Hi, I'm Nora Lopez, executive editor of the San Antonio Express-News.

Our guest today is Rico Torres, one of the founding chefs and co-owner of Mixtli the first restaurant in San Antonio to receive a michelin star.

The honor is considered one of the highest achievements a restaurant can earn in the culinary world, and puts both Mixtli and San Antonio in the coveted Michelin Guide.

From the very beginning, this has been more of an immersive dining experience than a regular restaurant.

You won't find a number two cheese enchilada plate here.

The name Mixtli means cloud in the Aztec language Nahuatl, and that concept helped create their ever changing menu.

Literally floating over a different culinary region and time period in Mexico history.

And the results have been a gastronomical success.

Rico, thank you so much for being with us in studio today.

And congratulations on the Michelin.

Thank you, thank you.

Thank you.

But let's start at the beginning.

Let's let's hear your origin story.

Where did this love for food?

For cooking.

When was it born?

You know, it sounds a little cliche, but it started in my grandmother's kitchen.

Of course, my little Lola.

And, it wasn't so much that what she was making, but it was this magic that she was creating in such a big family.

To get everybody together on the weekends is difficult as it is.

But when I was cooking, that's when the magic really starts.

And then everybody would gather and it would be these these big family reunions on a weekly basis.

And, that's really where that love started.

And then, you know, later on, I always consider myself an artist.

I love painting and art.

And whether it's movies or whatever we're doing, but it was a natural transition to go from that to the kitchen, where I get to experiment with ingredients and play beautiful and all of that.

And so.

And what was your, favorite dish that you're actually that made for you?

For me, I like a tortilla with regards to Chile.

We lived in El Paso, so Hach Chili was everywhere, and that was salt.

And maybe a little queso queso or haka.

That's a really good.

Yeah, it sounds like something I might fix late at night.

Yeah, just a little tiny burrito.

Just need a little fix.

And there's this Chilean cheese and the tortilla.

Simple.

Okay, so let's get to the good stuff.

I'm dying to hear how you curate your menu.

Where the name came from, because, yeah, it's spelled mixtli but it's pronounced mischly.

So tell us what what what inspired the name?

Yeah.

So the name usually means cloud.

And now, until now, it was a language spoken throughout the Aztec Empire.

And so, in the way that clouds travel, the menu travels state to state, region to region, sometimes back in time, as we're doing with this menu, la conquista, where we travel back to 1519 and follow the Spanish as a cross through Mexico, and then the classical follow the Aztec Empire.

The theme of the restaurant.

Basically, we change our menus out every three months to put a focus, a laser focus on on these stories.

We're about 200 miles from the closest border, and oftentimes it's a diluted version of Tex-Mex.

But that's a whole nother conversation altogether.

But we really wanted to just be able to tell these stories of Mexico.

Yeah.

That's what we've been doing for 11 years now.

And changing our menus and choosing places and going there.

The menus.

It takes a lot of research.

Sometimes we might be researching without even knowing that we're going to do a menu, but already doing research for following menus.

And, you know, it always kind of falls into what's the season?

Is it going to be warm?

Should we go somewhere on the coast where we can do things like beaches and our chilies and fresher ingredients?

Is it going to be closer to Christmas?

And maybe we'll focus on a place like Michoacan or Puebla, which have these beautiful celebrations.

And so on and on.

It kind of goes through that.

Now, your first restaurant, it first opened, as a railroad renovated railroad car wrecked, sat 12 people.

You had a big sort of communal, table, strangers sitting with one another, enjoying this experience because that is what your restaurant offers.

It's a unique dining experience.

It's a fixed, meal you've already set.

You pay a fixed, fixed price.

So you're not ordering a la carte.

So what goes into all of that presentation that you do?

Lots and lots of details and planning and organizing and research.

All of it.

And it's a whole team of people putting things together from our some of the a Haley Pruitt, to our bar director, Lauren Beckman, who actually just received the service award in Texas from the Michelin Awards, which is phenomenal.

But the entire team, all the chefs are expected to flex that creative muscle.

And so always putting out ideas.

And then it's a little details.

You know, Diego and I have kind of thrown a lot of restaurant rules out the window.

And Diego was my partner, by the way.

He and I try to create something that's very special and cool, and memorable for sure.

And maybe life changing to somebody.

And if I can get somebody to cry at the restaurant from nostalgia like we did it.

Does that happen?

It has happened.

