Just a Taste: Craft tacos and happy hour queso at Chisme

Chisme is the new restaurant from the Empty Stomach restaurant group that includes Barbaro, Hot Joy and the late Monterey. Chisme is the new restaurant from the Empty Stomach restaurant group that includes Barbaro, Hot Joy and the late Monterey. Photo: Mike Sutter /San Antonio Express-News Photo: Mike Sutter /San Antonio Express-News Image 1 of / 12 Caption Close Just a Taste: Craft tacos and happy hour queso at Chisme 1 / 12 Back to Gallery

Where: 2403 N. St. Mary's St., 210-530-4236, eatchisme.com

Hours: 4-11 p.m. Sunday-Thursday; 4 p.m.-1 a.m. Friday-Saturday

On the menu: Guacamole and queso, $7.50-$13.50; vegetable sides and starters, $8.50-$11.50; tacos, $11.50-$13.50; salads, $14.50; campechana and aguachile, $14.50-$15.50; entrees, $16.50-$22.50; desserts, $7.

Fast facts: A project from the restaurant group behind Hot Joy, Barbaro and the late Monterey, Chisme raises the bar for Mexican food at this St Mary’s address, the former home of the original Teka Molino cafe. The renovated space, which opened Dec. 5, features a full bar, a patio lounge and a weekday happy hour from 4-6 p.m. with $5 margaritas and micheladas, $3 beers and free house-made tortilla chips with queso and a trio of salsas. The kitchen, run by San Antonio and Chicago veteran Mara Serna, turns out dressed-up quesos and guacamoles, a handful of tacos on handmade corn and flour tortillas and larger plates of grilled steak, chicken, barbacoa, shrimp and cochinita pibil. But no project from the Empty Stomach Group comes without surprises: green onion kimchi, Brussels sprouts with guajillo mole, pumpkin churros and a taco dressed out like a Mexican cheeseburger.

Impressions: Craft tacos with prices to match. Chisme seems to have a sense of St. Mary’s starched blue-collar vibe. The chips are fried fresh, the salsas ring with chile de arbol and fresh tomatillo and the margarita’s garnished with candied lime. An agua fresca made with tamarind and cinnamon’s served in a Collins glass with craft cocktail ice.

The staff’s young and energetic but unseasoned, which for now will leave you on your own to figure out a plate of cheek-meat barbacoa that’s started to congeal from sitting too long and “kimchi” that bears no resemblance to its Korean namesake. It’s more like undercooked cebollas with untrimmed stems like leather shoelaces.

Chisme’s flour tortillas were undercooked, but they worked fine in a Mexican cheeseburger taco filled with a ground beef patty and paper-thin ham slathered with queso and guacamole. At $12.50 for two, the value’s redeemed only partly by cumin-heavy rice and undercooked beans. Thick and pliant corn tortillas fared better, wrapped around lightly fried avocado tacos with cotija cheese at two for $11.50.

Is Chisme more of an irony-driven upscale taco dive or a straightforward new Mexican bistro? Too early to decide; but it’d do well to pick one or the other.

msutter@express-news.net