Northern Mexico, Just Below Canal

Corima has potential-and excellent tortillas

- MATTHEW SCHNEIER

I had always thought of chile con queso as a Texas dish until the first time I went to Chihuahua,” the Mexican-food expert Diana Kennedy once wrote. Many of the staples of American Mexican food—not to mention Tex-Mex—have their origins just over the border. Quesadillas, burritos: They come from the north, which makes sense, as northern Mexico is the land of wheat and the flour tortilla. But as Fidel Caballero, the El Paso–born, Chihuahuaraised chef and owner of the recently opened Corima, told Eater, “It’s not just about burritos, my friend.”

The restaurant, which began life as a series of pop-ups, is taking norteño cooking out of the quesadilla shops and planting its flag in fine dining. The space— long, deep, dark, a block west of Dimes Square’s hubbub—is split in two with a front-bar area for à la carte dining and a more secluded back room, in direct view of Caballero, his team, and an impressively flaming grill, for a two-hour, $98 tasting.