In early January 2016 I visited Mexico City and followed up with Nicholas Gilman (Episode 38), to talk about and understand the modern heartbeat of Mexican cooking. For the transcript of our discussion click here.
Nicholas Gilman and I met up at Restaurant Limosneros for several conversations with the owner Juan Pablo but before we spoke with him Nicholas and I talked about the history of the area and what he means by Modern Mexican Cuisine.
The restaurant is located in the central historical district. An area of Mexico City that was heavily damaged by the 1985 earthquake. An area that has slowly been growing, changing and evolving. The area has received lots of investment and redevelopment including funds from Mexican businessman Carlos Slim.
The building that houses Limosneros is made of many types of stones and dates from the 1600's and has it's own very special charm. It also highlights that Mexico City is a city built on it's own history. It is located about 300 feet from the Cathedral of the Assumption of the Most Blessed Virgin Mary into Heaven (Spanish: Catedral Metropolitana de la Asunción de la Santísima Virgen María a los cielos). This large central cathedral is literally built from the stones of an Aztec temple; stones from the destroyed temple of the Aztec god of war Huitzilopochtli, principal deity of the Aztecs.
Stay tuned for episodes 40, 41 and 42 when Nicholas and I speak with Juan Pablo Ballesteros about the food and beverages served at Limosneros.
Nicholas's Book (Amazon): Good Food in Mexico City: Food Stalls, Fondas & Fine Dining (Kindle edition) / GoodFoodMexicoCity.com / The Essential Guide to Modern Mexican Dining in Mexico City
(00:00:00)
Nicholas Gilman:
I returned to Mexico City in 1986. I was lured by the sordid, thrilling cauldron of mysterious activity. The past lingered over a decrepit, crumbling Centro Historico, which had been brought to its knees by the recent earthquake. The Centro intrigued me. I observed dusty alleys and hallways into which scurried enigmatic characters who disappeared into their anachronistic places of business. Photographers hidden under a cloth with a huge camera like those in silent movies took oval sepia portraits. Nightclubs featured old-fashioned cabaret performers, acts with names like Yolanda Y Su Perla Negra. Food decidedly caught my attention.
(00:00:40)
Harry Hawk:
Hello. This is Harry Hawk, and this is Talking About Everything, and I’m here with Nicholas Gilman. I know for sure I am in Mexico City, but Nicholas, where am I?
(00:00:52)
Nicholas Gilman:
You are in downtown Mexico City, what we know as and call the Centro Historico or the historic center. We are at the epicenter of where it all started. We’re 3 hundred yards or so from the great cathedral, which is built with the foundation stones of the great pyramid of Tenochtitlan, a center of the Aztec kingdom. That’s where we are.
(00:01:19)
Harry Hawk:
Wow. I have to say, it’s taken me a little bit to adjust. It’s a little bit of global warming, but it’s very cool today. You can hear that we’re in a city. We got noises and this is definitely…we’re not in the studio, but I am looking around. We’re inside of a restaurant and you’re going to tell us about it, but I’m just blown away. I know I’m looking at historical stones, but it’s also completely modern and I guess that’s a metaphor for Mexico today.
(00:01:45)
Nicholas Gilman:
That is definitely a metaphor for modern Mexico. We are in a historic building, a colonial building that’s over 3 hundred years old. This is yet a modern Mexican restaurant that’s based on tradition, but has turned tradition upside down. I’d like to talk a little bit about the background of this whole area and set it in its place. We are in what has always been, or at least since the colonial era of the 19th century and before, the area where people went out, where people lived, where the culture was based, where religion was based, and later in the 20th century where night life was based and every fancy restaurant, department store, theater, concert hall, nightclub was around here and what happened was, like many downtowns across the world, this area started to fall into a decline in the late 20th century, but it was really accelerated by the big earthquake that you probably know about of 1985 that just put a nail in the coffin. It was terribly, terribly damaged. The whole area after the earthquake was shut down. Big grand hotels fell. Houses fell. All kinds of buildings fell. Government buildings fell because the government buildings are based down here, too.
