Latinx Heritage Month at diego in chicago

Sep 18

We partnered with Bartender Magazine and 1800 Tequila on three featured cocktails, on the menu through the end of October. Each one came from a bartender who built it around something personal. Come try all three. Tell us which one you'd fight for.

*Micho’*, by Pedro Avalos, is named for his family's home state in Mexico, ***Michoacán***. Corn silk syrup and pasilla pepper syrup underneath, barrel bitters resting on top of the foam for added aromatics.

*Pedro Avalos, Bartender at Diego in Chicago’s West Town.*

*Media Noche*, by Lizmara Armenta, is built around mole — the spices her grandmother cooked with when she'd visit as a kid. Crème de violette, a chipotle-berry compote, a hibiscus salt rim.

*Lizmara Armenta, Bartender at Diego in Chicago’s West Town.*

***Cumbia Paloma*** is the simplest of the three: tequila, jalapeño liqueur, a touch of lime, grapefruit soda (Squirt is what they would pour you in Mexico), and your favorite sea salt. This leans heavily into the traditional Paloma build our team enjoyed in Guadalajara, with the added complexity of a well-made liqueur.
Our team loves Fruitful Liqueurs, domestically made and immigrant-owned as well.

Why We're Doing This

Latinx Heritage Month didn't start as a month. It started as a week, in 1968, when Congress passed a resolution and President Johnson signed it into law that September. Twenty years later, in 1988, it got extended to a full month under President Reagan, after lawmakers argued a week wasn't enough time to do it properly.

The dates aren't random. September 15 is independence day for five countries — Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica — all breaking from Spain in 1821. September 16 is Mexico's. The month opens with a run of countries declaring they were done being colonies.

That's worth sitting with. This isn't a heritage month that happens to fall in September. It's built around the anniversary of people deciding, on paper and by force, that they'd govern themselves.

We're not historians. We're a kitchen. But we think that history belongs on the table, not just in a textbook.

**Micho’**

*By Pedro Avalos, named for his family's home state in Mexico,* Michoacán.
2 oz 1800 Tequila Reposado
1 oz corn silk syrup
0.5 oz pasilla pepper syrup
0.5 oz lime juice
Barrel bitters, floated on top
Dash of Fee Foam — *or 1 egg white*
Shake the tequila, corn silk syrup, pasilla pepper syrup, and lime juice hard with ice. Strain into a glass, top with the foam, and float the barrel bitters so they sit on the surface.

What's On the Table

Every dish here carries someone's decisions — what their grandmother had on hand, what got swapped out when it wasn't, what got added along the way. That's not a compromise. That's just how food stays alive.

The same goes for the people who make it. Diego holds Mexico, San Diego, and Chicago's West Side, all at once, behind the bar and in the kitchen. Recipes that traveled through families, then adjusted slightlywith the new generation.

Tell us the dish that means home to you. We're reading every comment.