Are you ready for an extraordinary culinary adventure? Look no further than the Head Tilt Tasting, a unique dining experience that fuses traditional Mexican flavors and modern techniques. Guests and locals alike are invited to indulge in an eight-course Omakase-inspired dinner, masterfully prepared by Chef Gustavo Rios at Picobar restaurant at Solage, Auberge Resorts Collection.
This exclusive evening is offered every Tuesday night and is limited to just 8 seats and requires advanced reservations, making it a truly intimate gastronomic affair. Accompanied by carefully selected craft cocktails prepared by Bar Supervisor Eddie Garcia, each course will be explained in detail, providing guests with not only delicious dishes but also engaging conversations about the food they are enjoying.
We interview Picobar’s Chef Rios and Bar Supervisor Eddie Garcia to take a deeper dive into what makes the Head Tilt Tasting so unique.
What makes this menu special?
Executive Chef, Gustavo Rios: There is nothing like this out there, we have taken a cuisine typically known as street food and elevated it in a way that is approachable, fun, fresh, delicious and colorful.
Share dishes are offered during this tasting.
Executive Chef, Gustavo Rios: To start, we begin with sparkling wine and canapés during our optional Pre-Dinner Welcome Experience. Dishes include delicate tuna and caviar flautas, rich huitlacoche quesadillas with truffles, mushrooms al pastor, exotic squid ink tacos and short-rib + bone marrow, sungold tomatoes, crispy beef tendon.
What inspired the menu?
Executive Chef, Gustavo Rios: It was team collaboration with my sous chefs, bouncing ideas back and forth, making it a very exciting process for us. Our Bar Supervisor, Eddie Garcia was very open to help elevate this experience with his unique creations, and help complement the bites.
Tell us how you came up with the cocktails for this tasting menu?
Bar Supervisor, Eddie Garcia: All my inspiration always comes from my Mexican heritage and growing up in California. Definitely trying the tasting menu and being able to identify flavors that chef was using and incorporating them in liquid form. That allows the food to really pop while chefs doing the same for my drinks with the head tilts.
What makes your cocktails special?
Bar Supervisor, Eddie Garcia: I think there’s a lot of history in these cocktails. I wanted to showcase Mexico with a Napa flare. I feel like we’ve hit that in every way.
Tell us about the pineapple vessel and bird glass cocktail presentations.
Bar Supervisor, Eddie Garcia: Chef and I looked at glassware and we both thought this would be very fitting but also playful on the presentation of the cocktails.
The bird glass was chef’s choosing, I just filled in the gaps to create a drink and the story behind it. That is with our blue corn fennel mezcal cocktail. “The Revenge of Mayahuel” was the goddess of agave and fertility. The bird represents the pollination of agave as they are one of the main sources, along with bats, to naturally pollinate agave, which are known as silvestres. With them, we wouldn’t have agave to make tequila or mezcal.
The tepache cocktails are served in the tin pineapple vessel. Our tepache is very complicated to make, it’s a 2-month fermentation process and it’s very easy to ruin a full batch if you are not careful. So, this pineapple vessel helps to showcase our respect for the process and elegance of the drink. The top of the pineapple comes off the expose the drink, but if you turn the top upside down, you can set the glass on top of it so it sits on a pedestal. That’s how I feel it should be served because of the difficulty of the preparation.
Share the meaning behind Eddie’s A.P cocktail.
Bar Supervisor, Eddie Garcia: The Second cocktail offered to guests during our Head Tilt Tasting is Eddie’s A.P. This cocktail uses an Al pastor-based syrup, which is the most popular taco in Mexico. It’s also a very personal cocktail to me and the team for 2 reasons.
This was my grandma’s Al pastor recipe that she uses to make tacos with that I converted into a drink, and 2nd, we lost a very good friend and amazing coworker at Solbar, Aaron Paddock, who’s initials are A.P. To the Solage family, we all know this cocktail is really for him!