This is a pricey, once-in-a-lifetime, or at least once-in-awhile, experience, and it is worth it. You'll be asked to make a deposit of $1,000 Mexican pesos per person to make the reservation. I ended up in town unexpectedly with some friends, and the restaurant was very gracious about reorganizing my reservation for one to a reservation for three on a different day.
Em is the flagship restaurant of Lucho Martinez, Mexico City's hot chef, known as much for his exacting standards and work ethic as for his delicious haute cuisine.
I wasn't sure what to expect from the restaurant, and I was pleasantly surprised that it was more laidback than I expected, which made the meal more enjoyable.
We ordered cocktails and wine a la carte, instead of the pairing, which would have been fun, but I think may have been a bit too much booze. This also allowed us all to imbibe at different paces. It also allowed us to focus on the food, instead of keeping up with the flavor pairings.
Service started with warm water wash clothes to clean our hands as many dishes were eaten with hands. This was a lovely touch and was carried out well. I loved the feeling of these linen-ish clothes, and the action "brought us to the table."
Dinner itself started with an oblong topped cup with an umami, herb tea/soup to cleanse our palates. The flavor was mild and the herbs provided more of scent cleanse (important for Mexico City) than flavor to the broth. The serving dishes were delightful and fun to cup.
Then we had this mind-blowing bunuelo! It was think and crispy and full of "soup" or broth and then covered in caviar. This sounds crazy! First bunuelos are usually served at carnivals with sugar, so the idea of a savory bunuelo takes a step of food faith! Then thinking about the thin crunch dough and that it contained soup, what?! It was perfectly executed and delicious! What a way to kick off a meal!
The perfect savory bunuelo was followed by the stunning and famous tuna, avocado, caviar tostada. This dish was beautiful (the thinly laminated avocado!), and delicious, but I was still thinking about that bunuelo!
Every course that followed was delightful, some were more memorable than others. The corn smut (huitlacoche) cream soup was good, but I didn't eat it all as I knew I was going to get full, but the charred baby corn in a spicy soy concoction was worth all its bites. The "mains" were sea bass with cream sauce and steak with squash puree and mole. These dishes were perfectly cooked with interesting, and uniquely Mexican, flavors.
After these dishes, we had a palate cleansing leaf (cannot remember name of it!) and a lovely fruit granita followed by a spongy swiss roll-style dessert with cream filling and the a cool little tart. The tart crust was crunchy with a two-flavored filling. Because one of our party was celebrating his birthday, they brought out a perfect chocolate cake with edible gold foil! This was such a sweet gesture! The meal tied up with these perfect, tiny passion fruit gummies and chocolate with vanilla centers. These tiny treats tied everything together and put a beautiful bow on our evening.
Service was good. The team was busy, but we were well taken care of. Everything was served in order and with a reasonable speed. Dishes were served with good descriptions, and the servers took time for questions. Sr. Martinez was walking out, and our birthday companion was thrilled to have a photo taken with him. read more