Whimsical sketch by SMA artist, Meagan
Burns
May 30,2013...it
seems like yesterday when we arrived in San Miguel de Allende, planning to stay
for six months and write about food. Five years later, we’re still here.
In the past five
years, SMA experienced a food revolution and we were here in the heart of it, constantly
amazed by the almost daily changes. Even today, five years later, we take a
breath, wondering what’s coming next. This past week, much-loved chef, Matteo
Salas, moved on and Chef Olivier Deboise arrived in
SMA, determined to create his own legacy.
SMA’s culinary profile is a work
in progress. It’s been gratifying to chart the five
year path of its history since there is limited documentation, oral or written,
of the story; a thumbs up to Fernando Olivera Rocha, the State Secretary of
Tourism, who constantly promotes the gastronomy of Guanajuato. The chefs
in SMA continue to surprise us as well, with new techniques
and innovative cuisine. It will be fascinating to follow their efforts for
another five years.
Below is an account of
the past five years; the remarkable experiences we had along the way. In a
second post, later this month, you’ll get a look at our most memorable visuals,
food and otherwise, from 2013 - 2015.
Thank you for
allowing us to be part of every delicious moment over the past five years. We
love you SMA.
Buen Provecho!
2013...
Welcome to Mexico! Mexico
Tourism’s official website, VisitMexico.com, lists 50 top destinations in
Mexico; we’ve been to 30 of them. We came to SMA on May 30, 2013,
intending to travel; planning to stay for six months to write about food. Five
years later, we’re still here.
In our first year, we traveled, from San
Miguel de Allende to Guanajuato, Dolores
Hidalgo, Queretaro, Morelia, Patzcuaro, Puebla, Guadalajara, Tonola, Tlaquepaque, Toluca and Mexico City to the sleepy
little town of Santa Rosa and back again. We wanted to connect with our
surrounding; the inland cities of Mexico, far from the beaches we know so well.
These cities present some of the most beautiful, exhilarating and historically
significant settings in Mexico.
There were so many Aha! mexican moments
that first year, we quit counting after the first month.
2014…
Hex:
#E4007C/RGB: 228,0,124: Rosa Mexicano, the color of Mexico. By this time, we
were embracing the country we loved for nearly 50 years but were just beginning
to appreciate.
We’ll admit we had our Chicago moments in 2014, but not
enough to convince us to go back to the Chicago weather. San Miguel de Allende was starting to grow on us, even though we
didn’t realize it at the time. The weather is almost picture perfect here; so
is the light. There’s
something almost divine about the light; to a photographer, it is
everything.
In 2014, we learned a lot more about traditional, Mexican ingredients; relying on the experts. We devoured books by authors we had never heard of until now; Patricia Quintana's A Taste of Mexico, Hugo Ortega’s Street Food of Mexico and Diana Kennedy’s The
Essential Cuisines of Mexico were
everyday reading. We
always loved reading cookbooks; now we were passionate about it. Our time in Chicago, a
devoted admirer of Chef Rick Bayless, became more meaningful when we learned he
has the largest, privately-owned collection of
Mexican cookbooks in the U.S. Someday, we hope to see it.
Holidays - can you name a day in Mexico that isn’t
one? We went to neighboring and distant pueblos with a full month in Oaxaca to
fill our head with more of the Mexican kitchen and educated ourselves on two
delicious obsessions: Mexican wines and spirts, including Tequilas and Mezcals.
What surprised us the most? We use to be afraid of bugs, nowadays we were
eating them; Anthony Bourdain and Andrew Zimmern the new reality.
We continued to meet chefs and visited a lengthy list of
restaurants in order to know and appreciate every one of them.
Home is where the heart is and food for
thought is no substitute for the real thing. Every time we left
and came back, San Miguel felt more like home.
2015…
San Miguel’s culinary star was rising. From street food to
five-star dining, we found culinary treasures everywhere in 2015.
We celebrated the many food festivals here in SMA and
learned more about uncomplicated but delicious street food. We spent a month in
Guatemala because so many people told us there was no great food there; we had
to see for ourselves. There, we connected with a small group of French chefs
who fed us well that entire month. We also fell in love with the market town of
Chichicastenango,
for all of its intensity and
embellishments.
We uncovered more great food city
in Mexico City and wrote about the perfect day in SMA. We discovered more about
our seven, favorite, inland food cities: Mexico City, Puebla,
Queretaro, Oaxaca, Guanajuato, Guadalajara and of course SMA. Whether the experience
brought us back to the same taco cart week after week or a remarkable burger every
Thursday night at The Restaurant in SMA, one thing was for certain: San Miguel
was full of exceptional dining options for anyone who wanted to savor the
experience of great food.
And, oh, by the way, someone turned our Spanish button back on in 2015. Our 30 day immersion trips were giving us so much more than just language skills.
This Chicago girl started to call SMA home.
