Marylebone's newest Mexican restaurant is inspired by the food made by Adriana Cavita's family. Here's how she has honoured the women who raised her
For chef Adriana Cavita, her first eponymous restaurant in the heart of Marylebone Village in central London is dedicated to women. "The restaurant needs to honour women in Mexico," she tells The Caterer. "I feel like there aren't many restaurants run by women... and this gives me a chance to share Mexican culture, because most of these traditional dishes have been passed down through recipes from women to women."
Cavita was raised in Mexico City, surrounded by strong women in her family. Her grandmother was a street trader, selling tamales, quesadillas and huarache, which gave Cavita a connection with the kitchen from an early age.
But it wasn't until she went on to do a degree in gastronomy at the Universidad del Claustro de Sor Juana before travelling through the rural towns of the country that she properly got under the skin of this complex cuisine.
"I love the diversity of the regional cuisines and I lived in many different places, but the one I'm mostly influenced by is Oaxaca, where I lived for almost a year," she says. A typical Oaxaca street food dish of smoked mushroom tetela, made from blue corn, roasted potato, red adobo, goats' curd and guacasalsa is on her menu.
Another favourite dish is the main of mole verde, inspired by a dish her aunt used to make – "it's one of my favourite things in the world". The mole (which translates simply into ‘sauce') is made by sautéing onion and garlic before adding pepper, cumin and tomatillos, which give more acidity than regular tomatoes. Pumpkin seeds are toasted and added to the base, along with a little vegetable broth.
She then blends blanched parsley, coriander and mint and mixes with the sauce before seasoning. A spatchcocked chicken is then marinated with similar herbs and olive oil before being grilled over coals and placed on top of the mole sauce. Baby courgettes, spring onions and broccoli are marinated with a dried herb from Oaxaca called hoja santa before grilling over the charcoal. The whole dish is served with tortillas made from ground corn, which is freshly milled at the restaurant in a 1.5m x 1m manual stone grinder from Mexico. The stones typically used to mill flours are replaced with volcanic rocks – a process practiced in Mexico since ancient times – which gives the flour a texture she can't replicate any other way.
Cavita's first restaurant position was at Pujol in Mexico City, when she was 19, followed by stints in the famed kitchens of Ferran Adrià and El Bulli, before moving to London six years ago to work at Peyotito in Notting Hill before it closed. This then led her onto a number of different pop-ups, private chef roles and residencies before meeting her business partners and opening Cavita in May.
Completely by accident, her current team is mostly women. "I have two men in the kitchen and another woman joining tomorrow, but more men would be nice – we need their strength," she laughs.
The 35-year-old-chef has a team of six working with her in the kitchen for 90-120 covers, six evening services a week. Plans to open for lunch and brunch are in the pipeline once the kitchen is confident and fully staffed. In an ideal world, Cavita would like a brigade of 10, serving a menu that changes seasonally every three to four months, while retaining the staple dishes guest ask for time and time again, including the pulpo a las brasas (chargrilled octopus with guajillo and pasilla adobo) and chutoro toastada. For the latter, a dish she has been evolving since first coming to London, a tortilla is toasted before being layered with avocado purée and sashimi-grade tuna, which is marinated with a vinaigrette made from dried chillies, toasted pumpkin seeds, sesame and soy.
A restaurant like Cavita unsurprisingly takes its mezcal very seriously: "I would like the restaurant to be a place where people can learn and answer questions of how to drink tequila and mezcal, rather than shoot it," she explains. The house margarita is made from tequila blanco and a dash of mezcal along with fresh spiced watermelon and fresh lime juice, served on the rocks with homemade lime salt.
"I wanted to do cocktails that are not super-high in alcohol, to instead be more fresh like the Mexican drink aguas frescas, so guests can really taste the food, enjoy, have fun, but still remember the night."
60 Wigmore Street, London W1U 2RZ
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