El Vez

Photo By: Michael T. Regan

by A.D. Amorosi

After its visual presentation, the most prominent element of Stephen Starr's ninth restaubar, El Vez, is the raucous nature of executive chef Jose Garces' ultra-fresh fare (like his handmade guacamole, prepared tableside), which meshes perfectly with the kinky, kitschy decor of the room. Only Starr's stately but ice-cool Morimoto comes as close to perfect synergy between cuisine and design. From El Vez's campy, neon signage to the mosaic-tiled bar and its rotating centerpiece, a gold-plated low-rider bicycle (designed by sculptor Phil Mestas, with Oscar De La Hoya tchotchkes stuck inside its workings), the place is Mexicali '60s/'70s pop as religious experience. Some of El Vez's fun seems to be up to the clientele to provide, with communal tables and an old-school, curtained-off photo booth, snapshots from which adorn the walkway to the bathrooms. At times, there is a sumptuous, hidden delicateness at work, both in the nontraditional Mexican fare and the decor's tonal palette of warm reds and golds, a simmering heat reflected in the high-backed velvet banquettes. But after that, nothing at El Vez is low-key. The back-wall mural screen (featuring toreadors in sombreros, screaming señoritas, pompadoured Presleys and bits o' Charo) matches El Vez's lampshades and lighting sconces. There's a gold-plated guacamole cart, wheeled about by servers squashing avocados, onions and fresh-squeezed lime juice into a lava-rock pig for a mortar-and-pestle effect. There's gold plate everywhere you stare, and you can't help but get dizzy when you focus on the brightly lit De La Hoya bike (it reportedly cost $15,000). And, of course, there's the amber-backlit diorama of 70-some handmade Day of the Dead dolls, posed in different tableaux -- playing guitars, kissing, mourning -- with bleeding, flaming hearts and crosses stuck within this multilayered landscape of freak-outs, Mexican style. Olé, baby.

El Vez, 13th and Sansom sts., 215-928-9800.

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