The Food Chain

Bix’s Bruce Hill Finds La Superior’s Torta Ahogada ‘Amazing’

La Superior's torta ahogada.
La Superior’s torta ahogada. Photo: Melissa Hom

Each week on the Food Chain, we ask a chef to describe a dish he or she recently enjoyed. The chef who prepared the dish responds and then picks his or her own memorable meal. On and on it goes. Last week, Brent Berkowitz, the operations manager at Innovative Dining Group in Los Angeles, praised the tableside steak tartare at Bix in San Francisco. Now Bix’s executive chef, Bruce Hill, tells us what’s wowed him recently.

Who: Bruce Hill, executive chef at Bix, Picco, and Zero Zero in San Francisco
What: Torta ahogada
Where: La Superior, Brooklyn

“It’s just an amazing, amazing dish — it’s a carnitas sandwich, a slider roll with carnitas, smothered with two different red sauces. I was in Williamsburg and visiting a chef who used to work for me at Picco — Braden Reardon, who works at Blue Water Grill now — it was late one Saturday night and he took me there, and we were both kinda buzzed. It was just this late-night, delicious, sopping-wet sandwich. It’s a mess. I just dove in and it really made me happy.”

Felipe Mendez, owner of La Superior, responds:

“It tastes good because it has slow-cooked pork confit; it takes about eight or nine hours. The bread is fresh every day: It’s a Mexican sourdough. We put a tomato non-spicy jalapeño sauce and arbol pepper sauce. That’s our tradition in Mexico. This is from Guadalajara — it’s the most popular dish in Guadalajara.”

Bix’s Bruce Hill Finds La Superior’s Torta Ahogada