It will cost María Sara and her husband Hilarino around $7,000 USD to obtain electricity for their small roadside restaurant, located about an hour from the city of Oaxaca. It is feasible only if you can get some of your neighbors to participate. But that would detract from the charm of his restaurant: fresh meats delivered to the premises daily and kept fresh in an insulated box; hours of operation governed by nature; without a stove or oven, without the subtle clatter of an electric refrigerator; and without television reviewing the last soccer triumph of Mexico.
El Tigre is just about the last vestige of Old Mexico you’ll find on a visit to Oaxaca, while at the same time being as comfortable, welcoming and safe for the North American gastrointestinal tract as you’ll find in the best linen restaurants in the downtown core. Sure, the wood-burning hearth over which all their daily offerings are prepared produces distracting smoke from time to time. And it’s doubtful that the ice blocks that cool Coca-Cola, Fanta and Corona will keep drinks as cold as most are accused of. But barring these inconveniences, if you go to Mitla, or Hierve el Agua, you cannot miss a visit to El Tigre.
You will be warmly received by María Sara and her daughter-in-law Alma. Hilarino may be there too. He runs the mezcal operation together with the restaurant, the involvement is that if you order mezcal, it’s on the house.
But you stop for the food and outdoor atmosphere and basically nothing else. There is no menu, so you better have a minimum knowledge of Spanish or keep reading and taking notes. Every morning María prepares a different stew, be it beef in green sauce, pork in red sauce or something similar. Otherwise, the standard options available every day are pretty simple: grilled chorizo (Oaxacan sausage); a bowl of cecina (sliced pork lightly sprinkled with chili); Tasajō (thinly sliced beef); eggs, either scrambled alone or with chorizo, or fried; quesadillas; and memelites. María is used to this writer being brought by North American tourists, who have often commented that it was the best meal they had in Oaxaca. You can order anything to cook on the comal, over an open fire, without lard, oil, or butter.
The accompaniments are tomato and onion slices (disinfected), cooked black beans, and freshly made salsa with garlic, chili, tomato and little else, served hot from the grill in their molcajete, the mortar with which it is prepared. You’ll usually see a pot of simmering corn kernels that are softened and ready to be ground the next day into a dough to make tortillas. And yes, of course the tortillas, made with hand-ground cornmeal and prepared on the comal before your eyes, complement every order.
Since 1994, El Tigre has been serving the surrounding communities, the occasional visitor on the way to and from Hierve el Agua, and those in transit between Oaxaca and the district known as Mixe. The main attraction for many Mexicans is the mezcal produced locally by Hilarino, using the ancient traditional techniques of his grandparents and his ancestors. But for those who crave an unadulterated, down-to-earth taste of southern Mexico, El Tigre is a must—uniquely Oaxacan, and as fresh and flavorful as it can get.
El Tigre is open 7 days from morning to 7 p.m. to bubbling springs.
