I’d posted a blog about Cafe MuRo already this year. I’d talked about how they were the most highly rated San Miguel de Allende restaurant on Trip Advisor. But that review was based on past experience. Don Day had been so busy checking out all of the new San Miguel restaurants, Don Day still hadn’t made his inaugural 2014 visit to MuRo. Until last week.
It was a special occasion that took me there. It was the occasion of my photographer friend Niels Henriksen’s first ever one-man show. And it was being held in Galeria MuRo, the pleasant little room that sits in the corner of the restaurant.
Having your first show is like having your first car, your first home, maybe even your first child. But without the sleepless nights. Well maybe there are a couple of sleepless nights. Wondering if anyone will come. Wondering if they’ll really like the work. Wondering if they’ll buy anything.
You can make the same comparisons with a restaurant. Each day, the restaurant has to wonder how many people will show up, what they’ll choose to eat and will they like it enough to come back. Over the first couple of years, a restaurant should continue to improve the formula. Cafe MuRo, which has now been around for a couple of years, seems to have the formula mastered.
Niels and I sat in an area of MuRo that’s a favorite of both of us. The corner of a little anteroom that’s off to the side of the main dining room and just in front of the gallery. We talked about food, about restaurants, about photography and about ambitions. But first we ordered.
Each day, Cafe MuRo has a prix fixe special. Each day that he’s there, the special is what Don Day almost always orders. For no other reason than it’s one of the best value meals anywhere in San Miguel. It starts with a choice of soup. On this day, there were a choice of five. Apple, potato, Azteca, chicken or carrot. Don Day chose the carrot. Niels chose the Azteca.
Niels told me he really likes soups and Don Day told Niels he really liked the zanahoria (it tastes so much better when you use the Spanish word for carrot). It was deep in flavor, creamy but not heavy and had a nice dash of crisp croutons floating on top. I know you can’t eat the bowl but the glass one the soup was served in was perfect for showing off the flaxen color.
I’m not sure how old Niels Henriksen is but I’m guessing he’s not too very far behind Don Day. And Don Day knows the lyrics to most Rosemary Clooney songs. In fact, just by typing those words, Don Day is now humming “This old house…”.
Niels was what we used to call a public servant back in those Rosemary Clooney days. He worked for the Federal Government in Canada and his job had absolutely nothing to do with anything remotely artistic. But in his spare time, Niels took photographs and painted pictures and made promises to himself about what he would do when he retired.
Niels participated in a few group shows in Ottawa. They were art-in-the-park type shows or exhibitions where he’d share walls with other local artists. When he began escaping Ottawa winters for San Miguel, things became a little more serious. Niels started posting his work on websites, he began doing walks with amateur photographers, he gave lessons on technology and techniques, and he started to hear people tell him how good his work was. Over and over again.
Don Day has told Gerardo Arteaga and Carlos MuRo how good their food is but he can’t remember ever telling them how good their work is. He should. What makes the work of Gerardo and Carlos so good is that they do things that other restaurant owners don’t do. I can’t think of any other restaurant than Cafe MuRo that brings a hand sanitizer to your table shortly after you’re seated. I can’t think of another restaurant where both of the owners actually wait on tables. I can’t think of another restaurant that makes the way of tipping the musician so tasteful. Or fills the fruit water and coffee so attentively. Or brings two tasty lollipops in a little pail with the bill. They’re all little things, but as Rosemary Clooney’s contemporary Kitty Kallen once sang, “Little Things Mean A Lot”.
The choice of prix fixe entrees at Cafe MuRo were a pepper stuffed with fish and topped with pomegranate sauce, chicken tostados, or the MuRo salad. Niels and I had both chosen MuRo‘s variations on chiles relleno in the past so the fish was an easy choice.
“I’m big on local flavor and will almost always choose regional Mexican dishes,” said Niels.
The still firm fish was done in a fruit sauce that brought memories of an Asian sweet and sour. It wasn’t just the pomegranate sauce but the sprinkles of sesame seeds and the heat from the poblano that made the dish so flavorful.
Choosing the right flavor for his MuRo show was not quite as easy as choosing his main course for Niels Henriksen, so he’s chosen two themes. The first group of photographs are in color and showcase arches in and around San Miguel. The second group features men in hats, a series of black and white portraits of some of San Miguel’s local heroes.
“I’ve tried to enrich the character of each subject in order to create a film noir version of each person”, Niels told me.
“I’m aware that portraits are tough to sell to almost anyone but family, friends and fans but I’m so proud of them. I’ve just loved doing them.”
Don Day loves the way Niels uses only natural light to illuminate his subjects, how they look so unposed and, fan of the subjects or not, how a grouping of the portraits would be a good choice for a currently bare wall in Don Day’s den (hopefully Don Day’s Wife reads Don Day’s blog).
There were four choices of dessert on the Cafe MuRo prix fixe. Don Day chose the chocolate layer cake. It’s one of the desserts that’s made in-house at MuRo. Though the cream filling may have never seen the inside of an udder, the cake was perfect in texture and moistness and rich in chocolate flavor.
As our substantial stomachs began feeling full, we began to talk about the pros and cons of being a “starving artist”.
“Sometimes I think that my government pension is my toughest obstacle. Sometimes I wish I was hungrier”, Niels explained.
“It’s too easy to treat my art as a hobby. But to do your best work, you must treat it like a business. To be successful, it must be a career. It must be almost all encompassing.”
We’d had almost all of our meal at Cafe MuRo but the prix fixe there also includes drinks. There had been an endless glass of jamaica, a juice made from hibiscus blossoms with the food and now there was coffee. It’s a simple coffee that Don Day would simply rate as one of the best coffees in San Miguel.
As I thought about Niels’ show and the two categories of work, the color and the black and white, the people and the places, I thought about how I categorize restaurants.
Don Day divides his restaurants into two categories. High end and low end. And Don Day’s dividing point between the two is the size of the check. If the average lunch bill (not including alcohol of course) is less than $10, it’s considered a low end restaurant. If the average lunch is more than $10, it’s judged as a high end restaurant. And each of those categories is judged in a different way.
At 110 pesos for the prix fixe lunch or about $9 U.S. or Canadian, Cafe MuRo falls into the low end category. Which makes the restaurant so very hard to judge. The ambience, the atmosphere, the attitude at Cafe MuRo are all at levels that you would only ever expect (and rarely ever get) from a high end restaurant. The furniture is as nice as most high ends. The linens are as nice as most high ends. The dishes and flatware are as nice as most high ends. The live music is as nice as most high ends. The decor is as nice as most high ends. The service is even better than most high ends. And the value is at least as good as any high or low end restaurant in San Miguel de Allende.
I would also class Niels Henriksen’s work as low end in price. I’d also say that it has excellent value.
“I realize MuRo isn’t MOMA,” said Niels. “There are dreams and there are realities.”
“This is really only my starting point. I’m learning from what I do and what the people who visit the show say. I’ve sold three works and, by the end of the show, there’ll hopefully be a few more red dots.”
In case you don’t know, when an item is sold in an art gallery, a red dot is placed in the corner of the work. If Don Day placed red dots on the restaurants he was sold on, there would definitely be a dot on Cafe MuRo.
Cafe MuRo is located at 10B Loreto (close to the Biblioteca) in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. The restaurant is open from 9:00 am to 4:30 pm. Closed Wednesdays.
Niels Henriksen’s show continues at Galleria MuRo until February 27, 2014.
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