It is one in the afternoon on Thursday, May 16, and people are clapping and shouting with joy. A row of thirty meters extends along Ribera de San Cosme Avenue. That lot of people have been there since 11 in the morning waiting to try and find out why the El Califa taqueria in León has won a Michelin star. The excitement is because the meat has finally arrived. “Yesterday everything ran out at 11 at night,” says Mario Hernández Alonso, owner of the site. “Today it took us a while to bring it because we went to look for pieces of the highest quality to supply ourselves and pay these people for their waiting time,” he says excitedly. His eyes fill with tears, his voice breaks when he talks about the recognition granted by Michelin.
“We didn’t expect it. It’s like she’s in a dream that I never want to wake up from.”
The line that crowds the sidewalk is something that has never happened before. “On weekends or Fridays sometimes (it is done), but in the five years I have been working here, I have never seen this,” says a smiling Oscar, an employee at a pharmacy next to the award-winning establishment. “You’re going to see that it’s going to go down. “This is not going to last long,” he says. He is right in what he says, nothing lasts forever, but Mario wants the furor to “never end.” He puts it in the hands of God, recognizing that they have nothing left but to enjoy it and enjoy it. “Not everyone has these types of awards and it makes one go further. It is a huge responsibility. This success leads us to border on excellence.”
The taqueria was founded in the late 60s. Juan Hernández González, Mario’s father, was the one who had the idea and created the concept that, to date, has not been modified. “You don’t have to compose what is good. My father one day told me, ‘there is no point in expanding, because greed breaks the bank.’ “We are going to stay the same.”
The concept was in Don Juan’s imagination, but the name was missing. He was inspired by one of his great friends: Rodolfo Gaona, one of the most important bullfighters in the history of Mexico, inventor of the gaonera (a forward throw with the cape on the back), considered one of the most elegant bullfighters in history and one of the first Mexicans to achieve success in Iberian territory. “Naming a bullfighter caliph was an honorable mention that was granted to the great matadors of the province of Córdoba, Spain,” explains Mario. “And he, being from León, Guanajuato, was baptized like this, The Caliph of León”. The figure of the matador darkened in December 1909; Rodolfo Gaona was arrested for the alleged murder of María Luisa Noecker. The 15-year-old girl was found shot in the belly and another in the head, lying on the bed in her room, surrounded by photographs of the Big Indian. Gaona spent 21 days in Belén prison and was acquitted due to lack of evidence.
Customers can order three types of tacos: steak, rib and gaonera. “What is the gaonera?”, thinks aloud a Peruvian girl who left the line to look into the 50-square-meter establishment while she looks at the menu. “I’ll answer you,” Mario tells him. “It is a finely cut piece of fillet, similar to cuete, and a beef does not have more than five kilos of this piece. It is very precious in the gastronomic world.” This cut was invented by her father, a butcher who mastered the trade. “At that time, the kids who started from the bottom were called ‘morrongos’. They were the ones who started the cleaning, washed the knives, threw sawdust,” Mario recalls for a few seconds, with his gaze lost. “My father started like this and reached such an important level of knowledge of meat that he obtained the title of ‘tablajero’, which would be like having a doctorate in this trade.”
Everything in the taqueria is historic. A portrait hangs on the wall as the only decoration of the place; is a photograph of the former presidential candidate for the Institutional Revolutionary Party (PRI), Luis Donaldo Colosio, accompanied by a journalistic text in which, in the form of a chronicle, he narrates a meeting with the politician in the small taqueria eating a steak taco and another rib “Thanks to the fact that the journalist put the name of the taqueria in the report, we gained popularity,” Mario acknowledges and confesses that Colosio visited them often; Walking the 650 meters from the PRI headquarters to San Cosme 56 is equivalent to a nine-minute journey.
The success of El Califa de León does not seem to end soon. The dream that Mario does not want to wake up from depends entirely on the clientele, as it has always been. “It’s because of them. The insignia, the Michelin star, is thanks to them. To these people who come and train and recommend us.” Mario is not clear about what caused them to be awarded the award; he has not been able to speak with the Michelin representatives who have attended the place because time is running out on the media. But, he half-jokingly says that the star is “because we are authentic. We have not changed since we started and we have always offered quality.”
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