Ancient Process, Modern Flavors

Vecino in Detroit’s Midtown neighborhood is bringing Mexico City to the Motor City with its modern regional menu highlighting corn processed in-house through the traditional technique of nixtamalization.

ADRIANA JIMENEZ GREW up in a restaurant family, one of many things that has strengthened her connection to her Mexican heritage.

“I consider myself to be very in touch with my culture, even though I didn’t go to Mexico till later in my life. My family’s, like we say, very Mexican,” she says fondly.

But when she finally did go to Mexico as an adult in 2019, she realized there was so much more to discover, such as having a fresh tortilla made from nixtamalized corn at a molino—a factory where maize is processed. She had never had a tortilla made with nixtamalized corn.

“Walking in there, the smell was different, the taste was different,” Jimenez recalls. She started talking to one of the owners, who explained to her the ancient process.

That trip planted a seed, but it wouldn’t take root until five years later.

When her mother retired from the restaurant business when Jimenez was 16, the daughter also left food behind, albeit temporarily. After she married her husband, Lukasz Wietrzynski, she took that fateful trip to Mexico City. They met a lot of her family, and they started going there more often to eat.

“We were, like, ‘Why don’t we do a Mexico City concept in Detroit?’” Jimenez says.

It took a few years, but Jimenez and Wietrzynski opened the doors to Vecino—the Spanish word for neighbor—in Detroit’s Midtown neighborhood in April 2024.

The interior and color palette aim to capture the look and feel of Mexico City in the Motor City. There’s a lot of warm wood tones throughout, with industrial elements, custom-designed lighting and furniture and a breeze-block wall behind the bar. A focal point is the open wood-fire grill, where many of the modern regional Mexican dishes are prepared.

The look of the restaurant immediately caught the eye of Edgar Torres, a chef who was working at the renowned Alinea Group, which includes restaurants Roister, Next and three-Michelin-star restaurant Alinea, in Chicago.

He came to Detroit to visit one of his good friends and one of Vecino’s chefs, Stephanie Duran.

“The first time I saw the restaurant, I kind of felt like at home,” says Torres, who is from Mexico City.

“He was at the restaurant, and we just started talking, and we needed a lot of help, because we were just overwhelmed by everything and opening,” Jimenez says. “And we spoke to him about doing some consulting to help us open. And he agreed. And then, it turrned out he wanted to stay, so it was great.”

Torres took on the role as executive chef. He knew a little bit about nixtamalization but not a lot, he admits, but the masa program was one of the things he fell in love with at the restaurant.

18 to 19 hours to make a tortilla

One of the things that Jimenez knew Vecino had to do was nixtamalize corn in-house. But it would take a while to master the technique.

Nixtamalization is the process that transforms maize into dough that can be used for foods like tamales and tortillas. The word comes from the Aztec language Nahuatl, according to the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center. Nextli means ashes and tamali means unformed maize dough. It’s a technique that has been used in Mexico and Central America for hundreds of years.

It’s a labor-intensive process and done commercially now, but ever since Jimenez went to that molino in Mexico City, she knew she wanted to have masa made in house from nixtamalized corn at Vecino.

At Vecino, the process starts with blue and white (and sometimes pink or red) heirloom corn imported from Mexico. It’s then boiled in a solution of water and calcium hydroxide, or cal in Spanish, for two to three hours.

The cal helps to soften the corn and break down the exterior, releasing the nutrients. After it’s done boiling, it’s removed from the heat and soaked for at least 12 hours or overnight. It’s then drained and rinsed. Now it’s ready to be ground to form the dough to create their modern regional Mexican dishes.

That’s about 18–19 hours to make a tortilla.

Torres estimates they are making almost 80 pounds of masa a day.

A challenge to making that much masa is that it can’t be reused the next day, so the masa station is constantly cranking out the tortillas.

It’s time-consuming and requires a lot of training to do it right.

“It took us a while to dial in nixtamalization because if you let it sit too long, it’ll come out essentially gooey, and you can’t do anything with it. And if you don’t nixtamalize it enough, it comes out grainy,” Jimenez says.

For restaurants, it’s a lot easier to pick up industrial-made flour or tortillas at the tortilleria than to make it by hand in house, much less nixtamalizing the dough.

So why nixtamalize? Jimenez says it’s a way for Vecino to stand out but more broadly it's a way to highlight Mexican culture.

“Nixtamalization is probably one of the most important processes that came into civilization a long time ago that helped people eat,” Jimenez says.

“Here [at Vecino] the tortillas have value. It tastes like corn, and it adds to your dish,” Jimenez says.

‘Melting pot’

Jimenez was more familiar with the traditional fare of tacos and burritos served at Mexican restaurants in Southeast Michigan like the ones her parents had.

But when she went to Mexico City, she realized there was a lot more to the cuisine.

“A lot of Mexican restaurants just focus on Guadalajara-style cuisine or Oaxacan [food]. And Mexico City was, like, the melting pot of all the regions of Mexico that I didn’t even realize [existed]. There was the coastal food, the Oaxacan, the Yucatan-area food. So for me, [going to Mexico City] kind of put everything to perspective that there was a lot that Mexico had to offer that wasn’t being offered, at least in Detroit.

“Mexico City kind of gave me that perspective and that vision,” she says.

Vecino’s menu reflects that diversity of Mexican cuisine from Oaxaca to the Yucatan, with the idea to take the best of each state and put it on the menu to introduce diners to dishes they’ve never had before.

One popular dish is the snapper, which is cured and then marinated in green adobo and red adobo. The green adobo is made with cilantro, chile oil and garlic, while the red adobo is made with dried chiles including, guajillo, ancho and pasilla. It’s then grilled over the wood-fire grill. Another instant Vecino classic (and one of Jimenez’s favorites) is the popular Oaxacan street food tlayuda, a large tortilla topped with sirloin, chorizo, beans, quesillo and a green salad.

A less-familiar dish that Vecino offers is the molote, a puffy and airy fried quesadilla stuffed with cheese and covered in green and red salsa. One unique dish is the tetela, which features a large tortilla folded into a triangle and stuffed. Typical fillings include beans, cheese or meat, but Torres stuffs it with tinga, a dish from Mexico City that’s usually made with chicken. At Vecino it’s made of carrots for a vegetarian version.

Masa even figures prominently in the desserts. One of the most popular dishes was pan de elote, a corn cake with cajeta—Mexican caramel made with goat milk. It was recently taken off the menu because Duran, who does a lot of the pastries at Vecino, came up with something better, Jimenez says.

While the ancient technique of nixtamalization plays a prominent role at Vecino, playing homage to history and tradition, at the same time it is very much a modern restaurant pushing Mexican cuisine forward.

Dorothy Hernandez is a freelance journalist who frequently writes about food at the intersection of culture, entrepreneurship and social justice.