian, a
fusion south american tapas (or small plate if you will), couple of Brazialian that are expanding and doing a booming business.....I've not found an exciting Mexican in town, the prep cooks make good food but it's not in restaurants....basic tex-mex or flat flavored mexican....We need a Frontera Grill here! DC has some interesting southern hemisphere restaurants....Atlantico is one that comes to mind. Just didn't know what else was around.....

[Rick Bayless]

Hi Shroom,

I am always asked this question. I can only answer with what I do here in Chicago. My goal is to bring the flavors from Mexico to our restaurants in Chicago. I don't follow many trends. Regional, contemporary cuisine is what we serve. I think people are open to trying new flavors, and perhaps that is associated with ethnic foods.

[chefzadi]

I am a culinary instructor at Le Cordon Bleu Program in Los Angeles. Needless to say I have many, many Mexican students. In Los Angeles we have many regional Mexican restaurants. Oaxacan is fairly well represented. Americans have only begun to explore regional Mexico, explore might even be strong a word. There is so much to explore and understand about Mexican cooking, trends be damned! It's all about the food. Indeed, Mexican cuisine is rich, varied, diverse and does have sophisticated cooking techniques.

I agree with you Chef Bayless