MAESTRO
ADDRESS: 110 Union Street, Pasadena, CA 91103
WEBSITE: https://www.maestropasadena.com/
One weekend, my friend Michele and I were looking around the San Gabriel Valley area for some Mexican food to go and try. The restaurant Maestro cropped up during our search, and it was a place that she had already bookmarked at some point to go try. No better time to go check it out, so we booked a reservation for a Saturday night dinner and headed over there.
Located in the Old Town Pasadena area, Maestro occupied the corner of a building on Union Street, with an additional outdoor seating area located down the side of the building on Big Bang Theory Way (an honorary street that the city commemorated after the TV show namesake). The inside of the restaurant was actually smaller than I expected, probably able to seat just under 30 people at the tables, with another 10 up at the bar. In the outdoor seating, that was more spread out, probably able to seat another 35 – 40 people.
The hostess ended up showing us to one of the outdoor tables, which was good since it was a pretty comfortable temperature that evening. There were portable heat lamps that got turned on as it got darker, and there were also decorative string lights that illuminated the area as well. I will say, however, that it was a bit interesting to consider the fact that we were just eating right in an alleyway, when looking back at it.
There was definitely a diversity of options on the menu, ranging from meats to seafood, so that definitely made it a bit harder to choose. I think at least six different dishes probably caught my eye while scanning through, but that certainly would have been way too much food. I’ve mentioned it before, but I’m a calamari type of guy (got it from my dad), so that made it onto our appetizer order. We decided to pair that with the guacamole, along with main entrées of the arrachera (Mexican skirt steak) and the scallops.
I don’t think it took very long for our appetizers to show up, with the guacamole arriving first, followed not long after with the calamari. The guacamole was pretty straightforward, the hand-smashed avocado tasting pretty fresh with the sprinkle of cotija cheese and microgreens. It was served with plantain chips to use as the scoop, and I thought that was a pretty smart idea. The calamari was also fried up pretty well, with a nice crisp to each piece and complemented well with the roasted red pepper purée. I might be a little bit partial to it, but the calamari edged out the guacamole as my preferred appetizer.
Our arrachera and scallop dishes arrived to the table not long after we finished off our appetizers, with the food contrasting nicely from the white backdrop of the plates. I started off with the skirt steak, which was citrus marinated and topped off with a house chorizo chimichurri. Even though it did have more of a medium-rare cook on there, I thought that the steak still ended up just a bit chewy for my liking. The flavor though, that was pretty good, with a nice balance between savory and a bit of heat from the chimichurri. I was also a fan of the poblano & chickpea rice, which had a nice creaminess to it, along with an overall earthy flavor.
The scallops though, Michele definitely made the right decision between the two entrées. Three seared Hokkaido scallops, served on a bed of huitlacoche rice, with oyster mushrooms and topped with epazote foam. Each scallop had a nice browning on both sides with the sear, yet it was still really tender on the inside. Scallops can definitely be delicate with their flavors, and I thought that the natural flavors from it were still able to come through. The huitlacoche rice and oyster mushrooms definitely helped provide a nice earthy flavor to add to the light flavor from the scallop as well.
There’s no mistaking that Maestro was attempting to put a more upscale spin on Mexican cuisine, evident in the plating, the quality of the ingredients, and the pricing. On one hand, I did appreciate the variety of the options on the menu, between the meat and the seafood choices. You really were able to find something to get, no matter what you were in the mood for. On the other hand, however, I didn’t feel that anything on the menu was different enough than what is offered at other Mexican restaurants that I would exclusively return to Maestro for. The outdoor ambiance of eating in an alleyway is not something I’d say fully justifies the extra cost either. Maestro is a place that I wouldn’t mind coming back to if others were recommending it, but I don’t know that I would suggest it on my own, given the number of other great restaurants also within the same general area.
Let’s now take a look at the Maestro Dish Spotlight. Asterisks (*) below mark my recommended dishes.
** Guacamole **
Hand-smashed avocado with cotija cheese and microgreens. Served with plantain chips.
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** Calamari **
Fried squid with roasted bell pepper purée, fresh lime juice, paprika, chive oil, and roasted arbol chiles.
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** Scallops **
Seared Hokkaido scallops, huitlacoche rice, epazote foam, and oyster mushrooms.
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** Arrachera **
Citrus marinated skirt steak, topped with house chorizo chimichurri, served with poblano & chickpea rice and mixed greens.
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And finally, here are my rankings for Maestro:
Food: 4.5 / 5
The array of different options on the menu was good, ranging between chicken to beef to pork to seafood. The food itself definitely tasted pretty fresh, and the flavors of the individual ingredients definitely came through.
Atmosphere: 3.75 / 5
There was definitely something about sitting out in the alleyway on the side of the restaurant that felt a bit off to me. But on the plus side, there was a musician that set up across the alleyway with a guitar to help bring the ambiance up a bit with the live music.
Service: 4 / 5
Our waiter, Cesar, did a good job with stopping by our table periodically throughout the meal to make sure that we had everything we needed. I also thought that the pacing of the food out of the kitchen seemed pretty good as well.
Price: 3.5 / 5
Some of the plates definitely leaned more on the expensive side, there’s no doubt about that. Your lowest priced entrée was $26, and even then you had some appetizers that were already close to hitting that price point. The food quality for what you pay, however, did end up pretty good, and I was a satisfied customer walking out.
Overall:
15.75 / 20
(79%)
Categories: California, Restaurants
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