Soulful sauce provides magic in Grant Park

Mole, Oaxaca’s national dish, is more than sustenance; it’s a celebration, a technique, heritage. Its magic lies in the building of flavor from a copious list of ingredients.

I found mole magic at Patria Cocina in Grant Park. Delivered as a shareable dish on three crisp, house-made tostadas, Patria’s mole can be an appetizer or an entree.

The sauce — mixed with tender chicken — was topped with pickled red onion, cotija cheese and sliced avocado. Dark as night and with a swirl of aromas, the mole engaged all my senses. It tasted of decades of recipes handed down. I could envision the grinding of rehydrated chiles to add thickness, bitterness and fruity notes; the toasting of nuts and seeds; and the hours of stirring. The sauce was velvety, weighty and toed the line between sweet and savory, with a slow heat that built.