by Taylor Bowler
“There’s a movement in California called Alta California cuisine,” says Vince Giancarlo, culinary director of B-Side Hospitality Group. “It’s a migration of Mexican food from the motherland to areas of Los Angeles and Baja California. In LA, they call it ‘Alta California.’ In Charlotte, we’d love to coin it ‘Left Coast Latino.’”
In late January, Giancarlo, along with Hector González-Mora and the team at B-Side Group, opened The Story of Mi Cariño (“my darling” in Spanish) in the former VANA space in South End. The menu is rooted in Alta California cuisine, which uses traditional Mexican ingredients like masa, mole and chiles but incorporates Spanish colonial and Californian influences. Americanized Mexican dishes often combine basic ingredients like tortillas, refried beans, lettuce and cheese. Mi Cariño recasts Mexican cuisine in an upscale context with American-style Wagyu, housemade queso Oaxaca, and rare, small-batch mezcals.
Giancarlo designed the menu with González-Mora, the former chef and owner of El Toro Bruto and Noche Bruta. González-Mora, a Los Angeles native born to Mexican parents, leads the kitchen at Mi Cariño. Core items like guacamole, ceviche, tacos and Wagyu ribeye anchor the menu, but they serve a rotation of seasonal dishes, too.
“I like to utilize Asian ingredients as well,” González-Mora says. “We’re making ponzu in-house — like a very citrusy, layered soy sauce — and we’ll ferment our own chili sauces. It’s not just one-tone Mexican food, which is acidic and salty and can sometimes be very redundant in flavors. We’re layering it with sweetness from the miso and ponzu.”
The Ceviche Tropicoso is inspired by a curry-infused ceviche he tried in Mexico City. González-Mora’s version uses tom kha gai, a Thai soup flavored with coconut, chiles and lemongrass. The Truffle Corn Dip, he says, isn’t Mexican or Latin but aligns with the spirit of the menu.
“I wanted to do something with lush ingredients and work with truffles and caviar (appearing on the Madonna Oysters) because I’m not always cooking with that stuff. These aren’t ingredients in my grandmother’s pantry,” he says, “but the way we present it and serve it, you’ll know it has a reference to the chiles with the smokiness.”
They also make queso Oaxaca in-house several times a week. The mild, stretchy cheese, often described as Mexico’s version of mozzarella, is something Giancarlo calls “a lost art.” The sourdough tortillas are another product of time, patience and skill.
Right: Camarones Kora
“Sometimes with tortillas, you taste the shortening and the flour,” González-Mora says, “but these ones have some complexity, a slight acidity, some nuttiness, and we’re using a good quality beef fat rendered from our own beef.”
“Hector hasn’t made a tortilla yet that I haven’t thought was the greatest thing ever,” Giancarlo adds. “You can eat them by themselves without anything on them, and they’re delicious. You can’t get these at Harris Teeter.”
Other highlights include Camarones Kora, a González-Mora family recipe that combines shrimp with a citrusy, chili-garlic butter sauce, and Akaushi Wagyu Ribeye paired with miso porridge.
“We’re dry-aging some of the beef with mezcal,” Giancarlo says. “It is next-world.”
Ceviche Tropicoso and Henry Schmulling, Hector González-Mora and Vince Giancarlo
The agave program matches the complexity of the food. Beverage director Henry Schmulling focuses on tequila and mezcal as well as lesser-known spirits like raicilla, sotol and bacanora. Classic and signature cocktails incorporate fresh juices, aguas frescas and handcrafted syrups — and match the energy of the music when the DJ takes over after dark.
Giancarlo, who ran Cantina 1511 for six years, says the 85-seat Mi Cariño bears little resemblance to that concept — or other cantinas and taquerias in Charlotte.
“The tacos aren’t the star,” he says. “They dance well with the rest of the menu. There are some ceviches, high-end steaks and pork dishes that nobody’s going to expect. It’s all going to be in that breadth of Alta California.” SP