2016...
The food scene in SMA exploded in 2016 with the opening
of Mercado Centro and Doce 18. The culinary landscape was spilling over with
new chefs and restaurants, like Chef
Marcela Bolano of Marsala, cocina con acentos and husband-wife team, Chefs Marco Cruz and Sofia Antillon of
Nomada cocina de interpretacion.
If you came to SMA to eat that year, you picked the right place because an
abundance of notable restaurant openings that year went a long way to feed our
food obsessions.
We were a judge for the Lamb and Mezcal festival and survived
eating sixteen courses of lamb to write about it. There’s nothing in my preferred book of foods that
ranks much higher than lamb: Leg of Lamb, Rack of Lamb, Lamb Chops; you name it
and we’ll eat it.
We elected
to do more in-depth articles in 2016, so we spent two months traveling: another
glorious month in Oaxaca, fulfilling a life-long goal to cook with Susana Trilling at Seasons of My Heart Cooking School and the other
month in Lima with the great chefs of Peru. My heart belonged to Lima five minutes into my first meal at
MAIDO. At the ultimate Amazon- Nikkei experience, Chef Mitsuharu Tsumura’s multi-course
Nikkei - Japanese inspired Peruvian menu, was the perfect beginning to my
education on Peruvian cuisine. I still remember every course that day, at one
of the best meals of my life.
We
chased more good food in Mexico City and when we settled in to SMA for months
at a time, we did research; first finding, then interviewing and writing about
the Maestras, the sixteen culinary pioneers who started it all and the The
Female Chefs of SMA, the women
who ultimately leveled the culinary playing field here. When we first made an
inquiry, we were told there were only a handful of female chefs but as we
continued the chase, more and more women stepped forward; beautiful,
passionate, strong, confident, educated, articulate, committed, and accomplished
women. We ended up with thirty-four.
The
place we thought we’d be bored with in a few months was now one of the hottest food
destinations in Mexico and we were here to watch it all happen. It was both a
joy and a revelation.
2017…
We
researched, wrote and continued to step up our support of the chefs in SMA and their
effort to advance the food scene. Who said San Miguel de Allende was the place to
eat this year? Well, actually, we did, along with just about everyone else
we talked with. The best city in the world just got better with
another influx of new restaurants and some Sunday brunch menus we couldn’t stop
talking about.
Two important
things changed in 2017: with a whole new category of fine-casual dining spots
emerging, locals were dining out more often.Restaurant owners were also
making important changes to improve the quality and consistency of the
guest experience; they recognized that good service is a significant part of
the equation.
SMA continued
to advance its own style. A number of new artisans, an inspiring cocktail
culture that included great Mixologists like Adrian Garcia-Evans, a budding
wine scene, the influence of educated sommeliers like Chilean-born Sebastian Acosta Quiroz and a
whole new generation of young chefs were all a part of the upshot.
From a lengthy, three-part series on the Best of SMA, we
also developed a comprehensive guide to cooking classes, looked for the best
burger in SMA by devouring twenty of them in fourteen days, spent a month in
Mexico City, uncovering remarkable, inexpensive food and were constantly in
touch with chefs, pastry chefs, new chefs, and up-and-coming chefs. We also
developed the SMA Hit List: the most popular restaurants in SMA.
We ate more than our fair share of street food in 2017; Mexico
has one of the best street food cultures in Latin America and San Miguel
was no exception. You meet the most interesting people when you eat on the
street here; a food or language lesson is often had for the price of a couple
tacos. We never forget to savor
the sunrise and sunsets here; in SMA, they’re as delicious as the food.
Most significantly that year, to celebrate 50 years of
traveling in Mexico, we took a hot air balloon ride over the Pyramid of the Sun
and walked all 248 steps to the top, just as we had done 50 years earlier. It
was a life changing moment.
2018…
The
perfect feast… by this time we had many with Chef Matteo Salas at the chefs
table at Aperi. The Outstanding In the Field dinner, which was an
indulgence on an entirely different kind, with Chefs Donnie Masterton of The
Restaurant and Eduardo Garcia of Maximo Bistrot and Lalo!, gave additional significance
to ingredients ; the produce
was picked just hours before, a short distance from the table where we ate them. New restaurants opened, including Café Casa Blanca, changing the culinary landscape once again with remarkable, Moroccan food. We took a look at both high-quality and healthy ingredients and developed an extensive listing of the Best Food and Drink in SMA. We also organized a pizza class for eight chefs in order to advance the quality of the pizza served in some of SMA's best restaurants. Culinarian Expeditions taught the class, with the proceeds going to Mujeres en Cambio.
We've been busy this year with many more stories in the pipeline. We also started culinary school, hoping to expand our knowledge of food.
Five years later, we're thankful to everyone we met along the way who were our inspiration.
The best, we know, is yet to come. Stay tuned.
Buen Provecho!