THE STATE’S BEST MEXICAN RESTAURANT JUST MIGHT BE IN LEEDS, NEW YORK

The best Mexican restaurant in the state may not be in New York City, but in the tiny hamlet of Leeds, just to the west of Catskill in the Hudson Valley.

A motel once known as the Rip Van Winkle Motor Lodge has been renovated in a midcentury rustic style — renamed Camptown Hotel, from Ray Pirkle and Kim Bucci, behind Rivertown Lodge in Hudson. Casa Susanna is its dining option, a modern Mexican restaurant that references dishes from Jalisco. Located at 810 County Road 23B just west of the New York State Thruway, Casa Susanna pays tribute to a Catskills hideaway for the transgendered in nearby Jewett dating to the 1950s.

The chef is Efrén Hernández, who was born in Inglewood, California, near Los Angeles, of Mexican parents. He came to New York to study film at New York University, and eventually discovered he’d rather be a chef than a filmmaker and screenwriter. He thereafter worked as a furniture maker in Red Hook, and then at a dizzying number of restaurants, including Williamsburg’s Nighthawk Cinema, Mimi and Babs, both in Manhattan, and perhaps most significantly at Bushwick’s Faro under Kevin Adey, where a wood-fired hearth was the center of attention. He landed at Café Susanna in April 2023.

During my early summer visit, Hernández used a range of agricultural products from the region, adding the lushness of upstate farmsteads to the standout flavors of Mexican food. The menu starts with snacks and masa, and continues into vegetables, meats, and desserts.

In the masa section, there’s a tamale stuffed with blood sausage ($16), and a tlaycoyo utilizing blue cornmeal filled with sheep’s milk feta and a foraged amaranth called quelites, making you feel like you’ve just come from a summer hike in the Catskills.

The early courses offer two other stunners, a tostada with Spanish boquerones and trout roe, for a crunchy and colorful dish. Then there’s a currently fashionable and flavorful aguachile ($22), featuring raw scallops in a cold broth of rhubarb and Meyer lemon.

The tenderized beef tongue is also impressive in a pale creamy sauce that reminded me of the walnut sauce in chiles en nogada; but a second darker sauce was much hotter and more oily. You probably wouldn’t know it contained grasshoppers if you hadn’t read it on the menu.

Among mains, Hernández is playful in his dish presentation: A whole grilled mackerel ($36) is a case in point. Simplest of the entrées, the head grins at you in a cross-eyed fashion as the creature bares its sharp teeth. The flavor is fresh and assertive, as you’d expect from a fish like mackerel.

I was astonished by the smoked goat birria tatemada ($33), the tatemade referencing the wood-burning oven. Years ago, I’d eaten goat birria in East LA and fell in love with its red and soupy magnificence. So, when beef birria arrived in our region, I was disappointed in the taste and texture of the beef, and wondered why no one dared to use goat. Hernandez does, and the meat is dense and striated so that it comes apart in thick strands, so flavorful that you’ll use up all the tortillas — nixtamalized in house and made to order. The dish is served with a hot sauce as well as chopped onions, cactus strips, radishes, and charred jalapeno.

Even with four diners, we felt like we’d missed half the menu and look forward to returning for the little gem salad with epazote dressing; smoked onion sope with fresh green chickpeas (an ingredient I’ve seen in Lebanese restaurants lately); and guava sorbet with lovage raspado — shaved ice.

The dining area offers views of the traffic exiting the Thruway, and tourists pulling their rolling suitcases toward their cabins: a pleasant enough sight, but you’ll find yourself avidly digging into the food with a renewed interest in the infinite possibilities of Mexican cuisine, especially when it’s tucked in a bucolic Catskills destination like this one.

2024-07-03T15:34:06Z dg43tfdfdgfd