Macondo

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Like a mash-up of Menudo and Tom Jobim, this tapas joint is a risky mixture of Latin styles, with each dish intended to showcase the whole Spanish-speaking world in a few bites. Chef Maximo Tejada, whose other restaurant, Rayuela, is named for the novel by Julio Cortázar, named this one after the doomed city of García Márquez's “One Hundred Years of Solitude” as part of an effort to “elevate the Latin stereotype,” he says. “We want the young Latinos to start noticing our culture in different ways.” Nope, he hasn't opened a bookstore, but here his dishes are as intricate as they are culturally informed, like an arepa of quail stuffed with spinach and figs, and the Buenos Aires, a flatbread with grilled skirt steak. We bet this updated comida de la calle will be enough of a draw to spare Macondo the fate of its namesake.