The elixir of life at Lily’s Restaurant & Grill

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“In Mexico, it’s very normal,” Chef Mauricio Deveza says. “You’re a kid, 2 or 3 years old, you’re in the kitchen.”

Deveza could be alluding to the carne asada or the fresh salsa he puts together daily in the kitchen of the newly opened Lily’s Restaurant & Grill—he’s been making it from scratch his whole life. But he’s specifically talking about agua fresca, a beverage made by blending flowers, seeds, fruit or cereal with sugar and water.

It’s nothing, Deveza says, to be soaking hibiscus flowers by age 3, poking around the kitchen while your mother prepares a jug for serving.

Now he serves Agua de Jamaica (made with hibiscus) and Agua de Tamarindo (made with tamarind), proudly proclaiming both to be all-natural. He boils the flowers to rid them of pulp, peels tamarind pods by hand, and patiently strains and blends each mixture until it’s smooth and sweet.

Deveza dresses it up in a margarita glass with a little bit of garnish—he’s got a passion for presentation. You eat with your eyes first and your palate second, he says.

The palate says: Deveza’s agua fresca is so refreshing that a sip feels like it could cleanse your whole system. It’s somewhere between a juice and a tea, with flavors that sing thanks to deliberate care and years of practice.

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Lily’s Restaurant & Grill

3753 Perkins Road, Suite D
lilisrestaurantandgrill.com

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Where else to get agua fresca

Ideal Market
1817 S. Sherwood Forest Blvd.

La Mexicana
7034 Siegen Lane

Gov’t Taco
4624 Government St. (inside White Star Market)

Southfin Southern Poké
4321 Perkins Road

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This article was originally published in the June 2018 issue of 225 Magazine.