The Restaurant Owner Striving to Establish a Place for Mexican Food in New Orleans

New Orleans is not, by most measures, a city known for its Mexican food. Creole and Cajun, French, Vietnamese, and, more recently, Honduran and Cuban cuisines are all sources of local pride, leaving little room for other players. And while a variety of Tex-Mex and Latin-American options exist to quiet a more general craving, regional Mexican fare in New Orleans has been limited and unstable, defined in part by a mix of closures, relocations, ad an ICE employee audit of a local chain.

Hugo Montero, co-owner of Central City’s Casa Borrega, is keenly aware of these dynamics. Montero has been fighting the mostly uphill battle to establish a place for Mexican food in New Orleans dining culture since opening the “fonda and mezcaleria” six years ago, and less directly for much longer. Born and raised in Mexico City, Montero has lived in New Orleans for more than 30 years. He opened Casa Borrega with then-wife and business partner Linda Stone in 2013 after a nearly five-year renovation of the 1891 Greek Revival on historic Oretha Castle Haley Boulevard. The food is described by Montero as a rendering of what would be found on street corners, fondas, and mercados in Mexico City, with flavors from the states of Puebla, Veracruz, Oaxaca, Jalisco, and Yucatan.

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“We created Casa Borrega not as a restaurant, not as a business, but as a project,” Montero says. It is one of a small number deemed a benefit corporation in the city, meaning it’s committed to a “higher standard of purpose” and exists for public benefit in addition to profit, investing in things like art, music, and the environment.

Despite that status, Montero says it’s been a struggle to receive the same support and recognition from the city as his Oretha Castle Haley neighbors. Once a thriving commercial district for New Orleans’s Jewish and African-American communities, the corridor his restaurant is on, then called Dryades Street, went into decline in the ’60s and ’70s amid civil rights protests and boycotts of the corridor’s businesses. In the late ’80s, it was renamed for Oretha Castle Haley, the civil rights leader who organized the boycotts, and the city began investing in its revitalization.

In 2007, shortly after Hurricane Katrina, the New Orleans Redevelopment Authority (NORA) began working to revitalize the corridor. Montero says his is the only organization on OC Haley to not have received NORA money (most others are nonprofits). The grant money he and Stone were promised during the renovations of the former house, Montero says, got nixed when the Authority’s executive directors abruptly changed, leaving them to take out a bank loan. “The renovation dragged on so long we found ourselves hosting fundraisers, readings and other private events in the space before the restaurant officially opened.”

Josh Brasted/Eater NOLA

And while the years of planning and investment haven’t quite transformed the Boulevard into the “Magazine Street of Central City,” as intended, Montero doesn’t regret the choice to open there. He says they considered spaces on both swanky Magazine Street and in the trendy Bywater neighborhood, but wanted to be a part of the effort to bring back a once-bustling corridor that served as a destination for some of New Orleans’s first minority communities (African American, Italian, German, and Jewish). Montero still lives in the floor above Casa Borrega, with no plans to move, and loves his neighborhood.

A painter and public school teacher for over two decades before diving into the restaurant world, Montero is also a former editor of La Prensa, a now-shuttered weekly magazine geared toward the local Spanish-speaking community. He likes to use the term “creative class” to describe himself and Stone and the world he exists in, and the patrons to whom Casa Borrega most likely appeals.

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Stone is an urban planner, an environmentalist, and the founder of New Orleans’s beloved Green Project, a paint and materials exchange hub in the Bywater neighborhood. Appropriately, the renovation of the restaurant used only recycled materials, including pews from a flooded church in Mid City (which were used for the top of bar and patio booths), columns from a demolished Treme double, stained glass and tin ceiling tiles from San Antonio, and wrought iron chandeliers from Mexico. Casa Borrega also pays for composting and glass recycling, an expense that doesn’t come cheap, and if a straw is requested, the restaurant will provide a reusable metal one (“man, people love to steal those,” laughs Montero).

