In Guatemala, there’s a common saying, “A falta de pan, tortilla,” which translates literally to “In the absence of bread, tortilla,” and means, figuratively, “If you can’t get the best thing, take the next best thing.” It’s a snobbish and outdated aphorism, referring to a vestigial hierarchy of carbohydrates, to a time in which tortillas were eaten primarily by the country’s indigenous population and associated with poverty. Today, everyone in Guatemala eats tortillas, and, in any definition of the nation’s cuisine, they figure quite prominently—certainly more so than bread.
You’ll find tortillas at Claudia’s, in East Williamsburg, which was, until recently, a more casual café called C.Lo; its owners, the siblings Claudia and Mario Lopez, rebranded it as a full-service Guatemalan restaurant, with an expanded menu and new folk-art-inspired wall…
