From Combo Platters to Tasting Menus, Mexican Fine Dining Comes of Age

When La Fonda del Sol, legendary restaurateur Joe Baum’s fine-dining pan-Latin restaurant, opened in New York City in 1960, its menu offered a plato Mexicano (“chile relleno, tamale, enchilada, and other Mexicana”) as part of its best-of approach to Latin cuisines. The restaurant is remembered more for its extravagant décor than its food, however, even if versions of Mexican...