Restaurant review: Tatu Tacos & Tequila

Tatu — a taco and tequila restaurant on the second floor of the former Metro club in Saratoga — will have an indelible effect on you. The appeal is not only the wall-to-wall tattoo art designed by New York City tattoo artist Rob Hotte or artist/co-owner Jennyfur Spaulding. It's not only a striking interior that manages to blend skateboard light fixtures and pressed tin tiles with chandeliers and a painting of Anthony Bourdain brandishing knuckle tattoos. It's not only a killer playlist that drops you deep into '90s R&B as effectively as your ex's mixtape. Maybe not even the glass-walled tequila parlor that will soon function as spirit library and tasting room, a space for private dining, and a showroom for visiting tattoo artists to ink guests while others dine. It's all of these things, of course, but your true affections will be won over by a Mayan-influenced menu delivering the bright, fusion flavors of the Yucatan Peninsula.

Leave thoughts of quesedillas and burritos at home, because this upscale taco joint has fresh tortillas that will rock your world.

That's because Spaulding and her chef-partner, Kareem NeJame, found All Souls, a tiny, Vermont-based tortilleria that makes fresh, organic corn masa dough and delivers it daily for NeJame, chef de cuisine Kerri Yurschak and their team to roll, press and bake to order. And when you're folding this soft blanket around slow-roasted pork and grilled pineapple in the tacos al pastor, or gripping a fistful of tiny charred baby octopus with arugula, avocado and minced radish salpicon, you're going to be thinking about its texture and bold corn flavor.

NeJame's impressive Manhattan-based resumé starts with the French Culinary Institute and powers on to assembling The Pennsy, a celebrity food hall near Penn Station, then owning a restaurant in the West Village...