Truffle Butter Dresses Up Tortillas at Chivos, Opening This Week

Calle Onze’s transformation into an inventive new Mexican-American restaurant is almost complete: the highly anticipated Chivos will open tomorrow, October 28, from the team behind Night Moves Hospitality. The restaurant is located at 222 West 11th Street in the Heights.

Chivos’ executive chef Thomas Bille boasts nearly two decades of fine dining experience, including stops at acclaimed spots like “Final Table” winner Timothy Hollingsworth’s Los Angeles restaurant Otium, Hugo Ortega’s Xochi, and his own buzzy-yet-short-lived suburban restaurant Belly of the Beast.

At Chivos, Bille will get creative by serving dishes that cross cultures, like pozole dumplings and duck accented by fig mole. Truffle butter and salmon roe will be a spread for handmade flour tortillas, and Bille will embrace indigenous techniques like nixtamalization for making corn tortillas.

Photo: Dylan McEwan

This is the latest from the busy young team at Night Moves Hospitality, who opened Space Cowboy in the Heights in the spring; Trash Panda Drinking Club in the summer; and Live Oak Grill earlier in October.

Night Moves Hospitality owner Greg Perez partnered with Calle Onze owner Chris Manriquez and Bille for Chivos, and the restaurant’s leadership team is all Mexican-American. Perez’s mother is from Guadalajara Jalisco; Manriquez’s family has roots in Guanajuato; and Bille is a first-generation Mexican-American.

Photo: Dylan McEwan

Celi Perez, former executive chef at Calle Onze, will transition to a front-of-house role at Chivos as general manager. Leesly Valdez will serve as bar manager, serving cocktails that pair Mexican spirits with flavors from Mexican candies and sweets. For example, the West Tejas centers around corn-infused tequila and hominy syrup while the Rutas Ganseras is inspired by the Mexican dessert cake Gansitos.

Dylan McEwan

Like Space Cowboy and Trash Panda, Night Moves Hospitality gave this restaurant a unique name. “Chivos is Spanish for goats,” Perez said in a press release. “The name is a play on the acronym G.O.A.T. (Greatest of All Time) and personifies our concept and group’s ethos. We deeply admire anyone who aspires to be the greatest in their profession, so we strive to pursue the same greatness for our guests.”

Chivos will open on Wednesdays, Thursdays and Sundays from 5 to 10 p.m., and Fridays and Saturdays from 5 to 11 p.m.

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