First Look: Alejandro Huerta’s Barro Serves Up Heart, Home and Heaps of Mexican Hospitality

Barro is a love letter.

It’s a love letter from chef-owner Alejandro Huerta to his wife and co-owner, Galia Valadez; to his best mate, Eduardo Conde; to the Adelaide hospitality community; to his mother and grandmother; and to his native Mexico.

Huerta is one of Australia’s best Mexican chefs. Last month, he announced he had moved from Sydney to Adelaide to open his first restaurant, Barro.

Ahead of Barro’s first services, Huerta says he found himself feeling “a bit emotional. [Conde] gave a nice little speech about how long me and Galia have wanted to open a restaurant like this. It always felt like this dream, [but] at a certain point in your life you think that it’s never going to happen, but finally seeing the restaurant set up and everything just waiting for guests was quite special.”

Huerta, Valadez and Conde met working at Glebe’s No. 92. Conde went on to become an influential bartender, best known for his work with Sydney’s Maybe Group, and Huerta went on to lead some of Sydney’s best Mexican restaurants including Lottie and Comedor, while Valadez took on the role as head chef at No. 92.

Huerta says it’s been seven years since he first shared with Valadez his dream of opening his own restaurant. It’s been 18 months since they started working to make that dream a reality, which involved moving from Sydney back to Adelaide where Huerta had previously headed up Mexican Society on Gouger Street. Before moving to Australia, Huerta worked at Pujol in Mexico, Spain’s Quique Dacosta, Alinea in Chicago, and Noma. While Valadez worked at Lillas Pastia and the lauded Cafe de Oriente.

Huerta and Valadez took over a laneway space and started working with Faculty Design to create a homey 48-seat space.

“One of our designers, Chloe [Lorimer], did this little painting of Galia’s parents’ house in Mexico as well as another painting of some flowers that were my mum’s favourite, so it’s like having them here without them being here,” says Huerta. Shelves are lined with clay pieces that Galia’s parents bought for them in Tequisquiapan after many Facetime consultations. These touches “made it feel like this is our place, this is our home”, says Huerta.

Many of Huerta’s memories of home revolve around his family’s kitchen, where he learnt to cook under the tutelage of his mother and grandmother.

“As I grow older, I’m starting to cook things that remind me of home, of my mum and grandma,” Huerta told Broadsheet. “It’s like, ‘Okay, if I make this, it talks about who I am, who they were, and how that connects us forever’.”

Over the first two services, the dishes that have been the most popular all pay tribute to Huerta’s upbringing.

A compressed pig’s head taco – inspired by queso de Puerco, a popular dish in Valadez and Huerta’s native CDMX – is an early favourite. “People were quite surprised by it, the technique and the flavours,” he says.

Another strong favourite was Huerta’s grandmother’s mole coloradito, a heady mix of 19 ingredients that Huerta’s Polish grandmother learnt from her Puebloan mother-in-law when she immigrated to Mexico after World War II.

“People were very interested in learning the story of the mole. Once they learnt everything that goes into the recipe and the care and the love it takes, they were just eating it on its own with the tortillas.”

Tortillas also feature in Conde’s cocktail list. He’s using a burnt tortilla syrup in Barro’s Old Fashioned which is garnished with a burnt piece of baby corn. Other cocktails include a roasted plum and mezcal number which is Barro’s answer to the Margarita, which also includes an orange liqueur from Borachio in McLaren Vale.

The team is also keen to educate locals about the breadth and depth of Mexican spirits like raicilla, sotol, charanda and bacanora, all of which feature on Barro’s backbar.

Valadez, who has temporarily hung up her chef’s hat to act as a sommelier and front-of-house all-rounder at Barro, has put together a wine list that celebrates the local community.

“I’m very proud of Galia with the wine list that she made,” says Huerta. “Seeing her getting out of her comfort zone of the kitchen and running service, I think she’s done an amazing job in creating and building a beautiful team that feels like a family. I’m extremely proud of her.”

The wine list includes Ngeringa from the Hills, Ministry of Clouds from McLaren Vale, and Somos “from another Mexican winemaker that lives in McLaren Vale”, says Huerta.

“When you go to Mexico, you have a really good time because everybody makes you feel like you’re home. So, we want it to be that if you come to Barro, it’s like going to Mexico, and I will make sure that you feel at home,” said Huerta.

Once he and Valadez arrived in Adelaide, Huerta says, “Everything started just like falling into place, all the pieces started fitting together”. In other words, it felt like coming home.

Barro opens on Wednesday July 22.

Barro

30 Rosina Street, Adelaide 

0423 702 803

Hours:

Tue to Fri 4.30pm–late

Sat midday–3pm, 4.30pm–late

www.barroadl.com/

@barro.adelaide