Las Vegas—Many Mexican restaurants in Las Vegas serve ready-to-wear corn tortillas, pulled straight from the package. Others send out semi-custom versions, made using purchased masa dough. Only a tiny handful offer couture tortillas, fashioned in house from imported heirloom corn that’s boiled, milled, formed into dough, pressed and griddled.
At Milpa, his restaurant on South Durango Drive, chef-owner DJ Flores has become one of the city’s leading champions and practitioners of this traditional method, shaping his masa into tortillas, tamales, tetelas (stuffed triangles), tostadas and more.
In 2016, while working a stage (an internship, pronounced stahj) at Quintonil, the Mexico City restaurant named among the world’s 50 best, the fresh blue corn tortillas served at staff meals delivered an epiphany, the chef said.
“I had never seen blue corn tortillas before. I tasted it. It blew my mind: the smell, the flavor, the color is beautiful. When I came back from my stage, I said, ‘I gotta bring this to Vegas.’”
Cut to Milpa’s launch in January 2021. “When I opened this place, a small restaurant, I wanted to grind it all myself. I just remembered the flavor of those tortillas. I thought, ‘If I can convey that to customers, have customers experience that as well, people will love it.’”
For Colored Corn, an Ancient Technique
Flores, 38, is a Vegas native. His resume includes stints at Strip standouts like Chica, Jaleo and Border Grill. Milpa takes its name from the term for Mexican cornfields also planted with squash and beans, the crops helping each other grow.
The chef sources 55-pound bags of red, yellow and blue dried corn, grown by small farmers in various regions of Mexico, each varietal contributing something distinctive to the masa. Blue cónico, for instance, makes excellent table tortillas. Yellow bolita, on the hand, works nicely for larger tortillas (or for hominy in pozole).
