Everything but the squeal at Mateo's Cocina Latina in Healdsburg

Healdsburg chef Mateo Granados fondly remembers his childhood in the Yucatán and a favorite after-school snack, pigtail. His mother braised the long, curled nibble bone-in, and Granados popped it into his mouth like a licorice stick, scraping the meat off with his teeth.

It's odd to see him pantomime the process now in his Healdsburg restaurant, Mateo's Cocina Latina.

These days, nose-to-tail dining is pretty mainstream stuff. But with his new specialty sustainable dinner menu, served once a week to just six guests, Granados is striving to challenge our taste buds with even more unfamiliar foods, from brain to heart to blood and fat crafted into sausage.

Granados is offering the 15-plus course, reservation-only feast just once a week and is limiting it to a maximum party of six, a remarkable exploration of how offal parts, when cooked with skill, can reward with intense flavors and intriguing textures worthy of the most premium meats.

The result, he hopes, is greater appreciation for the animals we eat.

“It's a lot of work, but using and respecting the whole animal can be done,” Granados said.

“It's a labor of love for me, and hopefully, it will draw people away from mass-produced meats toward more small production, humanely treated animals.”

Call it Yucatán omakase, crafted with French finesse and showcasing Sonoma County ingredients.

The menu changes weekly, depending on what's in season and what proteins Granados has on hand. He may serve a rack of lamb one week, then move on the next week to the shoulder blades, slow braised in ancho chile and lots of red wine, the meat pulled for enchiladas.

“That's part of the adventure,” Granados said, “and what makes it all sustainable. It really is about appreciating what is available right now.”

The special weekly dinners debuted June 26, beginning in the restaurant's lounge with a variety of small bites made with skin, brain and pork head.

Game bird skin

Wild Forest Chicken, a game bird, gave its skin for a crunchy golden chicharrón, spread with creamy mousse made of Front Porch Cinta Senese pork brain whipped with yogurt, heavy cream and salt.

Pork head meat was fashioned into a moist terrine cube, rolled in cornmeal, quick fried and capped in tangy green tomato salsa. The brain added a savory, foie gras-like richness to the crunchy poultry skin, while the head meat was melt-in-the-mouth tender.

Guests nibbled tiny pork ribs glazed in chile honey and fried in pork lard. A seared nubbin of Progressive Pastures beef kidney was brightened with Jerez sherry and smoothed in Jerez gelée, and a square of Ritual Farm suckling pig and beef liver butifarra (Catalan sausage) was set atop olive oil crostini dotted with pickled red onion.

Guests moved to a table near the narrow glass-framed kitchen overlooking the back patio of the bustling eatery, where Granados could pop out to explain each dish and its sustainable inspiration.

For $175, guests enjoyed the food; for $250, Granados sent out wine and cocktail pairings designed to enhance the elaborate recipes, which showcase high-end techniques the chef learned working at restaurants such as Masa's of San Francisco.

Childhood lessons

Growing up in the Mayan heritage state on the southwestern tip of Mexico, Granados learned the importance of utilizing every aspect of an animal from his father, a butcher shop owner in downtown Oxkutzcab, a city of 20,000 located south of Merida.

It made economic sense for poorer shoppers but was not much different than luxury French signatures like sweetbreads, foie gras and bone marrow.

“I've always used whole animals, but this is an evolution, more than just roasting a pig,” Granados said from his Healdsburg kitchen.

He slow braises animal neck and bones to make powerful stock and even strains the liquid leftovers into a big pot to be reduced into ancho demi glaze.

Not all the courses on the specialty menu feature meat or offal; that would be too rich a meal.

Instead, some bites are briny. A Drakes Bay oyster was served in a spoon with Fresno jalapeño escabeche and salty foam made from the salt water the oysters arrived in, paired with a glass of 2014 Belden Barns Sonoma Mountain Grüner Veltliner.

Next came a lovely salad with ogo and dulse seaweed varieties harvested from Moss Landing in Monterey County, layered with paper-thin sliced cucumber and radish in bright green cucumber gelée broth.

