Pez Cantina

Pez Cantina Restaurant Review:

About the restaurant: Chef/owner Bret Thompson’s swank and lively Bunker Hill restaurant brings coastal Mexican fare to enchanting levels. After 11 years with Patina Group, Thompson gathered a top team of Patina alums, his wife Lucy’s culinary Mexican family, and traveled from Baja to Oaxaca to the Yucatan in search of authentic flavors. The chef’s seafood sourcing and classical technique may bring “cantina classics” to fine dining standards, but there’s nothing stuffy about Pez.

Food & Drinks: A collection of hip urbanites and young professionals gather over mezcal cocktails in the sprawling, airy restaurant; the patio hosts lunch or after-work crowds sampling adobo chicken wings with cactus fries, and fish tacos on handmade tortillas. Seasonal ceviches include a shrimp aguachile, with a sonata of fresh green tones that spans serrano, avocado, cucumber and apple. Grilled octopus is tender, with a roasted poblano crema; posole verde is soulful. “Platos Generosos” are indeed huge, easily shared by two; don’t miss the Molcajete that arrives bubbling at your table in a traditional stone bowl, brimming with grilled carne asada, carnitas, tender shrimp, nopales and chorizo, melded in a complex tomato-chile stew. Desserts are all good, but we’re sweet on the tres leches flan cake with quince.