(00:03:12)
Harry Hawk:
Nicholas, just again to contextualize a little bit, so when I think of ’85 and I think of declining downtowns and all of this, I think in the United States of Faneuil Hall in Boston, and I think about South Street Seaport in New York, and many places all around America that went through this incredible decline in the ‘60s or ‘70s and then at some point, came out of it.
(00:03:30)
Nicholas Gilman:
Here, it happened a little bit later. It really was all about that earthquake, Mexico City, and it was also for some of the same reasons that it was happening in the United States. These downtown areas were thought to be dangerous and unsavory and that was true here, too, but the earthquake really destroyed it and people stopped coming. They felt it was dangerous. There was nothing going on here. Twenty years ago when I came to Mexico, I used to stay down here, but at night, it was dead. There was absolutely nothing happening. You could’ve heard a pin drop. There were no stores open. There were no restaurants open. It was just over and that started to change about two or three years ago when Carlos Slim, who’s one of the richest men in the world, started to invest in this area and for probably reasons of his own wanted to bring it back and it has come back.
(00:04:25)
Harry Hawk:
So this is a very recent occurrence then.
(00:04:28)
Nicholas Gilman:
It’s a very recent occurrence. It’s all within the last three or four years.
(00:04:31)
Harry Hawk:
To set the scene, when I walked into this restaurant downstairs, there’s a small shop in the front, and I walked into the restaurant, and I could be anywhere in the world, meaning for a well put together restaurant, the servicescape, the tables, the lighting, everything is interesting. Everything is absolutely clean, and spotless, and thoughtful and I have no idea that I’m anywhere but someplace that is composed. When you walk into that kind of restaurant, you immediately feel relaxed. You immediately feel the hospitality of the place.
(00:05:04)
Nicholas Gilman:
Yes, but you say anywhere in the world, but not, because when you look close, every detail of this place is about Mexico. The architecture is about Mexico. The design, all the elements that go into the design, and the furniture, and the art work on the walls, the products being sold in that nice shop that you talk about at the entrance, then you sit down, you hear Mexican music. Everything on the menu is Mexican. Everything in the bar, and that’s something that they’re particularly proud of here, is Mexican and this kind of restaurant, a new restaurant in the center had not opened on this scale for many decades. This was the first to open three years ago. There are some old elegant restaurants, but very few and it really was a sign of the revival of the downtown because it’s what I call a modern Mexican restaurant. It’s post-modern, in fact, and there wouldn’t have been a public for it a few years ago.
(00:06:02)
Harry Hawk:
It’s certainly post-modern. I haven’t had a chance to try the food, obviously, but I think we will today for sure, but I was offered a beer earlier by Juan Pablo, the gentleman we’re going to be speaking to, and again, as a restaurant operator in New York, what I know is the commercial beers that are exported and here he has a whole list of craft beer.
(00:06:20)
Nicholas Gilman:
He doesn’t serve those commercial beers in this one.
(00:06:22)
Harry Hawk:
We know craft beer. We know that is a culture juggernaut all of its own, but to find it here, and to find that what I had was excellent, and that’s local, and that’s…it blew me away, in fact.
(00:06:32)
Nicholas Gilman:
Of course, going on in the city in general at most of the high end restaurants, and even some of the middle level restaurants, people, chefs, cooks, restaurant owners are taking advantage of the amazing bounty that we have in this area and in Mexico in general. We’re an amazing country. We have everything from soup to nuts, quite literally.
(00:06:53)
Harry Hawk:
I want to say something. You say we, but you are now a Mexican citizen, yes.
(00:06:57)
Nicholas Gilman:
I am.
(00:06:58)
Harry Hawk:
So we.
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Nicholas Gilman:
We.
(00:07:00)
Harry Hawk:
So thank you for showing me around your country.
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Nicholas Gilman:
Yes, you’re very welcome.
(00:07:04)
Harry Hawk:
Let me ask you about that. As an immigrant, so to speak…I know you’ve lived here for many, many years, does it give you an eye, you think, that maybe things that locals don’t see?
