By Brenda Storch

When I last wrote about Cristian Orozco, he was fighting for Five O Four.

He had arrived as a consultant and stayed as an owner, pouring himself into a tiny restaurant in Glen Ellyn. He grew some of his own ingredients and cooked with an ambition far greater than the size of the room.

And then it was gone.

Five O Four ended painfully, leaving Cristian without his livelihood and with some difficult lessons about partnerships and the business behind the kitchen.

Luckily for those of us in the city, Mazor is what came next.

The name comes from mazorca, an ear of corn, and masa is at the center of this tiny restaurant. The tight menu features a selection of masa-centric handhelds, including tacos, a tuna tostada and tetelas. Here, the food is approachable without ever being ordinary.

And that’s an important distinction. Mexican cooking has always understood that simplicity can be demanding. A tortilla has only a few ingredients, but making a great one takes great skill.

Even then, Cristian’s attention extended beyond the kitchen. Herbs and edible flowers found their way onto his plates, often with remarkable beauty.

I still remember his tetela. The triangular pocket of masa held an entire universe: Oaxacan cheese, avocado, beans and a nasturtium Cristian had grown himself.  Its placement felt like a deliberate act of poetry.

“I like cooking with flowers,” he told me then. “It reminds me of the gardens of my childhood.”

The tetela has followed him to Mazor. But it belongs to a different restaurant now. And, perhaps, to a different Cristian.

When I first met him, Cristian reminded me of those young singers who sing with an emotion beyond their years. He cooks that way, too.

He honed his chops at Acadia, Tzuco and North Pond, where precision matters and a sauce, a garnish or the placement of a single ingredient can transform a plate.

But Mazor doesn’t feel like a chef trying to show you everything he knows.

Instead, you taste that experience in a bluefin tuna tostada with avocado and salsa macha; a rib-eye taco with grilled onions, cheese and crispy potatoes; chicken tinga tucked into blue corn masa; and a hibiscus flan with toasted white chocolate.

There is sophistication here, but it doesn’t ask you to dress up for it. Perhaps that is what I like most about this tiny place.

And then there are the things that aren’t on the menu.

If you’re lucky, you might find a remarkable carne en su jugo, the kind of food the staff cooks for themselves and doesn’t mind sharing. There is something particularly welcoming and genuine about being handed a bowl of what the kitchen made for the staff.

Cristian’s cooking has always reminded me of the cooks who patronize the chinamperos of Mexico — people whose understanding of food begins before the kitchen, with the land and what it gives us.

Those ingredients are sacred– they carry memory, just as the recipes handed down to us carry the hands and histories of those who came before.

None of it needs to be expensive to be extraordinary.

It already is.

It just needs someone to pay attention.

MAZOR
485 N. Milwaukee Ave.
Chicago, IL 60654
Phone: 312-238-9792
Hours: Monday-Thursday, 11 a.m.-9 p.m.; Friday-Saturday, 11 a.m.-midnight; closed Sunday.