Gabriela Cámara: I met Monica when she turned the sous-chef for Álvaro Vázquez, whom we employed to run Caracol de Mar [part of Cámara’s Grupo Contramar, which also includes Itacate del Mar, where López Santiago is the chef] in 2021. I’m all the time impressed after I style her meals: with how cerebral it’s but additionally how evocative.
After I opened Contramar 25 years in the past, the meals scene was nothing like it’s now. It was the height of molecular gastronomy — all man cooks, supertechnically educated, with this macho tradition. So I did my very own factor. If mentoring means constructing groups and galvanizing them to wish to be a part of your challenge — hiring proper and treating individuals proper — then I’ve been mentoring eternally. That’s a legacy that transcends meals. It’s a way of life.
I’ve additionally been fortunate to have many mentors of my very own: my dad and mom, my grandmothers, my aunts — and, in fact, ladies within the trade like Alice Waters and Diana Kennedy. What’s fantastic about having individuals you look as much as and having individuals look as much as you is that you simply give them a little bit of your self since you’re additionally getting a little bit of them. Or no — you give them a lot of your self since you’re getting a lot of them.
I’m wanting ahead to working with Monica on our subsequent challenge and seeing her come into her personal voice. I solely realized I had a voice by working with different individuals who may determine it with me. For now, she’s nonetheless attempting to please me, however I’m all the time asking about her recipes and her course of. That creates an area of belief. In meals, tasting is dialogue. It’s the language we communicate.
Monica López Santiago: I grew up in a city referred to as San Francisco Teopan, about 90 minutes from Oaxaca Metropolis, which is the place my household nonetheless is, however I moved to Mexico Metropolis at 12. I all the time missed my mom’s meals, which is how I knew by highschool that I wished to be a cook dinner. After I began learning, I discovered concerning the world of eating places, together with Contramar: Gabriela turned a specific reference for me as a result of she was a girl.
Again dwelling, there have been all the time moles and barbacoas for particular occasions; making these dishes meant forming a staff of girls — ladies who’ve executed this work for a very long time. However there’s a lot machismo in skilled kitchens that stored males from acknowledging our significance and our capacities.
For me, our eating places Caracol and Itacate are areas of liberty. We’ve made moles, adobos, tamales — dishes you’d by no means think about on the Contramar menu. The identify says all of it: An itacate is one thing scrumptious you’re taking dwelling with you on the finish of a meal. Right here, it’s the flavors we’ve all introduced from our properties into the kitchen, which, ideally, is a neighborhood the place everybody teaches and everybody learns.
Interviews have been edited and condensed.
Supply: NY Times