Sureste Méxican Is Now Serving Yucatán Cuisine at City Foundry

For several years, chef Alex Henry has been interspersing the menus of the restaurants he's worked at with tastes of his native Yucatán Peninsula. Now, he is stepping out on his own with Sureste Méxican (3730 Foundry Way), an entire restaurant dedicated to the vibrant cuisine, which opened on October 20 inside the Food Hall at City Foundry.

"I felt like this needed its own concept because I've been doing this here and there at other restaurants," Henry says. "I really wanted to do the food that I grew up eating, and this seemed like a good place to do it."

As Henry explains, Sureste Méxican is informed by the recipes of his mother and grandmother, the two main culinary influences in his life. Growing up, the two women showed him how to cook and were by his side as he explored the food stalls and markets of their hometown, Merida. Henry carried these experiences with him on his own professional culinary journey at such acclaimed restaurants as Vicia, Niche and Nixta, where he was honored as a "Young Gun" by the influential food site Eater.

At each of his jobs, he took every opportunity afforded him to sprinkle in bits of Yucatán cuisine, but now Henry is eager to dedicate an entire restaurant to it. City Foundry feels like a particularly special venue to do that, because of how much it reminds him of the markets and food stalls in Merida.


At Sureste Méxican, diners can expect such traditional Yucatán dishes as chime, which consists of turkey stewed in burnt chile mole with a hardboiled egg and pork meatball and cochinita pibil, made with citrus roasted pork, macerated onions and habanero.

"I want people to learn a little bit about this region," Henry says. "Mexican is our neighbor to the south, but we don't get a large variety of food and a lot of places have similar stuff. That's not bad, but it's good for people to know there are a lot of options."

Dishes at Sureste Méxican come in two formats. Guests can either choose from entree portions with sides and tortillas or tacos. Henry is excited to be serving up the food himself on the line to his guests so that he can answer any questions and explain the dishes and heritage that have made him the chef he is today.

"Mexico has so many diverse cultures, languages, foods; this just happens to be the one I grew up with," Henry says. "I think it's something worth sharing with everyone here."

Sureste Méxican is open Monday and Wednesday through Saturday from 11:30 a.m. until 7:30 p.m. and Sunday from 11:30 a.m. until 7 p.m. Scroll down for more photos of Sureste Méxican.







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