Document text
- Subscribe - Contact Us - Rate Card - Place an Ad Archives Revels Classifieds Real Estate Menu Guide Wedding Weather Subscribe Contact Us May 31, 2005 A new take on Mexican food By Amanda Bolsinger Tidings Correspondent Agave owner and employee Andrew Chester makes tortillas fresh every day at the new restaurant at 92 N. Main St. Photos by Orville Hector | Ashland Daily Tidings Black tile floors are accented by a one-of-a-kind decorated Coke machine and vibrant art hanging from the walls. It looks like an art gallery, but the smells of Mexican food give the olfactories clues that this “gallery” is something more. A gallery of sorts. A Mexican food restaurant, to be sure. But Agave’s owner is shooting for something just a bit more. The new restaurant on the downtown food scene is an eclectic combination of art and food. The food is traditional homemade Mexican. The restaurant is the gallery of Opie Snow. But there are no price tags on the art and no refried beans or lettuce in the kitchen. Former Black Sheep owner Andrew Chester created Agave to be a place known for high quality art and high quality food. He brought John Hinkle, a former Black Sheep executive chef, with him to make the food as impressive as the artwork. “It’s a little bit different,” Chester said. “It’s definitely where art meets food. We are trying to make it look every bit as good as the galleries with really high quality art in here. The food is also about quality, speed and cheap.” Snow was a waitress at the Black Sheep and Chester wanted to create a gallery space for her to get exposure and display her work. Combining it with a restaurant seemed like the perfect idea for a new Ashland restaurant. Snow’s work decorates the walls without price tags but Chester makes sure his customers know that they can purchase the work they are admiring. “I am waiting for her to paint another one,” Chester said. “I want to make sure there is a replacement for my walls before more of them are going.” The decor of Agave is meant to evoke an art gallery, and indeed, the artwork hanging on the walls is for sale. The restaurant is in a cozy 700-square-foot space that seats only 15 people. It already swells with customers but that’s what Chester had in mind when he designed the restaurant with its theme “Where art meets food.” “I had a vision of it being sort of the way it is,” Chester said. “As we worked on it the vision got stronger. Now it is visually as stunning as the food is.” The menu at Agave is an a la carte affair with tacos, tamales, soups, salads and desserts. Hinkle created ten different tacos for the menu with fillings like chicken, carne asada, fish and lobster, roasted duck and vegetarian. Prices start at $2.50 and head up to $8 for a lobster taco. Meals can be added to a plato for $3.95. With the plato comes rice, beans, chips and salsa along with the a la carte items. Everything on the menu is made from scratch, from the tortillas and the guacamole to the coconut-ice cream and the chocolate Kahlua puddle cake. In the kitchen, Maria, the fondly named, newly purchased tortilla machine, is constantly making hot, fresh tortillas. “Our guacamole is different from any other, we squash the avocados to order and don’t have any 55 gallon buckets sitting around,” Hinkle said. “And Maria, she makes all of our tortillas. She can make up to 1,000 in an hour.” Even the chips at Agave are homemade. Fresh tortillas are cut up and fried in the kitchen and served with a fresh batch of salsa. All food served is met with a nod of approval before it is served. “If it’s not good enough, then I’m not going to serve it that day,” Chester said. “If the cabbage isn’t fresh enough then I would rather say we are out then serve it. I’m going to throw it out rather then put it out if it’s not perfect.” Agave is located at 92 N. Main Street in downtown Ashland. DailyTidings.com Home Page Archives | Revels | Classifieds | Real Estate Guide | Weather | Subscribe | Contact Us Copyright 2005 Ashland Daily Tidings and Ottaway Newspapers All Rights Reserved Deep Muscle Stimulator Ceramic Piggy Banks FREE Entertainment Guide Women's & Men's Slippers Accelerate Weightloss Products Backpacks Online Pharmacy Vegas Travel Guide Search Engine Optimization Student Loans Hotel & Airline Reservations Hammocks Water Filter Helzberg Diamonds Online Casinos Community Bonus Casino Mortgage Calculator Security Systems Mailing Lists Click Here Advertisement .:Advertisements:. Site Search: RESOURCES - Mail Tribune News - ODOT Road Cams