The duo’s backgrounds come to life everywhere in Casa Borrega, a small, dark wood and brightly tiled space with a rare glimpse of wall peeking out from a kitschy mix of paintings, repurposed art, Luchador masks and Day of the Dead skeletons, string lights, and albums and VHS tape jackets from the ’70s.

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If that sounds cluttered or chaotic, it somehow doesn’t feel so in person, even when the small space is packed for its renowned celebrations in honor of Cinco de Mayo, Dia de los Muertos, and Mexican and Central American Independence Days. There is a consistently buzzy but comfortable energy in the air here, like the feeling of being around old friends after a long time apart.

The restaurant gets its name from a technique for seasoning and cooking lamb shoulder, featured in one of the menu’s traditional Central Mexican-style dishes. To that end, Montero says that as much as he wants Casa Borrega to be approachable, he also hopes to “train people” in what Mexico City food is and tastes like; what its delicacies are, how spices and flavors are traditionally used, including those from such regions as Puebla, Veracruz, Oaxaca, Jalisco, and Yucatan.

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And while he wishes he felt confident introducing things like tacos with tripas (small intestine) or criadillas (bull testicles), or even that items on the menu like the chile relleno or beef tongue sold a bit better than some of the more familiar dishes, like quesadillas and guacamole, he’s happy to have carved out a space for Mexican culture in a city with so much of its own personality. Some nights, lucky patrons seated at the bar will be treated to a snack of crickets, another delicacy Montero hopes to familiarize to New Orleanians.

New Orleans’s Hispanic population rose from 3.1 percent to 5.2 percent between 2000 and 2012, according to U.S. Census numbers from the Data Center; the Mexican population more than doubled during the same period. It remains small, though — only 1.4 percent of the parish’s total.

A recent NPR article about a first-year Mardi Gras krewe formed by Mexican immigrants reflects this demographic breakdown, with member Roberto Carrillo sharing that “at some point I remember saying, there are no Mexicans represented in the culture of New Orleans.” And as longtime New Orleans food critic Tom Fitzmorris said in 2014, despite the uptick in Hispanic people coming to New Orleans following Katrina, “We remain only a marginally good city for the potentially magnificent, unique cuisine of Mexico.”

At the same time as folks like Carrillo and Montero work to change that, several taquerias have recently opened or are in the works in New Orleans from owners who are not Mexican, which Montero takes as a compliment. The immensely popular Top Taco Fest, going into its third year, may be relevant to the influx of taco businesses. Montero now works closely with the founder of the festival, Shane Finkelstein, to help program the educational seminars and classes, and serves as a “sort of cultural advisor” for the event after boycotting its first year.

“Not only here, and not only in the United States but internationally, we see that Mexican food is starting to have this recognition we’ve always meant to have,” he says. And, Montero says, after years of cultural attacks and in an unsettling political climate, he feels proud to be a leader in that effort, noting he was one of just two local businesses (that he knows of) to close during 2017’s “Day Without Immigrants” and that he is one of the only venues showcasing Mexican artists and musicians.

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Going into its sixth year in July, Stone believes Casa Borrega has made its mark as somewhere customers can find not only find traditional Mexico City fare, “but also a community of people who love the Latin culture and continually celebrate special events with us.”

Montero agrees.

“This is my adopted land. I always want to bring a piece of Mexico to New Orleans,” Montero says. And with the platform Casa Borrega has created for its food, music, dance, and community to thrive in a sometimes crowded cultural atmosphere, he’s more than doing his part.

• Catty Shack Hard Taco Spot Drops in Gentilly [ENOLA]
• Warehouse District’s La Casita Is Closing [ENOLA]
• La Casita Will Return to the Warehouse District This Fall [ENOLA]
• Popular New Orleans Taqueria Chain Targeted by ICE Audit [ENOLA]
• For Mardi Gras, A Parade Celebrates Mexican Immigrants In New Orleans [NPR]
• Open Next Week, Uptown’s Barracuda Joins New Orleans’ Growing Taco Scene [ENOLA]
• Top Taco & Agave Week [VIVANOLA]