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Chefs + Restaurants

Do You Like Piña Colada?

04.05.07
luchador

It might've been the mescal-spiked white-chocolate-ganache-frosted devil's food cupcakes talking, but I so wanted to jump into the Lucha Libre ring at the recent 20th-anniversary party for Frontera Grill. Rick Bayless celebrated by throwing down a benefit bash at his first restaurant, which spilled over to adjoining Topolobampo and then out to a Cirque du Soleil-style dessert tent. (That masked luchador is passing out the chef's signature Chocolate Pecan Bars.) One of the most exquisite bites of the four-course dinner was sustainable sashimi-grade Kona Kampachi with spicy Mexican chimichurri and toasted pine nuts, created by guest chef Enrique Olvera, of Mexico City's Pujol. After a tequila digestif (Paradiso Frontero created especially for the event by El Tesoro's master distiller), the 350 friends and family members at the $200-per-plate dinner strolled over to the big top. We danced salsa to the rhythms of a mambo orchestra, further fueled by prickly-pear ice cream cones, margarita cotton candy, and those taunting Lucha Libre wrestlers. Party proceeds will fund a Mexican-American student scholarship at local culinary school Kendall College.