Tortilla Heaven
Authentic masa makes a mark at Tortilleria Nixtamal
Written by Joe DiStefano; Photographed by Robyn Lee
CORONA - Centeotl, the Aztec god of corn, graces the back of Fernando Ruiz’s business card, along with the phrase El Dios del Maiz. Quite a fitting calling card for the man who goes through about half a ton of maize every week. Ruiz is the co-owner of Tortilleria Nixtamal, a small Corona storefront that’s been making big news since its opening in December 2008. Thanks to write-ups in New York magazine, the New York Times and the Village Voice, what was originally intended to be a small mom-and-pop eatery has morphed into a true foodie destination, with customers flocking from as far away as Westchester. Tortilleria Nixtamal has won its share of local fans, too. Employees of the nearby Queens Museum of Art and New York Hall of Science are regular lunchtime customers. The main attraction is a clattering machine that forms discs of masa (corn dough) into tortillas and pushes them out onto a heated conveyor belt. At full tilt, the lime green Mexican machine, the focal point of the storefront, can churn out 3,000 tortillas per hour. That, and the fillings of course, have won Tortilleria Nixtamal, and Ruiz, the gold star for authenticity.
The lime green tortilla-making machine at Tortilleria Nixtamal
Ruiz, a Brooklyn-born New York City firefighter whose family hails from the Veracruz region of Mexico, opened Tortilleria Nixtamal with his girlfriend and business partner Shauna Page, with a messianic mission of sorts: to bring tortillas and tamales made the old-fashioned way from freshly ground corn to Queens. Since it is at its heart a tortilla factory, many locals purchase ready-made tortillas as well as masa for making tortillas and tamales at home. Given the borough’s high concentration of Mexican immigrants, it may sound like selling ice to Eskimos, but until very recently, all the tortillerias here made their tortillas and tamales from maseca, or corn flour. “Part of the concept was to give Mexican locals the feeling that they were back in the homeland buying tortillas, as opposed to going to the supermarket and buying stuff made with maseca and preservatives,” explains Ruiz.
Co-owners and masa-lovers Shauna Page and Fernando Ruiz.
Ruiz and Page’s ode to corn has also won praise from chefs who have tested Tortilleria Nixtamal’s product against tortillas being manufactured elsewhere in New York City. “Other tortillas can taste like an arts and craft project, papery with a hint of baby powder,” says Akiko Moorman, a former line cook for Manhattan’s Momofuku Noodle Bar and co-founder of the supper club Hapa Kitchen (www.hapakitchen.com). Following an afternoon spent with Page learning how to make masa, Moorman conducted a taste test, pitting Nixtamal’s tortillas against some freshly made tortillas purchased in Brooklyn. “Hands down, Tortilleria Nixtamal’s were the best. Their tortillas taste like corn, delicious roasted corn.”
When Forrest Cole opened Choncho’s, a fish taco stand in the Brooklyn Flea Market, his search for the city’s best tortillas eventually led him to Queens. “The tortillas from Nixtamal blew my mind the first time I tried them,” Cole recalled. “I knew I had made the right choice when my customers began to rave about them. They are amazed at their softness, deliciousness, and their durability. There’s no need to use two for each taco.”
Praise from local chefs is all well and good, but perhaps the greatest accolade this little tortilleria could have drawn comes from Dario Wolos Cantu, founder of Señor Tacombi, a Mexican taqueria chain based in Playa del Carmen that will open two New York City outposts this Spring, each serving Nixtamal’s tortillas. “The most important part of re-creating an authentic taqueria experience is making sure all the components are done right,” explains Cantu. “I have always preferred the taste of tortillas made from freshly ground corn. I was surprised to find someone doing the process here professionally.”
Chile verde tacos made with pork.
Tortilleria Nixtamal serves several kinds of tacos, including a Veracruz-style fish taco that’s filled with crunchy fried skate instead of the Baja-style battered fish one typically finds. the recipe comes from Ruiz’s uncle, Francisco “Pancho” Manitas, an iron worker and former mechanical engineer, who designed and built the tables in Nixtamal’s dining room as well as the adjacent outdoor bar. Last summer, the shop started serving al pastor (shepherd-style) tacos of well-seasoned cooked pork made by Acension “Pepe” Ordoñes. Just as in his native Mexico City, Ordoñes layers pieces of pork butt marinated in pineapple and achiote and then cooks the entire tower of meat on a vertical spit. Nixtamal’s tacos are minimalist affairs, with the tortilla playing as much a role as the filling it enfolds. “The Indians didn’t eat tortillas just to hold stuff together. Tortillas enhance the flavor of your food,” says Ruiz. “Of course, if it’s all corn and it’s all natural, it tastes better.”
His first experience of that all-natural taste was in the 1970s, during family visits to Mexico. “As a kid, I would go to the cart and order, like, 20 tacos,” he recalls. “I never knew why the tacos in Mexico tasted so much better than the ones in New York. Then I realized it was the tortilla.” Or, to be more precise, the corn. Until he started to research opening Tortilleria Nixtamal, Ruiz didn’t know there were two ways to make masa. Then a family friend took him and Page to a mercato in Veracruz to purchase masa for making tamales. “She picked out the corn by the stalk,” Ruiz said. “Then a guy with a machete chopped it up. And then he ground it on a stone. I thought that was amazing. I’d never had a tamale in New York City that could compete with that.”
At Tortilleria Nixtamal, they take their tamales seriously. Get a recipe here.
Page learned to make tamales from a friend of Ruiz’s family and says it was a way to embrace her Native-American ancestry. “They thought I was crazy,” she says with a smile, “and they were honored that I took such an interest in their culture.” She makes traditional tamales such as chile verde with pork, as well as one that was invented at Nixtamal: the Italian tamale, a tribute to the Italian-American butcher Franco’s. Sausage, peppers and mozzarella are stuffed into the masa for an exercise in cross-cultural deliciousness.
Like the worker at the mercato, Ruiz grinds his maize with a stone, but he gets his corn in bulk from Rovey Seed Company. In fact, Ruiz was one of the Farmersville, Illinois-based company’s first New York customers. Since it costs Ruiz more to ship the corn than its actual price, he’s toying with the idea of installing a silo. Now that’s a true commitment to corn.
WHERE TO GO: Tortilleria Nixtamal, 104-05 47th Ave., Corona, 718-699-2434
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