La Jefa: Philly’s New Guadaladelphian Cafe and Agave Bar

Dan Suro standing at the door of La Jefa. / Photographs by Kae Lani Palmisano

Behind the Line is Foobooz’s interview series with the people who make up Philly’s dynamic bar and restaurant scene. For the complete archives, go here.

One of the most exciting experiences I’ve had at a bar in the last five years was at Tequilas, under the careful hospitality of Dan Suro. Dan’s dad, David, founded Tequilas in the 1980s as one of the city’s first white tablecloth Mexican restaurants, but Dan has stepped into his own in the last few years as a collaborator with his father on both the restaurant and the family’s liquor import company, Siembra Azul.

On the evening I met Dan, he poured a couple of the brand’s tequilas and mezcals for me to try, pairing them unexpectedly with local cheeses, which brought out vegetal, creamy notes in the liquor — totally different than the smoke-dominant mezcal I was accustomed to.

As I peppered him with questions, he showed me something I’d never seen before: cooked pieces of agave from the very same plant that had produced the mezcal I was drinking, which he encouraged me to smell and taste. It brought to life something I’d known but not understood so viscerally: that agave spirits, when they’re well made, are expressive of the plants that make them. Dan’s ease with the topic and friendly knowledge made me want to learn (and drink!) more.

Not long after that, a kitchen fire ravaged Tequilas, forcing the family to close for more than two years as they rebuilt and reimagined the whole space. With Tequilas finally open, Dan is now preparing to introduce Philadelphia to La Jefa, his dream bar, which has transformed the back half of Tequilas’s building into an all-day cafe with natural wine and agave-focused cocktails. We chatted about how he’s brought La Jefa to life, the connections between Philadelphia and Guadalajara, and more.

The idea for La Jefa came from … my mom’s nickname. She passed away a few years ago, but everyone called her La Jefa. A month before the fire, on my mother’s birthday, the staff all did a cheers to her, and everyone said “La Jefa!” at the same time. And that’s kind of when it clicked for me that I wanted to open a restaurant or bar with that name.

I see it as the next evolution of Tequilas because … Tequilas needed to grow. When my dad started it, it was groundbreaking, and it was pushing forward the conversation in Philadelphia about what Mexican food could be. And now it’s time to do that again. The whole thing is trying to do what Tequilas did in the beginning, which was traditional food, but there’s a story behind each dish.

The process of rebuilding the restaurant has been … long. It has taken so much longer than any of us thought, but it also has given us the chance to really think about what matters to us in this space. Every piece of decor, from tiles, light fixtures, counters, chairs, table, it all came from Mexico and I think you can feel that when you’re in here.

La Jefa will serve … a really amazing brunch every day we’re open, with torta ahogadas, which is like a carnitas sandwich kind of drowned in a tomato sauce. It fits really well with Philly, with this idea of Guadaladelphia that we’re exploring. We’ll have a chilaquiles omelet, we’ll do fluffy grapefruit garibaldis, all the things people want during the day. At dinner it’ll be similar, rooted in traditional stuff but we’re serving it the way people are doing it now in Mexico. For example, we have a carne en su jugo dish, which is a huge Tapatio dish, but we’re doing a kind of modern version. It’s all really fun.

La Jefa’s sign

My favorite dish is … the pastrami de lengua on the lunch menu, which is just fucking stellar.

We’re calling it Guadaladelphian food because … we want to represent what’s going on right now in Mexico, and the connections between Mexico and Philly, how food has evolved down there. Part of that is our coffee program.

The coffee program is led by … Shakur Armstrong, our head of coffee and fermentation. We’re sourcing beans from Mexico through a partnership with Cafe Estelar, which is this amazing coffee roaster in Guadalajara. We’ll have drip coffee and espresso, but also Mexican coffee drinks that you can’t really get anywhere else in Philly.

At night, La Jefa will change into … two different bar programs, which will both serve food as well. The front area will be La Jefa Cafe, while the back will be a more intimate space with a different menu we’re calling La Jefa Milpa.

The difference is … La Jefa Cafe will be more casual, with amazing house-fermented high balls with things like an agave soda we’re fermenting ourselves out of cooked agave we’re importing from our distillers. We’ll have my mom’s favorite drink, which was Siembra Azul, ginger beer and basil, but Shakur is making this incredible ginger beer from scratch. Milpa refers to the oldest style of farming in the world, and the idea is that each cocktail is going to be symbolic of an ingredient that’s a part of that, like masa, agave, marigolds, all ingredients that are important in Mexico.

La Jefa’s exterior

My collaborator on this is … Danny Childs. He and I have become friends and we went down to Mexico and brought back tons of ingredients that we’ve been using to develop the recipes. Danny is so talented, and we’ve had a ton of fun working together on this cocktail program.

My favorite cocktail is … this masa Ramos that we’re doing, pulling from a traditional Ramos gin fizz [which has egg white and heavy cream.] It’s a corn spirit base called pox, from Chiapas, and it kind of drinks like a masa milkshake. It’s really cool.

Tequilas’s style is … educationally focused hospitality. That’s what I learned from my dad, and it’s very unique. It’s great food, and it’s a really fun restaurant, but the primary focus is education. It’s the same thing with Siembra Spirits, because all these spirits are incredible, but the purpose for them is to kind of like, be a window into what’s going on in Mexico and in the world. I want to continue with that idea.

I hope La Jefa will be … a space where people can come and have fun. You can dance a little bit and have a great mezcal in your hand, and also feel really connected to the story that we want to share. I hope we do for cocktails what Tequilas did for Mexican food.