Charleston Restaurant House-made Tortilla Trend Shows Area Is Ready For More Tortillerias | Food

Partly cloudy skies. Low 61F. Winds NE at 5 to 10 mph..

Partly cloudy skies. Low 61F. Winds NE at 5 to 10 mph.

Daniel Milan (right) places a stack of corn tortillas onto a scale while Esteban Castaneda bags them to be distributed throughout Charleston at El Molino’s tortilleria on Friday, April 1, 2022 in West Ashley. Andrew J. Whitaker/Staff

Florencio Hernandez (from left), Esteban Castaneda and Daniel Milan work at various stations making corn tortillas at El Molino’s tortilleria on Friday, April 1, 2022, in West Ashley. Andrew J. Whitaker/Staff

Flattened masa is placed on a conveyor belt to be dried for corn tortillas at El Molino’s tortilleria on Friday, April 1, 2022, in West Ashley. Andrew J. Whitaker/Staff

Corn for Nixtate pop-ups is sourced from South Carolina farms. Nixtate/Provided

Fresh tortillas are pressed before each Nixtate pop-up. Nixtate/Provided

Vegan taco with roasted chayote-spiced red lentils with toasted chile oil, vegan queso fresco, radishes and cilantro. Nixtate/Provided

Restaurants serving house-made tortillas are a dime a dozen in regions across the country, including Arizona, California, Texas and even parts of Atlanta.

But recently opened and upcoming Charleston restaurants show early signs of a house-made tortilla trend coming to the Lowcountry.

Chef-made flour and corn tortillas will be on the menu at Minero when it opens on Johns Island this spring. Lewis Barbecue pitmaster John Lewis’ forthcoming restaurant Rancho Lewis will be outfitted with an in-house tortilleria that will churn out fresh corn and flour tortillas daily.

Two miles south on King Street, the Indigo Road Hospitality Group’s new Mexican concept Maya boasts an in-house masa program and corn sourced from Mexico, which chef Brett Riley is using to make fresh chips, tortillas and even waffles.

While these high-profile Charleston area eateries are bringing more attention to the impact fresh tortillas can have on the final product, two lesser known local businesses have been working for months to bring fresh tortillas to Charleston.

Ken and Seana Corona were both born in Los Angeles, a city filled with establishments serving fresh tortillas. When Ken’s job brought the couple to Charleston, they had trouble finding the traditional tortillas that have always been a Corona kitchen table staple.

Corn for Nixtate pop-ups is sourced from South Carolina farms. Nixtate/Provided

Missing this taste of home, Ken and Seana, a culinary school graduate who has worked in restaurants in California and Hawaii, launched Nixtate, a pop-up focused on using time-tested technique to make fresh tortillas for monthly meals at places like Cannonborough-Elliotborough dive bar Cutty’s.

In the future, they hope to turn Nixtate into their very own brick-and-mortar tortilleria.

“When we moved here, we had a really hard time finding the flavors and the kind of preparations we were looking for, so we ended up having to do it ourselves,” Seana said, describing the Nixtate pop-up. “We obviously love the food and love the flavors, and we hope other people would like it too, since we haven’t found anything like it here.”

Ken’s parents were born in Mexico, and his dad taught him everything there was to know about nixtamalization. To Ken, this complex-sounding process has always been simply making Mexican tortillas, an everyday occurrence in the Corona household.

Fresh tortillas are pressed before each Nixtate pop-up. Nixtate/Provided

“My father is known in the neighborhood as being the guy that makes menudo really well,” Ken said, describing the traditional Mexican soup. “There’s a handful of dishes that folks really specialize in, and my dad was one of those guys with making menudo. And in menudo is the nixtamalized corn.”

Nixtamalization is a term used to describe the process of cooking dried corn kernels in water and lime to create nixtamal, or cooked corn. The nixtamal then soaks in its cooking liquid, called nejayote. Around eight hours is a normal steeping time for most corn varietals. After this, the Coronas grind it up using a mill.

It comes out looking like soft Corn Flakes, and once it’s hydrated with water in a mixer, you have masa.

It’s a labor-intensive process, as John Lewis explained to The Post and Courier when discussing Rancho Lewis.

According to Ken, it’s important to keep the water between 70 and 90 degrees Celsius, and the cooking time varies depending on the type. For their pop-ups, the Coronas are sourcing corn from local South Carolina farms.

“So, for example, if you’re cooking something like Jimmy Red, (it) takes a little bit longer. It’s a harder, slightly more crystal corn,” said Ken, comparing Jimmy Red to Cocke's Prolific, a South Carolina heirloom corn, which is “a little bit softer, a little bit starchier, and it absorbs the lime.”

Flattened masa is placed on a conveyor belt to be dried for corn tortillas at El Molino’s tortilleria on Friday, April 1, 2022, in West Ashley. Andrew J. Whitaker/Staff

A tortilleria is a place offering scratch-made tortillas — similar to a bakery selling house-baked bread.

One of the reasons Lewis decided to build his own tortilleria inside Rancho Lewis is because he could not find a tortilleria in the Charleston area. Plans for the restaurant were finalized a little over six months ago, just before El Molino Supermarket at 1610 Sam Rittenberg Blvd. in West Ashley ordered machines from Mexico and added a tortilleria.

Restaurants in the Charleston area like Taco Boy and Santi’s, among others, now place weekly orders for fresh tortillas from El Molino, which translates to “the mill” in English — meaning the mill that’s used to process corn and make tortillas.

El Molino is one of the only places in the Charleston area making house-made tortillas that are available for pickup.They make tortillas early mornings at El Molino’s tortilleria in West Ashley.

According to El Molino manager Carol Saucedo, they fire up the machine each morning at 4 a.m. and make three types of corn tortillas: white, yellow and blue.

“The tortilleria originally comes from Mexico, obviously. We have factories that dedicate their services to making handmade tortillas,” Saucedo said. “It was something big for our store.”

Esteban Castaneda transfers the flattened masa to be dried for corn tortillas at El Molino’s tortilleria on Friday, April 1, 2022 in West Ashley. Andrew J. Whitaker/Staff

Flattened masa is placed on a conveyor belt to be dried for corn tortillas at El Molino’s tortilleria on Friday, April 1, 2022, in West Ashley. Andrew J. Whitaker/Staff

El Molino is one of the only places in the Charleston area making house-made tortillas that are available for pickup. Andrew J. Whitaker/Staff

Flattened masa is placed on a conveyor belt to be dried for corn tortillas at El Molino’s tortilleria on Friday, April 1, 2022 in West Ashley. Andrew J. Whitaker/Staff

Florencio Hernandez uses masa to be made into corn tortillas at El Molino’s tortilleria on Friday, April 1, 2022 in West Ashley. Andrew J. Whitaker/Staff

In-house corn tortillas are made at El Molino’s tortilleria on Friday, April 1, 2022 in West Ashley. Andrew J. Whitaker/Staff

A stack of tortillas weighing two pounds are placed in a bag to be shipped across Charleston at El Molino’s tortilleria on Friday, April 1, 2022 in West Ashley. Andrew J. Whitaker/Staff

In-house corn tortillas are made at El Molino’s tortilleria on Friday, April 1, 2022 in West Ashley. Andrew J. Whitaker/Staff

In-house corn tortillas are made at El Molino’s tortilleria on Friday, April 1, 2022 in West Ashley.