{"id":165414,"date":"2026-03-16T20:52:32","date_gmt":"2026-03-16T20:52:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/165414\/"},"modified":"2026-03-16T20:52:32","modified_gmt":"2026-03-16T20:52:32","slug":"crown-heights-spot-tamaleria-la-madrina-brings-100-year-old-recipes-to-brooklyn-brooklyn-paper","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/165414\/","title":{"rendered":"Crown Heights spot Tamaleria La Madrina brings 100+ year-old recipes to Brooklyn \u2022 Brooklyn Paper"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\t\t\"Tamaleria\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Tamaleria La Madrina, a husband-and-wife business in Crown Heights, uses 100+ year old recipes in their tamales. <\/p>\n

Photo courtesy of Tamaleria La Madrina<\/p>\n

A tamale shop in Crown Heights<\/a> is aiming to bring consistency and deep tradition to a dish that many New Yorkers often find only sporadically on street corners.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At Tamaler\u00eda La Madrina<\/a>, husband-and-wife team Artemio Baltazar and Marisol Lopez are serving handmade tamales rooted in family recipes passed down for more than a century. The shop, which opened last November, arrives just before National Tamale Day on March 23, offering Brooklynites a dedicated destination for the beloved Mexican staple.\u00a0<\/p>\n

For Baltazar, the idea grew from a simple frustration: tamales can be easy to crave \u2014 but surprisingly hard to find reliably.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\u201cOn the streets you can find tamales sometimes,\u201d Baltazar told Brooklyn Paper. \u201cBut you don\u2019t know if they\u2019ll be there tomorrow. Sometimes you wake up on a Sunday morning and want tamales and coffee, and when you go, they\u2019re not there.\u201d<\/p>\n

The couple decided to change that.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

Baltazar and Lopez have been running food businesses for about a decade, including nearby Taqueria Milear. But over time, they realized they wanted to focus on something more specific and personal.\u00a0<\/p>\n

At the heart of Tamaler\u00eda La Madrina are recipes inspired by Lopez\u2019s grandmother, whose cooking traditions date back more than 100 years.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the original recipes from where my wife grew up,\u201d Baltazar said. \u201cWe want to give people a taste of our culture.\u201d
\n\"TamaleriaBoth Baltazar and Lopez also own nearby Taquer\u00eda Milear, and to them, Tamaleria La Madrina felt like a natural extension.Photo courtesy of Tamaler\u00eda La Madrina\n<\/p>\n

Each tamale begins with stone-ground corn masa and is wrapped in corn husks or fragrant banana leaves before being steamed. The fillings range from traditional to inventive, but all are designed to highlight the same core technique passed down through Lopez\u2019s family.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Menu highlights include the Oaxaqueno tamale with tender pork baby ribs in red sauce, a Pollo en Salsa Verde filled with chicken breast and tomatillo-jalapeno, and birria tamale packed with slow-cooked beef. Vegetarian options like jalapeno and cheese are also available, alongside more classic versions.\u00a0<\/p>\n

House-made sauces \u2014 tangy, rich and prepared from scratch \u2014 accompany the tamales.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

But the shop also offers something less familiar to many New Yorkers: the guajlolota, a Mexican street-food staple that turns a tamale into a sandwich by placing it inside a soft bolillo roll.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s basically a tamal sandwich,\u201d Baltazar said. \u201cMy family used to travel all the way to Queens to get one because my kids loved it.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Now it\u2019s one of the shop\u2019s signature offerings.
\n\"\"Tamaler\u00eda La Madrina\u2019s Pollo en salsa verde tamale.Photo courtesy of Tamaler\u00eda La Madrina\n<\/p>\n

The decision to open in Crown Heights was natural. Baltazar said his family has lived in the neighborhood for nearly two decades, and the community\u2019s early support has helped the new restaurant find its footing.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cWe know a lot of the neighbors,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen they come in and try the tamales and say they love them, that gives us the energy to keep going.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

The tamaler\u00eda also benefits from its proximity to the couple\u2019s other business nearby, where staff and resources are shared. Baltazar describes the operation simply: \u201cWe\u2019re all like family.\u201d<\/p>\n

Their daughter Michelle is already working in the business while attending school, learning recipes and operations that her parents hope will carry the shop into the future.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cShe can be the next generation,\u201d Baltazar said.\u00a0
\n\"\"Tamaler\u00eda La Madrina\u2019s verde preparado tamale.Photo courtesy of Tamaler\u00eda La Madrina\n<\/p>\n

For now, Baltazar believes their goal is to introduce more New Yorkers to freshly made tamales \u2014 available every day.\u00a0<\/p>\n

But Baltazar is also thinking long term. The family hopes to expand eventually, potentially opening another location somewhere closer to Manhattan while continuing to involve their children in the business.\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cIf they learn everything, why not?\u201d he said. \u201cMaybe one day we will open another place.\u201d\n<\/p>\n

Until then, with National Tamale Day approaching, Baltazar has a simple invitation for Brooklyn diners: come hungry.\u00a0\n<\/p>\n

\u201cThey\u2019re not going to be disappointed,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tamaleria La Madrina, a husband-and-wife business in Crown Heights, uses 100+ year old recipes in their tamales. Photo…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":165415,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[98,100,99,35525,56824,102,67939,10401,67940,67941,9,24,12,370,63,38096,67942,67943],"class_list":["post-165414","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn","tag-brooklyn-headlines","tag-brooklyn-news","tag-brooklyn-restaurants","tag-brooklyn-dining","tag-crown-heights","tag-family-owned-restaurants","tag-mexican-food","tag-national-tamale-day","tag-new-restaurants-brooklyn","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-news","tag-newsletter","tag-nyc","tag-nyc-food-news","tag-tamaleru00eda-la-madrina","tag-tamales"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=165414"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/165414\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/165415"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=165414"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=165414"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=165414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}