5 Weekend Dishes Worth the Trip: Burritos, Empanadas & More

Some dishes are convenient. Others are worth rearranging your weekend around. This roundup leans firmly toward the second category — the kind of food that rewards a drive upstate, a long wait, or a reservation made with intention. As the weather turns and the holiday season creeps closer, there’s something deeply satisfying about treating a single great plate as the centerpiece of a day rather than an afterthought.

Think of this less as a list and more as a loose itinerary. A burrito that built a reputation in the mountains. An empanada so labor-intensive it practically qualifies as a project. And a roasted onion from one of the most celebrated chefs working today, served in a way that makes a humble allium feel like an event. Here’s why each one matters — and how to think about fitting them into your own eating plans this weekend.

Why Is a Catskills Burrito Worth the Drive?

There’s a particular magic to food that becomes famous in a specific place. A burrito that locals talk about in the Catskills isn’t just a burrito — it’s a marker of a town, a reason to pull off the road, a reliable anchor in a region better known for hiking trails and fall foliage than for standout Mexican-inspired cooking.

What makes a regional burrito legendary usually comes down to balance. Too many burritos collapse under their own ambition, stuffed with rice until the fillings blur into one starchy mass. The ones that earn devotion get the ratios right: enough protein to anchor each bite, beans that bring creaminess without heaviness, and a tortilla griddled just enough to hold everything together without turning tough.

If you’re planning a weekend escape, this is the move. Build your day around it. The Catskills in November are quiet and golden, and a serious burrito makes an ideal midday reward after a morning walk. It’s also a reminder that some of the country’s most exciting food isn’t confined to big cities — though if you want urban thrills, Queens is quietly becoming one of New York’s most interesting dining destinations too.

The lesson here extends beyond one burrito. When a dish earns a reputation in a small place, it’s usually because it has to be good — there’s nowhere to hide and no tourist churn to prop up mediocrity. Word of mouth is the harshest critic and the best advertising.

What Makes an Empanada Take a Full Day to Make?

An empanada that requires 24 hours of preparation is making a statement. In an era of shortcuts and air-fryer hacks, committing a full day to a single hand-held pastry is almost radical.

So where does all that time go? Usually into the filling. The great braised empanadas start with tough, flavorful cuts of meat that need hours of low, slow cooking to break down into something tender and deeply seasoned. Then there’s the cooling and resting — a hot filling makes for a soggy, blown-out pastry, so patience isn’t optional. The dough itself often rests too, relaxing the gluten so it rolls out smooth and fries or bakes into a crisp, flaky shell rather than a chewy one.

That extended timeline is exactly what you’re paying for when you buy one rather than making it yourself. A day’s worth of work compressed into a few bites is one of the best deals in food.

It’s also a genuinely useful model for home cooks heading into the holidays. The empanada is a make-ahead dream: the dough and filling can both be prepared in advance, assembled when you have a quiet hour, and baked fresh when guests arrive. For anyone hosting this season, that kind of staggered prep is the difference between a frantic afternoon and a calm one. If you want to try building your own dough from scratch, a good all-purpose flour gives you the tender-but-sturdy pastry an empanada needs.

Empanadas also make brilliant party appetizers. Small, portable, and easy to eat standing up with a drink in the other hand, they’re far more interesting than the usual cheese-board routine. Fry or bake a batch, set out a bright chimichurri or a smoky salsa for dipping, and you have a holiday spread that looks like real effort without requiring you to plate anything.

Why Is Enrique Olvera’s Onion Such a Showstopper?

Enrique Olvera, the chef behind Mexico City’s Pujol and New York’s Cosme and Atla, has spent his career proving that Mexican cuisine deserves the same reverence as any fine-dining tradition in the world. So when Olvera turns his attention to an onion — just an onion — people pay attention.

The genius of a showstopper onion is conceptual. Olvera takes something most cooks treat as background noise, the flavor base you build on top of, and promotes it to the star of the plate. Roasting or charring an onion whole transforms it completely: the layers soften into something almost custardy, the natural sugars caramelize into deep sweetness, and the exterior takes on a smoky, blackened bitterness that plays against the sweet interior.

This is a particular kind of culinary flex. It takes confidence to put a vegetable this humble at the center of a dish and trust that technique and seasoning will carry it. It usually arrives dressed up — a rich sauce, a scattering of herbs, maybe a sprinkle of something crunchy for texture — but the point is the onion itself.

There’s a practical takeaway here too, and it’s seasonal. Whole roasted alliums are one of the most underrated vegetable sides for the cold months. A few onions tucked into the oven alongside your Sunday roast require almost no effort and deliver enormous payoff. It’s the kind of trick that makes everyday meal planning feel a little more special without adding real work.

How to Plan a Weekend Around Dishes Worth Seeking Out

The thread connecting all three of these dishes is intention. None of them is the sort of thing you stumble into — each rewards a little planning, whether that’s a drive, a wait, or a reservation booked ahead.

That’s actually a lovely way to approach eating as the year winds down. Instead of defaulting to the same rotation, pick one standout dish and build the day around it. A burrito becomes the reason for a leaf-peeping trip. An empanada becomes a make-ahead project that doubles as a holiday hosting strategy. A roasted onion becomes inspiration for your own weeknight cooking.

If your weekend leans urban rather than rural, the same philosophy applies. New York’s dining scene is full of destination-worthy single dishes right now, from Anthony Falco’s new Brooklyn pizzeria to the two-floor Korean barbecue flagship Baekjeong recently opened in Koreatown. The principle holds whether you’re chasing char-grilled short rib or a perfectly crimped pastry.

The Verdict

Of this weekend’s lineup, the empanada is the one most worth copying at home. A burrito and a chef’s signature onion are experiences to seek out and savor where they’re made, but the empanada doubles as a genuine lesson — proof that the best make-ahead food rewards patience, and that a little advance work pays off enormously when the holidays hit.

So whether you drive for the burrito, wait for the empanada, or simply roast an onion of your own in tribute to Olvera, treat this weekend’s eating as something to plan rather than something to default into. The best meals rarely happen by accident.