Pez Loco's New Menu Offers an Intimate Take on Mexican Coastal Cuisine

Inspired by the coastal regions of Los Angeles and Mexico, Pez Loco Restaurant & Tequila Bar's executive chef Ari Taymor has recently introduced a new menu highlighted by his take on coastal fusion cuisine.

Taymor tells New Times that his mother is from Mexico City, so he grew up traveling around the area and lived in Zihuatanejo for a couple of years.

"I was traveling all up and down eating, exploring," he says. "And I was just really blown away by the diversity, by the sophistication, by how much international influences kind of filter through. A lot of Asian influences have started to filter through the cuisine there and how it's just like this really beautiful, unique cuisine."

Taking inspiration from what he experienced on the west coast of Mexico for the menu, Taymor also drew from his cooking experience in California and the importance of the product. To bring both of these concepts to South Florida, Pez Loco has a strong relationship with local purveyors.
Taymor allows that it's not always possible to source all the restaurant's ingredients locally, but he says Pez Loco will always be "local first" — speaking to farmers and fishermen and then writing a menu around what's available.

"We're fortunate to be a fairly small restaurant," he explains. "So that means if somebody has a side of fish or one or two of something, we can just grab it. We can either 'special' it or run a menu item for a couple of days or a week or whatever that might be until it runs out. And that, for us, is super exciting."

Pez Loco chef de cuisine Victor Mendez, who also had a hand in creating the menu, says he hopes to allow diners to try a different style of Mexican food from what they're used to. He draws inspiration from longtime family recipes, including dishes like "Rice & Roe," an appetizer made with Spanish rice and salmon roe.

Taymor says the restaurant's signature dish, a Sinaloan-style tuna crudo, was inspired by a visit to Mazatlán.
"I had one of the cab drivers take us to his favorite mariscos place," the chef says. "They do their crudos with this sauce — it's very celery-based, which I'd never had before. It's just a really interesting, spicy, astringent, kind of bitter flavor profile I haven't had in Mexico before. We kind of played around with it and came up with our own variation."

Other highlights include the "Po'Boy Ahogada" and an octopus ragu, which the chef describes as utilizing a Southern Italian-style sauce prepared using Mexican ingredients. For dessert, he suggests the baked Miami, his take on a baked Alaska, served with coconut sorbet.

Pez Loco's cocktail menu carries a similar aesthetic. Taymor recommends the "Dirty Beet," a tequila-based drink made with beet and lemon juices spiked with chili pepper that pairs well with the tuna crudo.

"We just want to use these really beautiful ingredients and tell the story of our experiences either traveling or through family and create that dish through our lens," he says.

Pez Loco Restaurant & Tequila Bar. 50 NW 24th St., Suite 101, Miami; 305-222-7768; pezlocomiami.com. Lunch served Monday through Friday from noon to 2:30 p.m., dinner from 5 p.m. to midnight daily, and brunch from Saturday and Sunday from 11:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m.