That was followed by a dish of tiny, silky Coos Bay butter clams tumbled with rhubarb, radish and red onion in sweet-tart plum sauce.

They were fancied with a tableside dressing of leche de tigre, a creamy white Peruvian sauce of lime, onion, hot chiles and fish juice.

Guests surprised

But first, Granados brought out a geoduck clam-in-the-shell and was amused by the group's surprise. It's not a pretty creature, with a skinny “neck” unraveling a good foot long, but was not on menu that night, he promised.

Then it was back to meat with a cube of roasted lamb heart, the gamey flavor tempered with a bit of creamy potato salad, a bold horseradish-mustard-caper sauce and bright green White Crane wild watercress.

More watercress decorated another dish of Progressive Pastures beef liver over The Patch Walla Walla onions, the classic combination elevated as the liver was sliced with the grain for tenderness, soaked in milk, plancha grilled and presented on a bed of onion, golden raisins, and saffron.

Granados is having fun with his art, too. A piece of bone marrow actually wasn't bone, but potato cleverly formed to look like a bone. Its hollow stuffed with oily marrow and a bit of rosemary, it was served atop a puddle of veal jus and alongside a small charred garlic bulb that he instructed guests to suck whole from the skin.

And then it was on to a tiny green Sunburst squash stuffed with suckling pig morcilla (Brazilian pork blood-fat sausage) moistened in sofrito sauce with a side of more charred garlic.

There's good reason guests need to reserve at least a week in advance, since sustainable also can mean time consuming. For a crispy local quail cotoletta, Granados skins the bird, debones it except for the leg, cuts all the parts and refrigerates the pieces overnight so the meat takes on a succulent firmness.

Crowning touch

The next day, he stuffs the tiny drumstick with thigh and breast meat, tucks in some foi gras, then wraps the leg in caul fat for a quick pan fry.

The bones are sautéed, then smashed with tomatoes and mirepoix, cooking down to a sauce that goes over the bird, plus a bed of atole grueso, a Front Porch farm yellow corn polenta finished with blue cheese and red bell pepper sofrito. The crowning touch: wild game jus and White Crane greens from Mill Creek.

It's served with a 2012 El Dorado En Garde Tempranillo.

Part of sustainable dining is finding options to endangered species, like the imported mahi mahi or swordfish that are classified as “overfished” on the Monterey Bay Aquarium's sustainable Seafood Watch Guide.

This dinner featured monkeyface eel, which is not actually an eel but a fish, from the rock prickleback family and so-named for its big bulging eyes, bloated lips, spiky teeth and a lumpy rhino ridge on the head that ends in a blunt bulldog nose.

Ugly, yes, but Granados prizes it for its delicate, meaty texture and a clean whitefish flavor taste similar to Thai snapper.

This night, he stuffed the fish with Preston lamb tongue confit, pan roasted it head-on with those curly little Mangalitsa pigtails in an inky alcaparrado sauce of olives, pimientos and capers, then presented it with fresh, stem-on steamed Laguna Farm squash blossoms and dinosaur kale with just a hint of crunch.

Sustainable dessert

By now, it was hour four, and the next plate bore two entrées. Except for the monkeyface, portions were tapas bites. A nubbin of roasted duck breast sat atop a doll-size yellow corn pancake, alongside charred elephant garlic scape and fava beans with a dollop of sweet preserved Dry Creek peach.

A silver dollar coin of rabbit roulade was stuffed with Cinta Senese bacon and savory bread pudding, all finished with peach glaze, sliced peach and tender garlic scapes for a hint of heat.

Even dessert can be sustainable, Granados proved, given some liver and common garden weeds. He spread crostini with foie gras butter and Middleton Farm framboise, offering it alongside a swath of Alexander Valley raspberry gelée decorated with red and gold cherries, blueberries, framboise, wild dandelion leaves and burned milk wafer.

Really, he said, he wasn't surprised at how much the diners enjoyed it all.

“Many people - and certainly my customers who support my cooking style - are open to eating anything these days,” Granados said.

“It's important to work with small farmers and properly honor their products. Then, you learn it's also delicious.”