Unless you’ve traveled to Mexico, especially Mexico City, you probably don’t know what true antojitos (street food) tastes like, because a lot of so-called authentic Mexican dishes north of the border have been Americanized. But Whit Hesser, head of farm-to-table restaurant and market Sprout in Mount Adams, and Josh Wamsley, who runs cult taco joint Mazunte in Madisonville, have both spent quite a bit of time in Mexico — Wamsley even taught English in Oaxaca while learning the ropes of Mexican cuisine — so they know authentic.
A month ago, the pair opened Calle Cantina in Mount Adams, across the street from Mount Adams Pavilion and a stone’s throw from sister eatery Sprout.
Calle means “street” and cantina means “bar,” and that’s exactly what you’re getting: a no-frills watering hole that feels like a worldly destination you’d come across on your travels. Their signage phonetically spells out Calle (kai-yay), which seems slightly insulting to those who actually know some basic Spanish. Then again, no one wants a mispronunciation.
For now, they have a sparse menu: only chips and sopes — fried, handmade masa tortillas with various toppings — which they serve Friday through Sunday. This is where the very important “cantina” aspect comes in. Walking into the place, you’re greeted with shocks of red from the pool table and the bar area in back, charcoal gray wainscoting, hardwood floors and pineapple fronds sitting inside tall, multi-hued glasses. Red walls and shelves frame bottles of Cazadores tequila, rum and cachaça (an alcohol made from sugarcane juice). They have a few beers on tap, including Ballast Point and MadTree, and Mexican beers Pacifico and Negra Modelo, but you should really come for the margaritas.
On a given day, Calle offers about five kinds of margs ($8-$10), some of which are made with shrubs. What’s a shrub, you ask? It’s an old-timey drink consisting of fresh fruit fermented with sugar and vinegar, and it makes for an unusual yet satisfying beverage. Sprout makes shrubs and Mazunte makes margs, so it’s a genius move to blend them together.
The bar is filled with pitchers of margarita mixes in different colors and proportions, and drinks are made fresh right before your eyes. They also make sangria in-house and offer glasses of wine. The watermelon cilantro margarita was overly sweet and tasted like a Jolly Rancher, yet at the same time was puckering. Adding the shrub subdues the flavor and makes it less sweet than a normal marg, but it wasn’t my favorite. The orange-ish mango-habanero margarita, however, was almost too drinkable, with just a hint of tequila and Sprite added to lower the heat from the pepper. The sweet-and-sour sangria had notes of peach and was also very drinkable and delicious.
For food, we ordered the three kinds of sopes — raja (vegetarian with poblano peppers), barbacoa (slow-cooked beef) and pollo verde (chicken with green sauce) — but they didn’t give us forks. You see, sopes aren’t as thin as tacos; you can’t really eat them with your hands. Just think of it as an open-faced blue-cornmeal taco covered in queso fresco, pickled onions, beans, carrots and salsa verde. The snacks are actually more like huaraches; a sope is circular and smaller than a huarache, which is oblong in shape.
Calle makes their food outside using a food cart, just like in Mexico. Mazunte provides the guac and chips, which are giant orbs of crispy tortillas. (Someone needs to devise a system of chips-to-guac-and-salsa ratios. It always seems like everywhere you go, there are either too many chips and not enough dip or the reverse.) You can eat the food and drink the margs inside one of two rooms, but you really want to be outside sipping and savoring margaritas on their patio. Fire escapes hover above a shady section of the patio, and bar stools surround a window that opens like a garage door with direct access to the bar, giving new perspective to bar seating.
The other section, which is only shaded by a few trees, contains picnic tables, tiki torches, flower planters and the food cart in the corner. When you’re outside in the protected patio, it feels as if you’re hanging out somewhere more exotic and farther south, like Austin, Texas or even Mexico, and Calle’s smart to serve their drinks in plasticware instead of real glasses, because we all know accidents happen while drinking tequila.
With its limited menu but great margs, Calle needs to be one of your top destinations on top of the hill. Chipotle has nothing on these guys.
Calle Cantina
Go: 950 Pavilion St., Mount Adams
Call: 513-721-6977
Internet: callemtadams.com
Hours: 5 p.m.-midnight Wednesday-Thursday (chips only); 5 p.m.-2 a.m. Friday-Sunday (full menu).
This article appears in Aug 5-11, 2015.
