Recently, the Mökki restaurant at The Ritz-Carlton Astana hosted a gala dinner and master classes from a famous Mexican chef. We met him and asked if he had tried local cuisine and what he thought about the Kazakh people.
About myself
I was born in Mexico City, the capital of Mexico. I have six brothers, and like all big families, we helped with the cooking since childhood. Even then, I was interested in making preparations, preparing food, and experimenting with recipes. Then I trained as a food technician and worked in the hotel business for a long time. Afterwards I studied cooking and took various trainings, including from chefs from France. That's why my specialty is mixed Mexican-French cuisine.
I worked in various restaurants in Mexico and spent a year in France working at the famous establishment Au Pied de Cochon. He worked in Dubai for another two years. And for the last year and a half I have been working on the Cantina Kahlo restaurant in Bahrain. We prepare real authentic Mexican food and are among the top 5 best restaurants in the country.
About the reasons for coming
Cantina Kahlo is a popular establishment in Bahrain with excellent reviews on TripAdvisor. The food service manager at The Ritz-Carlton Astana heard about us and invited me to Kazakhstan for a week to learn more about Mexican cuisine.
Every day I host different events: cooking classes for people who want to learn how to cook authentic Mexican dishes, tequila tastings with authentic snacks like guacamole canapés, tuna ceviche or tortilla soup. We also held a gala dinner with a four-course menu and a Sunday brunch.
This is my first visit to Kazakhstan. Before arriving, I looked at the information on the Internet. I learned that the country became independent relatively recently. Temperatures here in winter can drop to -30 degrees, and the local cuisine has many Asian influences.
About Kazakhstan
I spent a lot of time with the kitchen staff. The people here are open, friendly, and always ready to help. They may not understand the language I speak, but they always show with gestures where things are in the kitchen or where I can get the necessary tools. It may be cold in Kazakhstan, but people are warm towards others.
Here I feel confident, like at home. For example, every morning five or six different people ask if I had breakfast, and if not, they will definitely offer something.
It is difficult to prepare real Mexican food in Astana because the necessary ingredients are not available here. I started preparing food several months in advance and brought here about 50 kilograms of the necessary products: chili, beans, tortillas, sauces and much more.
The cooking culture in Kazakhstan is very different from Mexico. We use a lot of corn, beans, tortillas, pork. It's different here. I liked beshbarmak. The meat in this dish is tasty and soft in texture. I want to try horse meat: I have eaten a lot of exotic dishes, like crocodile meat, but I have not tried this yet.
About plans
I am glad to have the opportunity to come to Kazakhstan. This is a new and unusual experience for me. It’s great that I can not only teach something to others, but also learn something new myself. I would like to come here again in the future, not alone, but with my team of chefs.
