This new SF store sells hard-to-find Mexican food and drink. Here’s what to get

It’s filled with smoky mezcal, hard-to-find Mexican wines, tangy salsas, and snacks prepared by the chefs of the La Cocina association. It’s a gold mine for home cooks and mixologists: there’s blue corn masa for making fresh tortillas, Rancho Gordo beans, and Oaxacan mole paste. For drinks, find ceiling-to-ceiling shelves of Mexican spirits, tonic syrups, and a habanero salt that is “born to mate with mezcal and tequila,” as the store’s website states. . Those looking for picnic fare can find yucca chips and salsas, among other snacks, as well as cold beer and a Michelada mix.

“While we had seen specialty stores for other crops, we had seen nothing for Mexican products. This is where this idea was born, ”Sadri said.

Sadri, a Bay Area native who is half Mexican and half Persian, has been addicted to mezcal for a fateful sip while serving as a bartender at Roy’s in San Francisco. He then met Thompson while they were both working at Cala, the now closed San Francisco restaurant of celebrity Mexican chef Gabriela Cámara. They also run Tahona, a Mexican restaurant with a mezcal tasting room, in San Diego. Marsilo Gabuardi, a former bar manager known for starting a series of mezcal dinners in Cala, also works with them at Tahona Mercado.

Like a wine merchant, this is the kind of place where you should take advantage of the owners’ expertise and seek help if you are unsure of what to buy. Sadri could point you to a brackish, grassy mezcal, or Thompson could tell you how they like to use Oakland’s salsa macha Kuali at home.

They plan to expand the market as they settle in, with plans to accommodate mets-mezcal pairings and to serve more food and drink, like aguas frescas and café de olla.

Here are six exciting things to eat and drink at Tahona Mercado. There’s no seating, but meet just two blocks from peaceful Huntington Park for a makeshift picnic.

Don Bugito sal de gusano

Tahona Mercado has several edible insect snacks from Don Bugito, one of the many La Cocina producers on the market, but the owners favorite is the sal de gusano. Typically, orange slices are sprinkled with salt and provide a palate cleanser in between sips of mezcal. Monica Martinez of Don Bugito makes hers from sea salt, chili powder and roasted chincuil, an agave worm from the mountains of northern Mexico. It’s earthy, salty, and spicy – perfect to use as a cocktail edge instead of Tajín, sprinkled over popcorn or fried eggs, Thompson said.

Casa de Chocolates

Sadri’s eyes pop out a bit when he talks about pairing Casa de Chocolates chocolate bars with his favorite mezcals. Confiserie Berkeley, run by Amelia Gonzalez and Arcelia Gallard, makes Latin American-inspired chocolates infused with ingredients like oranges from Valencia, tequila and hibiscus. Don’t miss the mole bar, 61% cocoa sprinkled with 11 chillies and hot spices like cloves and chili, which Sadri says will pair well with a bottle of Mal Bien mezcal with bright citrus. Other desserts of note in the market include the fruit paletas and pints of lobonada ice cream (half mango and half watermelon, topped with chamoy and Tajin) from Lobo’s Ice Cream in Novato.

Salsa macha

Tahona Mercado is currently the only place in San Francisco where you can find jars of the coveted Kuali Chili Oil Macha Salsa with Pumpkin Seeds, which is also making an appearance in the Market’s breakfast burrito. . Los Angeles masa supplier Masienda also offers salsa macha here. It comes in three unusual flavor combinations: chipotle-coffee-peanut, which Sadri spreads on toast; spicy guajillo-cranberry-hazelnut; and the powerful arbol-nori-sesame, with the added punch of Sichuan peppercorns. Sadri and Thompson like to put any of them on roasted vegetables, pizzas, salads, quesadillas and tamales.

Real mezcal Minero

The family that owns Real Minero in Oaxaca has been distilling mezcal in clay pots since the 1800s. Producing mezcal in clay pots is much more laborious and risky – the pots can break easily and are difficult to clean – but the payoff is high, Sadri said. “Because the clay pots are porous, they impart these lovely flavors to the mezcal – more earthy tones, even toffee and butterscotch,” he said. Tahona Mercado offers several of their mezcals, including a complex and almost flavorful pechuga mezcal (which is distilled with a piece of lamb suspended above it so that the fat from the meat drains into the alcohol) that the couple served at their wedding this summer. Other bottles have been produced through Real Minero’s Proyecto LAM, an effort to restore agave grapes close to extinction. Pick up a few veladora glasses, Catholic prayer candle holders made into Oaxacan shot glasses, to soak up at home.

Vinicola Bruma

Mexican wines remain scarce in the United States, so Tahona Mercado’s selection is remarkable. The store carries around 30 Mexican wines, including the recognizable natural Bichi and lesser-known producers in the United States like Vinicola Bruma. The Valle de Guadalupe winery is run by Lulu Martinez Ojeda, a native of Baja who studied winemaking in Bordeaux, France for over a decade, and is known for putting Mexican wine on the map. Tahona Mercado offers three Vinicola Bruma wines, including a mineral, not too woody, Chablis-style Chardonnay and a medium-bodied and well-balanced rosé.

Mexican tortas, quesadillas and pastries

Tahona Mercado doesn’t have a full kitchen, so they got creative with their hot food offerings, which is another way to showcase local Mexican producers as well. A quesadilla stuffed with tender mushrooms and poblano peppers gets a luminous infusion of herbal salsa from Pass the Sauced, another old one from La Cocina whose sauces are on sale at the market. A carnitas torta, the meat of the institution of San Francisco La Palma, is coated with serrano tomatillo salsa from Bolita Masa, a pop-up born out of a pandemic. The former pastry chef of Nopa Raquel Goldman of the Norte 54 pop-up is responsible for the yeast base of the sandwich: a baguette-shaped bolillo, crispy on the outside but soft on the inside. You can also find Norte 54 pastries at Tahona Mercado on weekends, like garibaldis, or small pound cakes, topped with pluot jam.

Tahona Mercado. From 11 a.m. to 7 p.m. from Tuesday to Friday and from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. from Saturday to Sunday. 1168 Leavenworth Street, San Francisco. tahonamercado.com

Elena Kadvany is a writer for the San Francisco Chronicle. Email: [email protected] Twitter: @ekadvany