Gourmet Baja cuisine is booming south of Tijuana
From The San Diego Union Tribune
Written by Jordan England-Nelson
""Tijuana has gotten a lot of press this year for its rising brand of gourmet Baja California cuisine. The New York Times and The New Yorker (among
others) have held up the city as the cutting edge of Mexican gastronomy.
But Tijuana is really just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to good food and drink south of San Ysidro. In fact, the renaissance of Baja's
culinary scene has been in full swing for quite some time.
Most of the innovation has come out of Ensenada and the wine-making region of Guadalupe Valley, where a regional ecosystem of chefs, vintners and
farmers has been reshaping Baja's food identity for more than a decade.
For San Diegans looking to discover what American food critics are calling "Baja med," a weekend excursion is a canny way to go about it. The trip
will allow you to enjoy Baja's cuisine the way it is meant to be experienced: slowly and with local wine, or - as I would discover on my trip down -
locally brewed cerveza artisanal (craft beer).
Modern Baja gastronomy emphasizes local ingredients and unique interpretations of classic Mexican dishes. And like California, Baja's culinary
tradition is relatively young and uninhibited by established conventions, allowing chefs to experiment and draw on influences from across Mexico, the
Mediterranean and Asia.
These chefs say they find inspiration from Baja's indigenous plants and seafood, so I decided to follow suit by starting my culinary adventure with
one of the region's more curious local products: abalone.
Perched on a rocky bluff an hour and a half south of Ensenada, Abulones Cultivados bills itself as Mexico's first commercial abalone farm. The
facility - which consists of shallow concrete pools brimming with kelp and hungry gastropods - overlooks a pristine stretch of Pacific coastline and
offers tours to the public by appointment.
For years, Baja kelp was harvested by San Diego-based companies and used as food stabilizers and thickening agents. Abulones Cultivados began in 1989
as a way for Baja to turn its kelp beds into a sustainable and edible product.
The center is run by the ebullient Benito Altamira, a former computer distributor who has rebranded himself as the Steve Jobs of abalone farming -
although his infectious enthusiasm and green panama hat are, truth be told, more redolent of a highly caffeinated, elderly Indiana Jones than the
deified tech guru.
Altamira exports most of his crop to Asia and California, but the growing haute cuisine scene in Baja means more of his red abalone (found all along
the West Coast of North America) is staying in the area.
"I'd rather have my abalone travel close, not catch a plane," he said as he pulled a crate of plump, creepy-crawly mollusks from a salty pool of
seaweed.
One place that Altamira's abalone travel to is Muelle Tres, a nondescript seafood joint on the Ensenada wharf whose modest decor belies a truly
gourmet seafood menu.
The restaurant is a 30-second stroll from Ensenada's main seafood market, where rubber-booted fishmongers hawk their daily catch and chatty fish-taco
vendors vie for the appetites of passersby.
"It's like my fridge," said Muelle Tres owner David Martínez as he perused one of his preferred stalls. "I know the fishermen, and they save me the
best fish."
Martinez in turn saves the best fish for Muelle Tres' draw-dropping sashimi plates, which are drizzled with a ginger soy sauce and minced serrano
peppers. After the sashimi, which I washed down with a crisp Grenache Blanc from Guadalupe Valley, came a plate of Altamira's abalone, which, sautéed,
was much tastier than the canned stuff I had sampled at the farm.
After I was stuffed full of fish and wine, Martínez suggested a visit to the nearby Cervecería Wendlant, a gastropub that opened in April. "It's next
to Starbucks," he told me. "You can't miss it."
As it turns out, Cervecería Wendlant shares more than an American neighbor. It also has a beer philosophy heavily influenced by California. Wendlant's
29-year-old owner, Eugenio Romero-Wendlant, studied business administration at San Diego State University and learned to brew at UC Davis. He said his
bitter, hop-heavy ales are inspired by San Diego's IPAs.
Baja's beer culture is still in its infancy, but people there are starting to appreciate the taste (and value) of craft beers, Romero said. His bar
has 10 locally brewed beers on tap and 20 bottled microbrews from around Mexico. He even carries some San Diego beers, on which he says he takes a
loss.
"We are biting the bullet (on the more expensive beers), but we're trying to educate people," Romero said.
Cervecería Wendlant - which is just a hop, skip and jump from the fish market - also features an array of fresh seafood tostadas and sliders. Head
chef Krista Velasco said the menu is designed to complement the beer.
"I make recommendations based on the person's beer selection," she said. "It's cool because you get people psyched about what they're drinking."
Valasco's boyfriend, Diego Hernández, happens to be the head chef at Corazón de Tierra, the award-winning, farm-to-table restaurant featured on
Anthony Bourdain's "No Reservations" television show. Indeed, the Baja food scene is small and, at times, incestuous.
For the final stop of my Ensenada food tour, I headed over to Restaurante Manzanilla, where the Baja food movement arguably got its start.
"I got here 16 years ago and no one was doing anything," said Benito Molina, who founded Manzanilla in 2000 with chef wife, Solange Muris.
Manzanilla and Laja, another highly acclaimed farm-to-table in Guadalupe Valley founded a year after Manzanilla, were like "a beacon in the dark" for
years, said Phil Gregory, co-owner of Corazon de Tierra.
Molina and Muris also host a popular cooking show called, appropriately enough, "Benito y Solange."
When I spoke to Benito by phone after my trip, he expressed frustration with the U.S. media's current love affair with Tijuana's celebrity chefs, who
"love to copy other people's ideas."
"It really makes me angry that everyone is saying Baja cuisine started in Tijuana, because that's bullchit," Molina said. "It started in Ensenada."
“Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow mindedness.”
—Mark Twain
\"La vida es dura, el corazon es puro, y cantamos hasta la madrugada.” (Life is hard, the heart is pure and we sing until dawn.)
—Kirsty MacColl, Mambo de la Luna
\"Alea iacta est.\"
—Julius Caesar
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