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There is a method to Merino’s extravagant madness: He wants to push Mexican food into an extremely fancy category in one fell swoop, hoping to shatter the “‘cheap’ stereotype” that Mexican food sometimes gets trapped in:

I was thinking I wanted to do something different, something unique, something people can discover the diversity of Mexico and Mexican cuisine at a different level—at a level a lot of people haven’t seen unless they’ve traveled to New York or Mexico City, where you can find some of these restaurants.

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Merino points out that many Mexican ingredients are expensive and complex—making mole can take at least a day—making the “cheaper the better” taco an unfortunate and incorrect stereotype.

And after all, Detroit, like other metro areas, has seen a recent push into exorbitant menu items that hungry folks will actually pay for. There was the $55 Rugby Grille burger, followed by the $80 cocktail at the Bad Luck Bar—which was eventually replaced with a $120 option.