Inside The New York Times’ 41 Greatest Mexican Restaurants in America

I know we've been talking behind the scenes and now that it's finally out, you had been working on this project for about a year, right? A little

over a year since it was first, you know, the first email came and we began talking.

It was like a, a slow conversation that, that accelerated.

And, and at one point I was like, wait a minute, you mean we're publishing? I'm like, I can't believe this, you know? So,

so it started a little less formal.

It wasn't just this idea of, Hey, let's compile this list.

Well, you know, it was the, it was getting, uh, Brian Gallagher and Brett Anderson and myself together.

And, you know, uh, when I was at chef conference, uh, I don't even remember what date that was, but one of the guys had been out and met me in person.

We talked.

We had just been exchanging emails.

And then we had, like, the first assignment was to vet a list of restaurants that was first proposed.

And this was stuff that New York Times had covered and talked about and other, you know, New York Times had reviewed.

And stuff that was sort of on their radar.

And I had to go through a long list to sort of say, you know, why some of these places should be considered and why they shouldn't.

And leave my notes.

And, you know, this list grew to over, I don't know, upwards of 130 restaurants at one point that were considered considered.

Yeah, no, that's a lot.

I'm kind of curious, like, what was your guys' mindset and mentality when it comes to putting this list? Obviously, there's 41 places on the list.

There's 50 states.

So not every state was going to be represented.

But you guys did include a wide swath of different states that have different culinary traditions.

How did you guys decide to approach, like, representation on this list?

Well, I would say that, you know, obviously when you're, I mean, I've done a few things with New York Times, but nothing like this where I essentially was, you know, brought in for this package and to write the intro and also to put this list together.

And so, you know, I brought my ideas to the table and I said, here's what I think about a list.

And I think that if we look at there have been lists before, and I think even the New York Times has done them before, but I've seen all these lists of the best Mexican, let's just say the best, the best Mexican restaurants in the United States.