In May 2019, we teamed up with 2019 James Beard Semifinalist Chef Claudette Zepeda to host a dinner in Mexico City. We gathered at Sobremesa, a beautiful culinary arts space in the Roma Norte neighborhood run by Lucía and Micaela, to hear about the inspiration for Claudette's dishes.
We sipped mezcal from Yola Mezcal, a Oaxacan women-owned and operated mezcalaria. Onora Casa, a women-run collection of Mexican handmade textiles and objects, treated us to their designs, and we ended the evening with coffee from our friends at BUNA, a local coffee roaster that works with Mexican coffee producers to develop, transform, and share delicious coffee.
Men and women from across Mexico City and from a range of industries - from fashion to journalism to design to public policy to culinary arts - joined us for an evening of celebration - celebration of female talent across Mexico City. We gathered at Sobremesa, a beautiful culinary arts space in the Roma Norte neighborhood of Mexico City created by Lucía and Micaela. Born out of the belief that cooking should be accessible to all, Sobremesa offers cooking classes, gastronomy workshops, and cooking parties to educate us on the benefits of cooking for our health and the environment.
We hosted breakfast in collaboration with 2019 James Beard Semifinalist Chef Claudette Zepeda, the Executive Chef/Partner of El Jardín, a modern Mexican restaurant in San Diego’s Point Loma neighborhood. Inspired by the regional cuisine in Mexico, where her passion for food was first cultivated, El Jardín is an expression of Zepeda’s culinary journey as a chef. Born in the U.S. and raised between Tijuana and San Diego, Zepeda credits the confluence of flavors and ingredients she was exposed to while spending time with family in Tijuana and Guadalajara, including her aunt Lorenza who owned her own restaurant, as paving the way for her eventual career. Prior to El Jardín, Zepeda was chef de cuisine at Javier Plascencia’s celebrated Bracero and also spent time alongside chef Gavin Kaysen at his former San Diego restaurant, El Bizcocho. A member of Buzzfeed's inaugural Tasty talent program and former Top Chef Season 15 +Top Chef Mexico competitor, Zepeda continues to find inspiration from her frequent visits to Mexico, as well as her husband and teenage son and daughter whom she resides with in San Diego’s Bonita neighborhood.
Chef Claudette created delicious and innovative dishes that were a beautiful tribute to the women who raised her between San Diego, Tijuana, and Guadalajara and to the women she has met in her travels throughout Mexico.
Starters
Heirloom tomato and fresh farm cheese with a vinaigrette made with hoja santa & chaya
Pan arabe with labne, grilled vegetables basted in brown butter and herbs from the floating milpas of xochimilco
Main
Grilled al pastor octopus with pineapple and jalapeño yogurt sauce
Duck mole tamal with whipped black beans
Shrimp aguachile with tostadas
Papas machas, crispy cambray potatoes with a creamy ha-sikil pak sauce, coconut oil confit fennel
Dessert
Almond torte with passion fruit sauce and seasonal fruit
Chocolate nicuatole with cinnamon chantilly
We teamed up with women-led brands Yola Mezcal and Onora Casa to celebrate women-led businesses in Mexico.
Yola Mezcal was founded by Yola Jimenez, Lykke Li, and Gina Correll Aglietti, and is run by women, bottled by women, and handmade in Oaxaca. Yola shared her story with us ~ from spending time as a child on her grandfather’s mezcal farm in Oaxaca to living in London and New York to returning to Mexico to take over the family business.
Onora Casa was created by Maggie Galton and Maria Eladia Hagerman, and is a brand of handcrafted design that has been working in collaboration for more than 15 years with talented Mexican artisans in the creation of handmade textiles and home accessories. Maggies shared with us how Onora Casa is working with Mexican artisans to explore Mexican traditions, techniques, colors, and iconographies and giving them new life through contemporary designs.
We ended the evening with coffee from our friends at BUNA, a local coffee roaster that works with Mexican coffee producers to develop, transform, and share delicious coffee. Beto from BUNA shared with us how BUNA studies the biodiversity and soil of Mexico, dedicates time to finding the best ingredients, and collaborates with farmers to implement ecological practices and design quality processes for the crop. They build strong relationships and fair agreements to buy, transform, and share delicious coffee.
FUTURE OF WOMEN is a unifying platform that creates original multimedia content and programming by, for, and about women around the world to openly look at the pursuit of being a modern woman. In 2018, we began collaborating with award-winning female chefs worldwide, from Los Angeles to Mexico City to Tel Aviv to Tokyo, to host a monthly women's breakfast series featuring game-changing women such as Olympic athletes, Emmy-winning producers, top Billboard musicians, and New York Times journalists on topics including architecture, sports, art, music, journalism, and human rights.
A Special Thank You To Our Partners
and Chef Claudette Zepeda-Wilkins for a delicious dinner, and our photographer Alicia Vera for these beautiful photographs.
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