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Nicholas Gilman:
Absolutely. So many people have said to me that it takes somebody from outside to see and appreciate the riches that this country has to offer, especially when it comes to what is my field of interest, which is food. I think that people in their own country don’t always see and when it comes to the city itself, people tell me about how amazed they are that I will go to these neighborhoods, markets, holes in the wall to eat because I have no fear of them, the places that they have never been themselves. I think that aspect of it is true and the other aspect of it that I bring with me as an American born person is the idea that I can and should do something that nobody has done before. I have that sort of American ingenuity that I brought down here with me so when I came, I started compiling all this information about local food and it was my idea to do a book because nobody had done the book before. I think that’s very American, don’t you?
(00:08:17)
Harry Hawk:
I definitely agree. It is American in both a literary sense and in a trailblazing sense and that we need to know, we want to know where to go when we’re traveling. We want to research and think about it. I think understanding where we are, in which country, which city, which part of the city and I think when you hear it in Spanish, maybe it doesn’t necessarily resonate with everybody, but the way you said, the historical center of the city, because we all know that no matter what town we grew up in, whether it was in Vermont where there’s an old town center sheep meadow to someone who grew up in Boston, Philadelphia, Los Angeles, wherever, we know that old…
(00:08:54)
Nicholas Gilman:
Well, that’s certainly true in the west. It’s not so true in Asian cities. I just got back from a tour of China and Thailand and Asian cities don’t have downtowns and it’s very hard for us to understand that. They have no center. There is no center of Tokyo. There are many centers of Tokyo and Bangkok, but all Latin cities are based on the European model, which is basically Spain, and evolve around a center and we have, in fact, not two, three blocks from where we’re sitting right now, the largest public plaza in the Americas, in North or South America. I think it’s third after Tiananmen Square and Red Square in Moscow in sheer size and on one side of it is the Metropolitan Cathedral, the other side is the government palace where president holds court and it’s surrounded by government buildings, but has since the very beginning been the center of this city and the city kind of expanded out from that.
(00:09:52)
Harry Hawk:
So as we’re talking about expansion, and we’re talking about growth, and here we are in Mexico in Mexico City in the center of the city and we’re talking about the food here and not just the cultural historical food, although certainly that’s my interest, but we all know that now food, as people seek entertainment, but they seek experience, as food is an incredible experience because we all need to experience it on a regular basis to sustain us and we know throughout the world now this culinary tourism is growing. So what I think, if this makes sense, I don’t know if there is anything else that you prepared to say, but that I think what we should do now is really have a conversation about the ingredients and about how that’s used here. I think that would put it all in context.
(00:10:39)
Nicholas Gilman:
Nicholas Gilman:
As you probably know, certain aspects of Mexican cuisine have been recognized by UNESCO in the past couple of years as being, I don’t know how to say it in English, patrimonio del la humanidad.
(00:10:52)
Harry Hawk:
Part of the patrimony of the country.
(00:10:53)
Nicholas Gilman:
Of the humanity and it is finally being seen, and recognized, and talked about the fact that Mexican gastronomy is a very complex and big thing and unfortunately, most people outside of the country don’t know about it. They know what they know through American fast food versions of it.
(00:11:12)
Harry Hawk:
A quick plug for the New York City Food Film Festival of which I am a co-creator, we did a film a few years ago about how Mexican cuisine has influenced the world, talks about what we would think as a non-Mexican dish, but the film goes through a whole bunch of these and each one it relates to how it essentially originated in Mexico.
(00:11:30)
Nicholas Gilman:
Well, you know that certain ingredients that are essential to other cuisines around the world, such as chilies, came from Mexico. Chocolate came from Mexico. Certain spices came from Mexico. Squash came from Mexico. Tomatoes, what could be more essential to much of the Mediterranean than tomatoes. They came from Mexico. They were brought by the Spaniards. They were brought by the Portuguese traders to the Philippines and later to Asia and there were no chilies in China. There were no chilies in India before the Americas were so called discovered and that it is just the top of the iceberg. It was always a back and forth. We’re talking about migration now and I hope to speak with my friend, another chef, Josefina Santa Cruz, who is going to tell us about that because that’s her specialty. The interchange that has gone on, it’s not just contemporary, current globalization that many of us kind of celebrate and lament at the same time, it’s been going on for 5 hundred years.
