Normally we do not publish reviews of meals you can’t go out and try. But the dinners served at pop-up series Kiln to Table this weekend were not a normal kind of Dallas dinner, and there is much we can learn from them.
Kiln to Table, which brings in monthly guest chefs for cozy, communal meals in Marcello Andres’ ceramic studio, featured a taste of Bolivia this month. Gigi Zimmermann, the Dallas chef from longtime restaurant Joyce & Gigi’s who now does private events, cooking classes, and restaurant consulting, partnered with Marsia Taha, chef of Bolivia’s most internationally acclaimed restaurant, Gustu.
The result was a weekend of eating that brought Bolivian ingredients to Dallas in a thrilling combination of home-style cooking and sophisticated restaurant cuisine.
The two chefs’ personalities played off each other beautifully. Zimmermann captured nostalgia by serving some of the dishes she misses most, including majadito (a finely chopped beef and starch croquette) and a sensational dessert soup made by dissolving sugar and milk bars into a broth, then adding papaya chutney and pieces of dark Bolivian chocolate with crispy quinoa inside. Two days after the dinner, my guest told me, “I’m still thinking about that dessert soup.” Another great comfort food: arroz con queso, which you could compare to rice pudding, but savory and full of cheese.
Taha’s dishes tended to be more complex, but with tremendous payoffs. (Her restaurant, Gustu, was founded by European ownership hoping to “seduce” travelers with Bolivia’s “undiscovered larder,” but Taha has brought local credibility to that somewhat patronizing mission.) As a starter snack, she made tartlets from cassava flour, then topped them with smoked duck, pomegranate seeds, and Amazonian corn kernels. From her restaurant, she brought a “sriracha” made with all native Amazonian chile peppers—only gently spicy, and Halloween orange rather than deep red. That hot sauce appeared on a dish of thinly sliced trout and mango presented raw in a broth made with milk and Amazonian nuts. Another nut, sacha inchi, was the basis for an ice cream scoop and toffee topping.
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Other ingredients were repeat guests at the feast. Quirquiña, a bitter herb related to arugula, cilantro, and rue, was the basis for Zimmermann’s aioli, which held together salpicón (think chicken salad). Quirquiña was also used to marinate a cut of steak, and was one of the ingredients explained on flashcards that were passed among the guests. Bolivian heirloom corn varieties appeared in multiple guises, too, including a tamal made with vivid orange masa. The delight of this Amazonian corn, for me, was how different it was than the American variety. It offered classic corn flavor but was significantly less sweet and more versatile in flavor pairings.
All those delights, and my favorite course may still have been the very first. Two modest cups of soup were served in the copitas Andres’ ceramic studio makes for sipping mezcal. One soup from each chef, representing their home cities. One was a raw peanut soup, light and creamy in color, topped with purple potato chips. The other was nearly clear, a broth with a reddish tint through which you could see the ceramic bowl underneath. This was a soup based on llajua, a Bolivian hot sauce made with tomatoes, quirquiña, and plenty of hot peppers. It was boldly acidic, gently numbing (in the Szechuan peppercorn sense), and had a lingering, ultra-flavorful heat.
This was the kind of highly skilled but deeply personal tasting meal you might expect gourmets to rave about in New York City, not inside a Quonset hut art studio in the Cedars. Taha and Zimmermann’s dinner is a reminder of the kind of culinary excitement that’s possible in Dallas if you look outside the mainstream, and if dinner series like Kiln to Table are able to keep the fire burning. (The next dinner in the series, featuring Georgie chef R.J. Yoakum, sold out so quickly they added a second night.) This dinner was also possible, I should say, because of help from sponsors, including Bolivian organizations that helped Taha and Zimmermann assemble their menu and fly musician Vero Pérez to perform before and after the meal.
But the dinners were also an exciting taste of a cuisine that otherwise is near-impossible to find in our region. I can’t be the only guest who left thinking about planning a vacation around a tour of the llajua bowls of La Paz. As much as we complain about Dallas’ high-end restaurants looking increasingly alike, offering very similar menus of tuna tartare and steak frites all across town, an opposite fact remains true. Our region’s most exciting culinary strength is our diversity. I can’t wait for another meal like this one.
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