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For Back of the House’s culinary director Alejandro Morgan, the choice to open a fourth location of Michelin Bib Gourmand Mexican restaurant Flores at San Mateo’s Hillsdale Shopping Center was a no-brainer.
“I’ve lived in San Mateo for eight years,” he said. “I like going to Hillsdale Mall. I take my kids there on the weekdays.”
Flores is a Mexican restaurant serving “hyperlocal Mexican cuisine” (which Morgan explained means each dish is true to one style of Mexican cooking), tortillas made in-house from locally handmade masa and over 70 family-owned, small-batch tequilas and mezcals. It’s owned by San Francisco-based restaurant group Back of the House, which owns over 20 restaurants, including Super Duper Burger and Wildseed. Flores operates in San Francisco, Emeryville, Corte Madera, and – since Dec. 8 – San Mateo. If you’ve tried Flores at any of the other locations, you’ll find the newest one “very similar,” said Morgan.
“We’re trying to stay as authentic as possible with Mexican cooking, with Mexican food, but we’re also trying to use local ingredients from the area as much as we can,” he said.
One of those local ingredients is handmade masa from La Finca in Oakland. When Flores only had two locations, handmade masa was made in-house, but after expanding it became too cumbersome to undergo the whole process from start to finish. Now, chefs at Flores use La Finca’s masa in a variety of ways: Fresh tortillas are cooked to order, masa is combined with achiote (a flavorful, perfumey, non-spicy paste of annatto seeds) for quesadillas and masa is used to make tamales and sopes.
“It’s the same thing as handmade pasta,” Morgan said. “There is a love that you have to have for it in order for you to go with the process of grinding the corn and making the tortillas.”
And while Morgan could identify his favorite menu offering – the Lubina Entera a la Talla, a sharable dish featuring a whole branzino with green and red adobo – he hesitates to go so far as to claim outright San Mateo is his favorite Flores location.
“I try not to say that because then all of my other children will feel like they’re left out, the other restaurants,” he said. “They’re all very special, but for sure there’s a little extra love in it because it’s so much closer to home.”
Morgan has lived in San Mateo for eight years of his 12-year career. But he wasn’t always in the Bay Area.
“I’m from Costa Rica,” he said. “People make fun of me, but my first cooking job was actually at a Waffle House in Mississippi.”
Morgan came to San Francisco at 21 years old and developed a passion for Mexican food.
“I fell in love with it when I moved to the Bay Area,” he said. “I thought I knew what Mexican food was until I hung out with the other cooks that I worked with and when I traveled to Mexico, so it’s something that I’m very proud (of) that we now have four (Flores locations).”
Flores, 4 Hillsdale Mall, San Mateo; 650-418-9742, Instagram: @flores_sf. Open Sunday through Thursday from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m. and Friday through Saturday from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m.
I visited Flores San Mateo and tried the food. To watch my review, click here.