(00:12:28)
Harry Hawk:
It’s true and this is exactly the point that the particular film made in that we have to find this way to keep our local things, but to understand that we’re in the global village and that’s why I’m really excited about the conversation that we’re going to have today in as much as again, I had a beer a few moments ago. I mentioned that I could have been served that beer in Brooklyn, but I wasn’t. I was served it in Mexico City, but it’s a world class beer and local ingredients done, I think, if I was to try a sampling of the beers, which I would not want to do before having a conversation, prefer to be sober for this, but my guess is that I would find some unique flavors and if I got to understand the ingredients…
(00:13:07)
Nicholas Gilman:
Obviously, beer is kind of a unifying force. They have beer around the world. They have chicken around the world and there are certain foods that are really very global and have been for a very long time, but we had a German population, German immigration in Mexico in the 19th century and they’re the ones that brought beer so it’s been part of the culture here for over a hundred year…well, 150 years, I would say.
(00:13:31)
Harry Hawk:
I’m really excited and I know we’ll get to talk about some of the more famous Mexican beverages, the tequilas, and the mescals, and all of that, as well so I think this is a good place to pause and I’m going to change the batteries before we begin, but did you want to go through any of that. You want to do that?
(00:13:49)
Nicholas Gilman:
Sure. I’ll read that…so I just wanted to read you something that I found, essay about Mexico City, about this downtown area, that I think is very interesting about the experiences of how it was many years ago, but really in recent history.
(00:14:07)
Harry Hawk:
Please do.
(00:14:08)
Nicholas Gilman:
I returned to Mexico City in 1986. I was lured by the sordid, thrilling cauldron of mysterious activity. The past lingered over a decrepit, crumbling Centro Historico, which had been brought to its knees by the recent earthquake. The Centro intrigued me. I observed dusty alleys and hallways into which scurried enigmatic characters who disappeared into their anachronistic places of business. Photographers hidden under a cloth with a huge camera like those in silent movies took oval sepia portraits. Quack doctors cured things you didn’t know existed. Stores offered statues of the Virgin, artifical limbs, and electric appliances whose designs hadn’t been updated in decades. Nightclubs featured old-fashioned cabaret performers, acts with names like Yolanda U Su Perla Negra. Food decidedly caught my attention. Alluring aromas emanated from ancient taquerias whose aquamarine walls were blackened by decades of greasy smoke. Bowtie clad waiters served now extinct beverages and midnight breakfasts at the timeworn café, Cinco de Mayo. Old timers imbibed at century old pulquerias and cantinas, downing the free botanas and reminiscing about better times. I boldly entered these places as if I belonged like Alice in some low rent Latin urban wonderland. I embraced this world of the living past with open arms, exploring using only a guidebook filled with decades old tourist clichés. The imminent danger of a midnight stroll up the busy Eje Central, remnants of its show business past still evident never occurred to me. I thought the pimps and whores lurking in doorways were somehow my friends and would protect me. Fortunately, nothing had ever happened. I entered a romantic and imaginary world of the past, now part of my mythical self. I decided to stay.
(00:15:57)
Harry Hawk:
Wow. Who wrote that? Where did you get that?
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Nicholas Gilman:
I did.
(00:15:59)
Harry Hawk:
You did. So wow. So that’s your journey.
(00:16:02)
Nicholas Gilman:
That’s my journey.
(00:16:03)
Harry Hawk:
And that’s the only reason I’m here today here.
(00:16:04)
Nicholas Gilman:
And you can read my review at goodfoodmexicocity.com. Just look for Limosneros, www.goodfoodmexicocity.com.
(00:16:15)
Harry Hawk:
This is Harry Hawk and this has been Talking About Everything. I hope everybody has a great day. Bye-bye.
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