Mexican cuisine is a fusion of indigenous Mesoamerican and European cooking , especially Spanish. It’s colorful, vibrant, influenced by different migrants over the centuries. It is tied closely to the culture and traditions.

Mexico is a giant picnic, on every corner people are eating, on every corner there is a stall, a merchant who sells tacos, nopales or tostadas. Mexico City is absolutely, amazingly buzzing and for foodie people, it’s a paradise.

Mexican and South American cuisine are at the front scene for a few years, and the new ‘en vogue’ chefs are proving that they can do a lot more than quesadillas.

Enrique Olvera for example in Mexico City has reinvented the haute cuisine adapting the classic to the modern with local ingredients.

Enrique says that ‘Mexican are getting more professional, there’s also a growing interest from the younger generation — to become chefs who will open high quality restaurants. ‘We have more culinary schools opening up in Mexico now and they are teaching Mexican cuisine, instead of classical French cuisine like they used to do’.

Women talking, there are a few. From Veracruz, Patricia Quintana is a key figure in contemporary Mexican cuisine and if you go a little higher on the map, there is San Miguel de Allende and Gabriella Green.

Gaby started cooking in her grandmother’s kitchen, growing up in Mexico City. She opened her first ‘fonda’ (family restaurant) in San Miguel de Allende, in 1998. For the next 12 years, Gaby continued operating three different restaurants and a cooking school. That’s where I met her. In her own house, on a sunny morning, I attended one of her class. Very informal, relax, Gaby is one of them, happy and smiley Mexican person, proud of her country, eager to tell us history and stories, and history is so rich in Mexico… When the 3 courses meal was ready, we had a special lesson on how to make the perfect Margarita, the best I have ever had so far.

In 2011 she yearned to make something a bit different.

You can now find ‘La Hierba Buena’ truck in the streets of San Miguel de Allende where Gaby serves anything from Mediterranean to Asian and Jewish dishes, along with her preferred Mexican specialities.

Mexico has a wide range of natural and cultural resources to help ensure a bright future to its cuisine which is at the dawn of its glory and not the future young chef or myself would complain about it.