• Melissa Pasanen
• Casimiro De Jésus Martínez (left) and Cayetano Santos in front of El Comal

Business partners Casimiro De Jesús Martínez and Cayetano Santos plan to open El Comal at 28 Taft Corners Shopping Center in Williston in February. Both are natives of Oaxaca, Mexico, who came to the United States in 2010. Their new restaurant is named for the traditional clay or cast-iron griddle used in foundational Latin American cooking techniques such as making tortillas and toasting chile peppers and spices.

De Jesús Martínez, 35, owned Piesanos Burlington for three years. Santos, 34, has worked in restaurants for many years and is an interpreter of Indigenous Oaxacan languages.

The pair said they will make everything from scratch for their restaurant, including fresh salsas and the rich sauces called moles. They plan to prepare fresh tortillas with corn they have nixtamalized in-house. That process involves boiling whole kernels with lime and then grinding them.

The restaurateurs said that, in addition to using Vermont ingredients, they will bring dried chiles and cacao from Oaxaca for their menu of regional specialties, which will include "real food you can find in Mexico," Santos said. Examples may include beef-based caldo de res soup, corn beverages called atoles and meats with chocolate-infused mole sauce.

"Many people have this idea of Mexican food as Tex-Mex," De Jesús Martínez said. "We are not going to do that."

"The idea is to let people know that Mexican food is not always with rice, beans and cheese," Santos added.

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