Relish

A fairly significant restaurant news item broke last week, significant on several levels. Chris Sommers and Frank Uible, the principals of the Pi Pizzeria empire, announced their next endeavor would not be another pizza store (although more are planned), but rather a taqueria in the CWE named Gringo, to be located in the Rothschild's Antique space directly across the street from Pi in the CWE, a site long coveted by Sommers. Read more about Gringo here, in Evan Benn's breaking piece, or here, in Ian Froeb's follow-up. 

Local restaurant watchers might be surprised that the Pi guys are venturing down a tangential path rather than simply repeat their solid and proven formula, but it does make sense once you fully understand the concept. The basis of  Gringo, its raison d'être, the answer to the ubiquitous question of "why should I go there," is the cooking process that will be used. Gringo will cook all of its meats sous-vide, a low and slow process that combines vacuum-sealed bags and a low-temperature water bath (below right) to achieve a tenderness that we daresay is unobtainable using traditional cooking methods. Pi's Exec Chef Steven Caravelli added that cooking sous-vide "heightens the flavor of the meat, retains all its moisture, as well as brings out the flavor of a marinade."

Several of the fine dining restaurants in St. Louis are cooking items sous-vide, but no lesser haunts, and certainly no taquerias. And none that we could find across the country either. At Topolobambo in Chicago, Rick Bayless is cooking pork sous-vide for the carnitas, and there's evidence of scattered other uses, but to our knowledge no taqueria's yet dialed down on it. Until now. That's why Gringo will be so revelatory and such a big deal. Even more surprising is who came up with the idea....it wasn't Sommers or Chef Caravelli, but Frank Uible, the "other" partner, the partner with zero restaurant experience until he and Sommers launched Pi. But it was Caravelli who made the prediction that this will "elevate the taco to a new level."

Yet it seems so obvious. One might ask why other restaurants haven't gone this route.

Tradition is certainly one reason: for years, the main piece of cooking equipment in the standard taqueria has been the flat-top grill, where meats are seared and served quickly. Time and expense are considerations as well: Sous-vide is a more labor-intensive process, where cooking is done in small batches and takes hours instead of minutes. And now there's an app available from PolyScience (manufacturer of the sous-vide equipment Pi will be using) that has streamlined the entire process and "ensures serv-safe standards and product consistency," according to Sommers.

Caravelli reminds us that many sous-vide meats, while tender, require a bit of char. "The carnitas will then be seared in a cast iron skillet until crispy," he said, "while the al carbon beef will be finished on the grill. But the chicken tinga comes out of the sous-vide with the perfect texture."

If properly executed, Gringo will be to local tacos what Pi was to local pizza: a reinvention of sorts, a freshening of concept, and a damn smart idea. It ought to have other taquerias--here and elsewhere--thinking "now why didn't I think of that?"

Gringo is slated to open in the spring of 2013; follow their progress on Facebook, Twitter, and gringo-stl.com.