Alex Mitow Serving Lechón

For four days in April, Alex Mitow, owner of Los Perros Locos—the LES spot slinging Colombian hot dogs—opened a theme-y pop up diner in the spot on Grand Street previously home to Noah’s Ark. All-American Diner: !A Pop-Up! was an experiment combining art, music and food. The tagline for Saturday, April 19, was Comedera Jevy: DDD (Díp-sters, Dining and Dancing), which translated into a Latin-inspired evening courtesy of Christopher Rodriguez-Bautista and Danny Baez, the guys behind Díp-sters. So, what exactly are Díp-sters? In name it’s a mash up of Dominican and Hipsters, on the surface it seems to be a Dominican art collective, and according to Rodriguez-Bautista, “It’s not a business per se, but a community of people from different backgrounds. The best way to explain it is a diverse, innovative creative collective. It’s cool culture wrapped in a hipster aesthetic.” For the pop-up event they curated vibrant artwork that woke up the space with a little help from the DJ. Diversity is also key to Mitow’s experience. He grew up in a Jewish deli, owned a seafood restaurant in Florida and managed a BBQ spot in New York. While living in Miami he was exposed to Colombian food, hence the restaurant he owns and operates today. For this event he cooked dishes including a tasty sancocho, which he informed me has seven different kind of meats in it, and a lechón, an entire roasted suckling pig that he brought around on a bed of pineapples so everyone could take pictures before he personally served the tender meat to the hungry crowd. I only wished there was more of it to go around!