“Jason Malloff is about as close San Miguel comes to a rock star chef in this town and he’s built a solid fan base for Cafe Rama. A weekly email taunts me with what music to my mouth is on his current playlist. It works. About every two weeks, I’m at Cafe Rama. Faithfully.”

I wrote those words back in 2009. I don’t think I’d ever used the term rock star chef before. I don’t think I ever have since. Jason Malloff was different. In what was not much more than a converted shed, with not much more than a couple of gas elements, with some seldom seen here ingredients and inexpensive meat cuts, he juggled a range of ethnic influences into magic on a plate. And then, suddenly, one day, he was gone.

No one seemed to be sure why, when or where. There was talk he’d gone back to Canada. To the rockies in the interior of British Columbia. Maybe living the life of a ski bum.

“I remember the date I originally came down to San Miguel, September 9, 2008. I first came here as a bit of lark. I was supposed to be here for five days but one thing led to another and I ended up spending five years”, Jason told me the other night at San Mezcal, where he’s now creating magic again in San Miguel.

And why he left back in 2012?

“I don’t like to sling mud”, said the chef. “That was then, this is now. I left for Nelson, BC…ended up opening my own restaurant on the shores of Lake Kootenay in 2017. Called it Cabin.”

“It was a tough go…finding staff, living remotely. In 2019, I made the decision to return to San Miguel but then…well…you know what hit the fan. But on September 14, 2021 I was finally back, and five days later, Juan, Julio and I re-opened San Mezcal.”

Juan is Juan Leon de Vivero, the original owner of San Mezcal (and La Parada, the Peruvian restaurant a few doors down). Julio is Julio Hernandez, the Master Mescaliero who managed the bar back in Jason Malloff’s days at Cafe Rama.

“Juan and Julio are the only ones I ever thought of coming back to work with”, continued Jason. “Life has been lovely since that first day back.”

Juan Leon had locked the doors of San Mezcal BistroBar at the height of covid. In the pre-covid days, I thought of the place as mostly bar not bistro, mostly a place whose claim to fame was its supersize inventory (150+ bottles) of a liquor that I seldom drank. There was always food at San Mezcal, good food, food created by Juan’s talented wife, Chef Ale Gutt, but in my mind it was a place for liquid not solid refreshments.

In future, I think that’s going to change. I see the bistro half of San Mezcal’s name being in bolder letters than the bar.

There were a lot of things that set Jason Malloff’s cuisine apart from his San Miguel contemporaries back in 2009. One of those was what the hospitality industry calls “small plates”. They weren’t something revolutionary. They were similar dishes to what you’d see on the appetizer section of the menu of most upscale restaurants. What Jason Malloff did was take them from the starter section and move them to the mains. He then encouraged his clients to order three or four and share. It wasn’t an original idea. It had been done in many Asian restaurants forever. But never with the ingredients, sauces and style that Jason Malloff was putting on his small plates.

That style hasn’t changed. There’s a little more grey in the chef’s hair and a little more color in his ingredients but the small plates tradition continues at San Mezcal. There are 12 items on the menu. All are big enough to share but none are over 200 pesos.

The chef used the description “this is Italy meets Asia” as he started us with a spinach salad with Parmesan cheese, crispy leeks and a citrus, soy and truffle vinaigrette.

A lightly seared salmon carpaccio came next, topped with crispy garlic, generous chunks of ginger, scallions and sesame seeds.

A small piece of robalo, Mexico’s sea bass, followed, topped again with crispy leeks (“impossible to get enough of them”, said Don Day’s Wife). A miso chile mayo was ideal for dipping.

The chef’s beef tenderloin was served medium rare in a wasabi-pepper butter sauce.

We’d had four courses. The fond memories of Jason Malloff’s dishes from a decade ago were spinning in my head. I looked at the menu. I did a tally of how much we’d spent so far. It was about the same as one main course had cost in another restaurant that same week. I had to have one more dish.

Seared scallops, something I rarely eat at home, were staring back at me from the bottom of the list. I asked the chef if I could go into the kitchen to watch him prepare them.

“The scallops are pre-cooked to 50 degrees celsius for 14 minutes”, said Jason, perhaps revealing his previous career in biophysics. “They’re then placed on the flame for a few seconds for a little heat and a hint of color.”

As he gently placed the scallops on a lemon purée and topped them with crispy cauliflower and mushroom chips, the chef continued to talk passionately about textures and flavors. He’s a master of what I call foodspeak.

We were done, we thought, until Jason re-appeared from the kitchen.

“Can I get you guys a dessert.”, he asked.

“No thanks”, said Don Day’s Wife, “but I’d like to know what you have.”

“One’s mostly about lemon, another chocolate”, Jason replied.

“Lemon and chocolate, my two favorite finishers”, said Don Day’s Wife. “Maybe we should try one.”

“Bring us both”, I interjected.

The broken lemon tart combined lemon cream and lemon curd. The baked chocolate mousse was topped with sponge toffee.

Both were savory, not too sweet. Neither was too expensive. In fact, a steal at less than 100 pesos.

Jason Malloff was back in my life, back in my belly. It was the same Jason as a decade ago. Back then we inked a visit to his restaurant in our calendar every other week. He’s now back in our calendar.

San Mezcal is located at Calle Recreo 88 in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. The restaurant is open from Wednesday to Saturday, 3:00 to 11:00 pm; Sunday and Monday, 3:00 to 10:00 pm.