ROCHESTER — Wilber de la Rosa ’s vision for La Mayzteca , a new southeastern Rochester restaurant, starts with tortillas made with locally-grown, high-protein corn and naturally raised rotisserie chicken. De la Rosa, who has an agriculture degree, has been selling Guatemalan-style tortillas made from high lysine corn in the Twin Cities. Now he wants to introduce nixtamal tortillas, fresh chicken and artisanal salsa to Rochester via La Mayzteca, the restaurant that he is creating in Suite 500 at 1217 Marion Road SE.
La Mayzteca will join other tenants that include Golden Wok and Toppers pizza in that commercial center. ADVERTISEMENT He hopes to have La Mayzteca ready to open sometime in April with a staff of about four employees. The name combines the Spanish word for corn with Mayan and Aztec.
La Mayzteca will serve a menu of Mexican and Guatemalan foods for take out as well as selling bags of fresh corn tortillas and rotisserie chicken made with a Peruvian marinade. It will also serve the hot chocolate and corn drink called champurrado. De la Rosa is working with farmers in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Iowa to raise the corn and chickens.
“The high lysine corn has double the protein of normal corn and it is non-GMO. We make the tortillas from three ingredients - corn, lime and water,” he said. The tortilla making process, which originated with the Aztecs, is a time-consuming one with the cooked corn “resting” in a lime-water solution for six to eight hours before bei.