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I (Emir) grew up in the restaurant world - my older brothers owned a number of restaurants in CDMX in the 90’s, where I worked from when I was a teenager. When I first came to New York in the early 2000’s it was with the goal of pursuing a more thorough hospitality education. Things took a bit of a different path however and I realized I wanted to branch out and open my own place. With this Café Condesa was born in the West Village - a shoeboxed sized neighborhood eatery that served an amazing group of regulars for a solid 10 years. After that closed in 2014, I took a break and worked as a manager and consultant for a while. It was only after meeting Cressida, who at the time had a boutique catering company, that I decided to dive into the restaurant world again with opening Winona’s, this time together with Cressida - and it has been a family project ever since.
Dolores is a neighborhood bar & restaurant in Bed Stuy, Brooklyn. The concept draws inspiration from the classic cantinas of Mexico City as well as elements from the home cooking and street food of my childhood. For the cocktail program, Leanne developed drinks which play with Mexican classics in a fun and unexpected way, while maintaining their essence. We really wanted to bring a slice of chilango cantina culture to Brooklyn - a neighborhood spot where folks from all walks of life and catch up, convive, toast to success & drown their sorrows.
For such a huge city, the restaurant world here is extremely small - everyone knows everyone. This makes for an amazing sense of community, and while you might think we’re all in competition with us, in reality everyone champions each other, helps out wherever they can and really wants everyone to succeed. There’s a clear comradery in the sense that making it in the restaurant world here in New York is gruelling to say the least but everyone is in the same boat. Aside from that, the diversity of the culinary landscape here is unmatched! Finding new, delicious independently owned spots is one of my favorite things about living in New York.
For me, the guisados or stews that we highlight on the menu are incredibly nostalgic. Not only did my mom and grandmother make these often for me but there is a taquero who I would go to almost every day before school. It was a classic guisado operation with an array of options and toppings - he’s actually still there to this day, and I make sure to visit him every time I go back, somehow he still remembers me -the mark of a true taquero! Other menu items we have such as the gordita, the sopa or the tlacoyo are classic street food items in Mexico City - odes to my favorite ‘Doña de las Quecas’, in the neighborhood where I grew up in southern CDMX. All of our dishes really seek to pay homage to the classics, we’re not trying to reinvent anything, we just want to highlight good quality masa, well sourced ingredients and bold, tasty flavors.
