Tauro Cocina’s Flan is as Authentic as it Gets

While creating the menu for their upcoming restaurant, Tauro Cocina, co-owners Alberto and Ahidé Valdepeña drew inspiration from across the world, incorporating classic Italian staples, traditional Mexican flavors and an overall global flair. But when it came to dessert, the Valdepeñas happened upon the perfect dish without ever leaving city limits.

While attending a mutual friend’s birthday party, the Valdepeñas met Kristen Uribe and sampled her flan — a specialty — that she had brought along to share with fellow guests. It was love at first bite.

“We got to try her flan prior to the opening,” said Ahidé Valdepeña. “And we had an idea for a flan that she specifically made for us, the lavender one. And that was the beginning of the story.”

When the time came to open the restaurant, the Valdepeñas asked Uribe if she would like to add her flan to the menu. “Honestly, I was just really shocked,” Uribe said. “I just really felt truly honored to have them think of me for the dessert menu.”

Ahidé said that the dessert has quickly become a customer favorite.

“As soon as we get one of her flans, it sells out,” she said. “Demand is high.”

Family recipes

Uribe grew up watching her dad in the kitchen. “I would always love to learn, you know, what he was making, so I was just very attentive to how he would cook,” she said.

In the Uribe household, whoever cooked for the family didn’t have to clean up after, which provided extra incentive for a young Uribe to learn her way around the kitchen.

“It felt like an art form,” she said.

Starting with a recipe for Mexican spaghetti, Uribe and her dad slowly worked their way through a range of different meals, including lots of traditional Mexican dishes.

While Uribe and her dad mastered the savory recipes, Uribe’s grandmother, who is originally from León, Guanajuato, provided dessert.

As she grew older, Uribe often found herself particularly craving her grandmother’s flan.

“Our parents and our grandparents and our family gets to an age where we start thinking about, you know, what will happen when they pass,” Uribe said. “And I think for me, a big thing is to carry those memories and recipes from them.”

At a time when Uribe said she was feeling pulled to spend more intentional time with her grandparents, she asked her grandmother to walk her through the process of making the flan.

“It’s funny how natural it is for her,” Uribe said. “She doesn’t have it written down. So of course, she’s just going off of pure heart measurements.”

Shortly after, Uribe said she experimented with the ratios of the flan — a baked custard dish crowned with a layer of light caramel — adjusting the ingredients for optimum texture while staying true to what her grandmother had created.

“I’m also a little bit of a perfectionist, so I like to make sure the sugar glaze is just perfect and all the things like that,” Uribe said. “But now it’s something that her and I have together which I think will be really beautiful.”

Playing with flavor

Once Uribe mastered the basic flan recipe, she started to experiment with different flavor variations. These days, she keeps a running list of ideas on a whiteboard in the kitchen of her Riverwest home.

“And my friends will add to it,” she said. Her friends are always more than happy to act as taste-testers, too, she said, making suggestions about possible additions or improvements.

“For me, it’s a lot of experimentation with flavors and textures,” she said. “And so with more time, I have that ability to really get creative with it.”

Uribe has so far made passion fruit, coconut, orange zest and coffee-flavored flans. She was recently gifted a bottle of liquid matcha, and spoke animatedly about the possibilities of incorporating the green tea flavor into a future recipe.

For Tauro Cocina and its accompanying cocktail bar, Leo Lounge, Uribe designed an exclusive lemon lavender flavor. The light, floral flavor was a perfect match for the restaurant’s late-spring opening. Now that leaves and temperatures are starting to drop, the Uribe created a new pumpkin flavor that will be available through November.

“The day we got it in, that day it sold out,” Ahidé Valdepeña said. “So that speaks for her talent.”

Uribe provides one to three flans weekly for the restaurant and lounge. The flans are offered on the regular menu or can be ordered ahead for private events.

Slice of life

Despite providing dessert for one of the city’s most popular restaurants, Uribe doesn’t have a formal culinary background. A yoga instructor and licensed massage therapist, she is currently fitness director at Milwaukee Athletic Club.

Uribe strives for balance in her work life, social life and creative side. She said she feels happy with her current arrangement, but has considered the possibility of investing more time into culinary pursuits.

“There’s parts of me that really think about dreaming big with that,” she said, adding that “it would be really beautiful” to get her grandmother involved again.

“I’m sure it would bring her a lot of joy,” she said.

Tauro Cocina opened in June at 1758 N. Water St. The same owners operate Leo Lounge, a cocktail bar located above the restaurant.

The restaurant is open Tuesday through Thursday from 4 p.m. to 9 p.m., Friday from 4 p.m. to 10 p.m., Saturday from 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. and Sunday from 11 a.m. to 9 p.m.

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