SAUCE MAGAZINE
Posted On: 07/01/2010
Jason Tilford discovered his culinary calling in high school, while working at a seafood restaurant in Norfolk, Va. He xxthrived on the “controlled chaos” in the back of the house, where “everybody knew what was going on but it seemed like nobody did.” Tilford has been opening restaurants since 1994, including food service operations in the Kiel Center and Family Arena, Graffiti Grill, and Triumph Grill and Kota Wood Fire Grill in Midtown.
In 2004, just a month after Tilford helped his brother Adam open the doors to Tortillaría in the CWE, he launched his own restaurant, Barrister’s in Clayton. The two paired up again this spring, when Adam Tilford opened Milagro Modern Mexican and tapped his brother for kitchen duty at the upscale eatery in Webster Groves. Big bro Jason was more than happy to craft a menu for a Mexican restaurant where “you can eat an appetizer, have a Margarita, have dinner and a dessert, and you don’t walk out saying, ‘Oh, God, why did I eat so much?’”
What was the concept behind Milagro?
A place that wasn’t ground beef and cheese sauce.
What things on the menu are quintessential “Milagro” to you?
The ceviche. Traditional quesadillas. The queso fundido – you can find [that] in other places, but we make our own chorizo. A lot is presentation, making everything [from] scratch and using high-quality, fresh ingredients. For our carne asada, we use strip loin. It’s actually a strip steak marinated and grilled as opposed to a flat meat you get in other places.
Tell me about that mole poblano you use on the duck enchiladas and the roasted chicken plate. What’s the secret to this sublime red sauce?
There are about 18 to 20 ingredients in it. It’s all fresh, all high quality, no shortcuts, and it just cooks for a couple hours.
One interesting ingredient you are using at Milagro is a corn fungus called huitlacoche. Why was it important to you to offer a quesadilla filled with corn smut?
The concept was driven on traditional Mexican ingredients, so we wanted to use a few that people either hadn’t heard of or that we think are really unique to Mexico.
Are there other things on the menu that you think people haven’t tasted before?
We are using a lot of amber agave as a sweetener. We do an ancho-agave glaze, and it goes on the pork tamales. We do Mexican street corn, but we take it off the cob. We roast it on the grill so it gets that nutty flavor, toss in a little chile-lime mayo, top with cheese. Just how you do it down there but you kind of – not Americanize it, I don’t know what the word would be, modernize it? Modern Mexican.
Considering your work at Milagro, how do you find time to still chef at Kota and also run operations at Barrister’s?
You have to surround yourself with good people that you can trust to execute everything the right way.
Aren’t you tired?
Oh yeah, and that. Plus raise two kids. Carpool and soccer practices.
Speaking of soccer, Barrister’s has developed a reputation as a great place to watch a soccer match. Was that the original idea when you opened it in 2004?
The original idea was chef-inspired bar food – a gastropub but before gastropubs were popular. A neighborhood place with chef philosophies where everything is fresh, made from scratch, nothing frozen as opposed to frozen appetizers done in a deep fryer. … As a soccer fan, I chose to have all the soccer channels on our satellite TV. I wanted it to be a soccer place, but I didn’t want it to be obvious to everybody else. Well, it blew up pretty good, so now it’s obvious to everybody else.
Are you doing anything special at Barrister’s for the World Cup?
We’ll open at 9 a.m. for breakfast every day of the World Cup. … For the final game, we are probably just going to have a big party.
Milagro Modern Mexican
20 Allen Ave.
Webster Groves, 314.962.4300
