Special to The News
Friday, April 3, 2009
Mexico City's favorite cuisines are often enjoyed on the street, dished out by vendors from greasy hot plates and steaming steel vats. But Zéfiro, the new restaurant-culinary school at the Universidad del Claustro de Sor Juana, is transforming the nation's gastronomic treasures into a top-notch, fine dining experience.
Zéfiro (Zephyr, or western wind) opened last month at the 17th century convent-turned-university in the city's Centro Histórico.
Around 40 culinary students in their fifth and final year in the culinary art at the Universidad del Claustro de Sor Juana perform Zéfiro's every last task, creating the recipes, setting the menu, cooking and serving the food, and running the administration - all while under the watch of executive chefs.
"What we do here is an intermediate step. We call this the area of 'professionalization,' " said Guillermina Torres at the restaurant's inauguration in mid-March. Torres directs the gastronomy college at the university.
Lunch at Zéfiro is served in the former nuns' quarters, the original cragged stone walls still intact. Floor-length windows open up to a cobblestone plaza, while the restaurant's interior invites modernity with sleek, dark wood tables and minimalist décor. The exposed stainless steel kitchen gives guests a behind-the-scenes peek.
New and old find their way in the food as well, as chefs mix traditional Mexican ingredients and dishes with vanguard cooking techniques. The trout salad, for example, is served with a gel-like sphere of goat cheese whose liquid insides wash over the palette at first bite.
Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim cut the ceremonial red ribbon last month before a plaza boasting hors d'oeuvres, cocktails and around 600 well-heeled guests.
A public inauguration is slated for April 13.
Zéfiro is an apprenticeship, giving students the chance to bring four years of knowledge to an applied environment, easing the transition into the labor pool and preparing students to face the demands of restaurateurs worldwide.
For that reason, the restaurant only serves lunch from Monday through Friday, and it maintains a reservations-only policy - despite its 120-person capacity - to limit students' workload in the first months of operation. Breakfast and specialty menus are also on the horizon, Torres said.
MEXICAN CUISINE
Juan Pablo Flores, executive chef of Zéfiro's kitchen, said the "restaurant-school" label shouldn't be synonymous with mediocrity.
"People are surprised when they come and eat like kings," he said, standing behind a kitchen counter in his white chef coat and hat.
The restaurant has a predetermined list of entrees, soups, main courses and desserts that alternate every day, giving variety to guests and boundaries to the students. The set daily menu costs 85 pesos per person.
Flores said Zéfiro is the first restaurant-school in Mexico to train students in Mexican cuisine; of the few culinary institutions in the country, most teach French and European techniques.
"I believe that's one of the most important roles of [Zéfiro]: to rescue Mexican customs and the Mexican gastronomic tradition," he said.
Eduardo Carmona, the kitchen's student sub-chef, agreed.
"Our food is part of our roots. We're exposing our roots to the entire world, and this should make us proud," said the 24-year-old, who this fall will study gastronomy under world-renowned chef Ferran Adriá at his El Bulli restaurant in Spain.
Zéfiro blends the boundaries between Mexico's gastronomic heritage and its future. Chefs use mostly organic Mexican produce to mill traditional classics like moles and salsas, but dishes are prepared with avant-garde cooking techniques that manipulate the taste, texture and temperature of foods.
The restaurant does occasionally skirt its Mexican mission for the sake of teaching students new skills. For example, the sea bass dish "robalo a la sal" is served with poblano-flavored butter in a lidded pan; when the top is lifted, a powerful, salty aroma arises, giving diners a taste before they take a bite.
But the students in the culinary school aren't simply chefs - they're artists in presentation as well.
The "ensalada nopales" sits squarely in the plate's center, a Medusa-like tangle of green cactus slices and translucent white onions, dusted with crumbles of queso blanco. An order of "guajolote balotín" angles a creamy potato patty atop a thick slice of turkey, the foundation a pool of sweet, reddish mole poblano sauce.
Main course options also include, among others: chile relleno with tomato sauce; crawfish tacos with a dried chile marinade ("tacos de jaiba con adobo de chile pasillo); duck in morita chile sauce with hibiscus ("pato en salsa de morita con jamaica); and Champeche-style shrimp ("camarones a la Campechana).
SWEET TREATS
Zéfiro's desserts also renovate and stylize Mexican favorites, much like their savory counterparts.
A light, flaky "cofre," or jewel box, encases tender caramelized pears sprinkled with cinnamon; raspberries, blackberries and a drizzle of apple brandy sauce atop the pastry shell. A spoonful of macadamia nut ice cream sits to the side, joined by a curl of milk chocolate - the signature of Alfonso Rivera, chocolate aficionado and the restaurant's executive pastry chef.
Rivera works closely with his students to study the kitchen's daily menu; together they determine the best tastes to end the meal.
"We adjust the desserts a little every day so that the dessert is the final touch, the harmonic element on the menu," he said.
Dessert plates include, among others, sorbets like mango, guayaba and other Mexican fruits; a deconstructed cake ("deconstrucción de pastel imposible"); and cocoa bean ice cream ("postre helado con habas de cacao").
Rivera said that while the restaurant-school's primary goal is to prepare its students for the professional world, Zéfiro also strives to project an image of Mexican cuisine as first-rate and high-class.
"It's something we need to do so people on the outside can realize that we make things with quality, that we're always looking to raise the bar," he said.
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