Restaurant

 

Dear customers:

It is with great sadness that I must inform you that I’ ve closed Zarela after 23 successful years with a Michelin bib as a ood.  We could not meet the rising costs (rent  was now 27000.00 per month) and though I loved the restaurant more than anything in the world and enjoyed meeting wonderful people and creating menus for you that you would enjoy, the numbers have to add up.

I hope to open in another location if I can find the right one and the investors to help me get it going but I am going to take a breather until the economy improves and I cannot live without the restaurant because, as I have said many times, being a restaurateur is a vocation, not an avocation.

Plesse not that my hope is  that someone will want to roll out one or two Zarela’s around the country so that other people get to know regional Mexican food  the way we make it.  Please contact me if you are interested. My email is zarela(at)zarela.com.

In the meantime, we  are catering and will cook for you privately.

Thank you for your support through the years.  I miss you,

Zarela

 

A Manhattan Institution
For 22 years Zarela Restaurant has been making many New Yorkers very, very happy while revolutionizing the whole way Americans perceive Mexican food. Today its earliest fans are bringing their children to be initiated into the signature red snapper hash, duck in spicy fruit sauce, rice with poblano chiles and sour cream, and what’s been called “the best flan ever tasted.” In the words of journalist Suzanne Hamlin, experiencing the true flavors of Mexican cuisine as they come to life here is “almost like discovering new colors…”

Zarela Restaurant Location:
953 Second Avenue
between 50th & 51st St.
New York,  NY  10022
Tel: 212-644-6740 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 212-644-6740 end_of_the_skype_highlighting Fax: 212-980-1073

Hours:
Lunch M-F 12:00-3:00PM
Dinner Mon-Thurs 5 -11:00PM
FRi-Sat 5:00-11:30PM
Sun 5:00-10:00

 

“Is Zarela Martinez the unsung hero of the city’s blazing Mexican food scene?  Those who can remember Manhattan’s tortilla wasteland of ten years ago would argue yes, because the talented chef and food scholar–who can still be found holding court at her favorite corner table most nights of the week –has been dishing up authentic fare since the late eighties.

Happy hour finds the bar flooded with a young, spirited crowd chucking back the addictive house margaritas.  some of them oblivious to the brilliance passing under their noses .  Try a fragrant bowl of rich, smoky posole, a bright chile relleno stuffed with chicharrones in a tomatillo sauce, or tender baby back ribs and Mexican sausage, marinated in lime, garlic, and oregano.Michelin Guide 2010. www.michelinguide.com

Zarela is living proof that Mexican food at its best can be judged by the same exacting standards as any other great cuisine. Since 1987, the menu has combined classical Mexican dishes and inventive new interpretations. Over the years it also has evolved to follow Zarela’s own passionate interest in Mexican regional cuisine’s. Whether you prefer northern-style fare like fajitas and crispy flautas, rich multi-layered Oaxacan moles, or the Mediterranean-tinged seafood of Veracruz, the spirit of Mexico sings through this food. Zarela features special weekend menus and monthly gastronomic tours of different states. You might walk into the restaurant and find special seasonal offerings like the Day of the Dead dishes available only in November, favorite’s from Zarela’s three acclaimed cookbooks, or discoveries she wants to share with you from her latest trip to Mexico.

Entering Zarela is like entering the home of a lively family who consider it an honor to welcome guests to their table. The food is served family-style so that everyone in a party can share all the dishes, an especially good arrangement for larger groups.

The premises of Zarela are also available for banquets and private parties.  Zarela Catering can bring the same festive atmosphere and wonderful food into your home or office Call us at 212-644-6740 begin_of_the_skype_highlighting 212-644-6740 end_of_the_skype_highlighting Or e-mail usatcatering@zarela.com

“Zarela Martinez and her namesake restaurant, Zarela, are Manhattan institutions, responsible for exposing this city’s diners to a Mexico more multifaceted than most Mexican restaurants visit.” - New York Times 2006

As Mexican cuisine gets more and more haute it’s refreshing to find Zarela as warm, friendly, and delicious as it was when it introduced New Yorkers to “real Mexican food” over 20 years ago.  Folk-art decor, tissue paper cut-outs and a knowledgeable, attentive staff creat a festive yet relaxed vibe that complements such dishes as chile relleno stuffed with “poor man’s picadillo- an expert combo of flavor and punch; sweetly sticky plantains served with Oaxacan mole; or one of the city’s best cochinita pibil, Yucatan slow-cooked pork marinated with achiote and oranges. Daily specials like a meaty grilled octopus spiked with jalapeno and garlic, point to an assured hand in the kitchen; thank goodness some things never change.” - Time Out New York Eating and Drinking 2009

“Still going strong”, Zarela Martinez’s “fast-paced” East Midtown duplex remains a “consistent winner” for “bold” Mexican chow and a “hopping ” nightlife scene at the “deafening” street-level bar; just “beware” of the margaritas so “lethal” that “you might forget to eat.”  Zagat 2010

New York Magazine

What passes for Mexican cooking in New York is a joke, though Zarela Martinez has never found it all that funny. So it’s lucky for you that her fierce pride in her country’s maligned cuisine is backed up by her fiery bravado in the kitchen. Taste her blazing poblanos rellenos, snapper hash, or her slow-cooked Oaxacan lamb, and you may suddenly have an urge to buy a great big Doberman pinscher on the outside chance that you might come across that Taco Bell chihuahua in a dark alley. Now, Zarela might find that funny. — Hal Rubenstein

Read more: Zarela – Midtown East – New York Magazine Restaurant Guide http://nymag.com/listings/restaurant/zarela/#ixzz0ZCgpouLe

 

 

Photographs © Gabriel Evans