The road that goes from Pujol, fifth restaurant on the list of the 50 best restaurants in the world, to ninth in this classification, Quintonil, can be covered in seven minutes on foot. The tiny adventure, only possible in Mexico City, is unexpectedly laced with grandiose allure. From the tree-lined Alfred Tennyson Street, where Pujol is located, you must then go through Aristotle, Galileo, Temístocle until you finally reach Isaac Newton, the street of French-style houses where Quintonil is located. It’s as if the sages of another age symbolically amplified the importance of these restaurants, as if anticipating their potential to make history.
Such is the gastronomic memory woven by Pujol, a project by chef Enrique Olvera, composed of the daring Al Pastor tacos but with sea bass, some elotitos – ears of tender corn – with chicatana ant mayonnaise or mother mole , a perfect mix made of chili peppers and chocolate, is barely 500 meters from Quintonil’s own experiments, which have captivated diners with its cheese soup made with casacán – a particularly meaty pork rind – or with its huazontle croquettes – a plant native to the country’s guts . This territorial proximity, which is reinforced when you see their proximity in the international lists of the best in the world, is only proof of the multiple threads that closely bind the two restaurants and their chefs.
Baby corn with Chicatana Ant Mayonnaise from Pujol in an image provided by the restaurant.
Quintonil was born from a love cooked in the bowels of Pujol. Jorge Vallejo and Alejandra Flores, the creators of the restaurant, met and fell in love, both working under the direction of Enrique Olvera. Vallejo was kitchen manager while handling service matters. Like so many other celebrity chefs in the city, traversing Olvera’s impeccable and precisely coordinated kitchens became a fundamental springboard for her to later undertake her own explorations of Mexican cuisine. “Pujol was a great school, it was the place where I met the love of my life, there’s a lot of affection and a big brotherhood with the chefs,” says Flores. Chef Vallejo confirms it: “Yes, we have created a community. There’s this mutual, brotherly, disinterested affection, we’re always eating at other chefs’ restaurants that we’ve met there.”
However, growing up a true brotherly and friendly generation of Mexican chefs that shine today and make Mexico City one of the most visited cities in the world did not seem to be a conscious intention of Enrique Olvera. “I returned to Mexico in the late 1990s when restaurants made the leap from casual dining to haute cuisine. This coincidence helped us because there was a great interest from younger generations to work with us. Jorge Vallejo or Eduardo Lalo García, like many others, when they returned to Mexico after working abroad, wanted to cross Pujol. They came from this world of haute cuisine and were able to continue it here,” explains Olvera.
What the creator of Pujol acknowledges, that he did it on purpose, is to have given the chefs space to develop their own talent. “Respecting his imprint has always been important to me, all the chefs of Pujol give their personality to the restaurant, it is a very special relationship because they leave us very good years of their lives and then Pujol serves as a base for them to be able to be able to start your own business.”
Jorge Vallejo and Alejandra Flores of Mexico’s Quintonil in a picture provided by the restaurant.
Actually, nobody was surprised that Enrique Olvera created these veritable circles of virtuous people around his kitchen. Right from the start, when he wanted to find a clear concept for Pujol and still served his guests foie gras sandwiches, he opened himself up to the knowledge of the older generation. Listening to the advice of Alicia Gironella, considered the grandmother of Mexican cuisine, to respect the journeys expressed in the gray hair of Carmen Titita, who knows the cuisine of the El Bajío region, and Ricardo Muñoz Zurita, master of research, to learn Mexican gastronomy.
“He found that he could have the same dialogue in his restaurants because he had learned from others and wanted to teach himself,” explains Claudio Poblete, chef and founder of Culinaria Mexicana. “What he forcefully taught them all was the iron discipline of a high school restaurant. With amazing people in the kitchen like Jorge Vallejo, Eduardo García, Mario Espinoza, Alejandro Villagomez, all these chefs are, more than students, people who have learned to work differently.”
Moorish crab in green sunflower seed pipián, Thai lime and basil, Quintonil blue corn toast, in a picture provided by the restaurant.
Enrique Olvera admits that if he has pursued one thing in his cooking, it is that Mexico, with its richness of flavors, is not defined by the style of a single chef. “Something I’ve always loved about Mexico and made very conscious of is that there isn’t a single line in your kitchen. If there’s a chef in a country that’s very prominent, that chef’s line stands out, I’ve tried not to encourage that. For example, when I talk to my friends, I like to see that Rosetta’s Elena Reygadas has a very strong line of Mexican cuisine, but with her own history, and that often happens with the other chefs,” Olvera explains, putting it into his tacos , served at the Pujol bar, continues to find the surest way to unravel the ingenuity of his cuisine.
The Experience of Avocado and Purple Corn
This variety of flavors and preparations lived in Mexico, this range of experiences created with the avocado, from Michoacán, with purple or blue corn or with Mexican vanilla, is confirmed by the gourmets who with iron conviction in the Both Pujol and Quintonil come from the capital. “Guests typically insist on going to both restaurants because they know that despite being in the same exclusive area of Polanco, their flavors are based on the best ingredients that make Mexico and on the crossroads, connecting their own stories are able to have radically different experiences, one being an exquisite multi-sensory experience and the other a delicious emotional journey through the way we Mexicans understand food,” explains Mariana Camacho, Mexican food critic and journalist.
As of 2017, Pujol has had a taco bar, one of the restaurant’s big bets. This is the lobster, Brussels sprouts, macadamia cottage cheese. An image provided by the restaurant.
The main value of his cooking, says chef Jorge Vallejo, is the honesty with which he went about his preparations. “That honesty is worth more than any speech or post-tourism, it’s better to be honest than lobby,” confesses the chef, who conjures up a newer one with his roasted avocado with escamoles — ant eggs — and his sea bass with crickets Anecdote to translate for readers what is happening in Quintonil: “This was told to me by a dear cooking friend who recently ate at the restaurant. And even though he was dishes with a lot of technique, he felt that every bite spoke to him about how my life was, how I ate when I was little. I was moved by this ability to convey who I am through the dishes. Ultimately, cooking is about creating a feeling. True success is lived with the Diners feeling.”
This invisible closeness woven between chilies and quelites – edible leaves and herbs – between two of the city’s liveliest and best restaurants is also a symptom of something overwhelming happening in the Mexican capital. “What’s happening in Mexico is a dream come true for me,” admits Olvera. “In the late 1990s, when I was studying in the United States, there was a very important movement with chefs like Thomas Keller, Alice Waters and Larry Forgione proposing a new style for their American cuisine. Coming back to Mexico I thought we have a lot more to offer, we have a broader pantry and a deeper and more diverse history. In Mexico this should be possible. I feel like this has already happened in the past few years, we’re living this revolution.”