‘Sassy cook’ returns to SP for authentic Mexican cuisine dinners

In the 13 years she lived in Brazil, Mexican Lourdes Hernández earned the nickname “sassy cook”. During this period, she prepared closed dinners in her home alongside her husband, artist Felipe Ehrenberg, who died in 2017 in Mexico.

In the coming days, Lourdes returns to São Paulo for a series of five events in restaurants and bars – including one that replicates the format of Casa dos Cariris, her former residence.

Until 2014, when they left Brazil, Lourdes and Felipe served authentic recipes from their country’s cuisine, with many ingredients that they themselves brought from travels. These were items that were difficult to see in São Paulo, which even today has few restaurants that deviate from Tex-Mex cuisine. Among them were mezcal and guzano, a larva that lives in agave (a plant used to make tequila) and various peppers.

This Wednesday (24), Lourdes cooks at Andrea Kaufmann’s restaurant, AK Deli, in Vila Madalena. The menu, served from 1pm to 8pm, includes shrimp cocktail (R$57), tlalpeño broth, a consommé with chickpeas and chipotle pepper (R$69), mole de olla, a stew with a mixture of peppers dried and xoconostle, the fruit of a cactus (R$ 82). To drink, there is maria sangrienta (R$39), a version of bloody mary.

A day later, on Thursday (25), Taquería La Sabrosa, in Pinheiros, has special tacos from the “sassy cook”, from 6pm to 10pm. Among them are the wheat tortilla with seafood stew, mayonnaise and green and red cabbage in lemon (R$ 36); the taco de fideo seco, a corn tortilla stuffed with angel hair pasta in tomato, plantain, chipotle pepper and cheese (R$22); and wheat taco filled with corn and potato stew with sour cream and piquín pepper (R$26).

On the weekend, Saturday (27) and Sunday (28), the closed dinner format of the old Casa dos Cariris will be replicated at an address in Perdizes, west zone of São Paulo, under the name of Salón Calavera —the itinerant kitchen of Lourdes in the last three years in Brazil.

For R$200, visitors can try a menu with guacamole, soup, main dish and dessert — recipes from different Mexican states are part of the menu.

You must indicate your preferences at the time of booking (made via email [email protected]), with options such as lentil cream with crayfish (starter) and mole verde (made from pumpkin seeds and fresh chile) accompanied by pork and vegetables. The exact address is provided after booking.

After dinner, the last chance to eat Lourdes’s Mexican cuisine of the season takes place at the wine bar Sede 261, in Pinheiros, from 12pm to 5pm. There, where customers sit on beach chairs on the street, they will be served guacamole with totopos, cuitlacoche tostada (corn with a type of fungus) and mushroom mix, chicken tostada and ceviche tostada.

AK Delhi
R. dos Macunis, 440, Vila Madalena, @akdelii

Taqueria La Sabrosa
R. Francisco Leitão, 246, Pinheiros. @taquerialasabrosa

Salon Calavera
Booking by email: [email protected]

Headquarters 261
Rua Benjamim Egas, 261, Pinheiros. @sede261