Yeah.

That's amazing.

I've been.

Somebody might be like, I haven't had this since I was a child, or I was smelled this.

And, you know, I was walking to school in the mornings from my dad's house or whatever.

And these it evokes that memory and that nostalgia.

And it's a beautiful thing.

Now, the co-owner and, co-founder is your partner, Diego Garcia.

Correct.

How did you two meet?

And we met, maybe about 13 years ago.

Starting in.

We were in a group called the Texas Cooks Co-op with a bunch of other, chefs in town.

And we were doing pop up dinners once a month, and we did that for about a year.

And he and I naturally kind of gravitated towards each other.

We were like minded in a lot of ways, and at the time I had a catering company and I didn't.

I worked a lot by myself, and I kind of wanted to be in a group with chefs again.

So we eventually decided that we'll do our own thing, and not long after that, we decided to quit our jobs and open Mixtli And where was the idea for like a railroad car?

That's all we could afford.

Okay, yeah, it was about $700 a month, so that's what I could afford at the time.

And, and the space, you know, we started initially with $25,000 and then ran out of money and had a miracle and got a little bit more, just a little bit more.

I sold all my catering equipment to make it happen.

And that's how we started the restaurant.

It's what we could afford at the time.

And then it made a lot of sense after that.

It kind of became part of the, the, you know, the, the, the charisma of it.

The character and the experience.

Yeah.

Yeah.

A lot of guests still miss the train car.

Really?

Yeah, it was nice.

I mean, it was a smaller operation, was easier to run, which is great, but it was also very hot sometimes or very limited in the things that we could offer, you know.

And everything was in this car, the kitchen.

Everything.

The where to wash the dishes, everything.

Yeah.

Yeah, it was one table for 12, you know, the other side was a kitchen.

On the other side was a restroom, one that's the best we could do at the time.

Well, that's.

Incredibly we had to build everything from scratch.

We didn't have any lenders.

We didn't have any banks.

It was.

I mean, we had a bank, but no bank loans, nothing like that.

And, So I know that, every three months you change it out and you come up with different concepts for it.

Things like you you've done in the past, meals that sit around the street, foods of Mexico City's subway system.

That was a cool.

One that I was fascinated by.

Was, you chronicled the journey of the conquistadors at around Cortez, That's pretty delicious.

So tell me about that.

What what inspired that?

And, And how did you find the the plates, the dishes that you thought would be representative of that?

Well, the story itself is is inspiring.

It's it's an amazing story.

I can't believe it hasn't been made it to, like, a three part movie.

Because it's so much there's so many unbelievable adventures in there.

It's amazing, from the way that the Spaniards got there to what they experience to when they get to the land.

That has been probably the longest menu that we've had to research.

The first time we did it was about a year.

And then another, you know, and onwards after that, we did this menu about seven years ago, a completely different menu, but the same thing.

And that took a lot of time to research.

And we, we built on that research ever since.

So leading up to it we were a little more prepared, but it's still very in-depth.

And how are you going to take such a big story and consolidated into eight courses and then figuring out angles to create a dish?

You know, because it's not just like, oh, well, they I see here that they eat this you, this meal on this day, it's more about what ingredients were available.

How does this translated to a story?

How can we elevate it and keep, you know, honors its origins at the same time?

All of that goes into play into creating and researching.

So tell me, like one of the dishes that's a part of the the current lineup.

What, what?

Well, we'll finish off with a, with a mole.

There's several more is on the menu, but this one is, specific.

We call it from Mesoamerica to modern Mexico.

And it talks about how Molly becomes a form of cultural resistance.

And so Molly from Mesoamerica may have been a little more simple, with things like corn and Chilean tomatoes, ingredients that are local, that were in you know, native to Mexico.

But as the Spaniards arrive and they find routes from Acapulco to Manila and open up the trading for across the Pacific, and used to have these staple goods from across the Atlantic.

And all the influences in Mexico over those years are really changing the cuisine, especially in the convents where the nuns are creating new dishes, especially in areas like Puebla where you might have viceroyalty or, or, you know, someone from the church or the pope coming through, they will come through Veracruz, through Puebla, there to Mexico City.

And so that stay was super important.

And a lot of dishes were created at that time, such as Molly Poblano, which is a the most quintessential meal in Mexico.

It is, codified by the Mexican government.

It has its 26 ingredients, and only three of them are actually endemic to Mexico.

The tomato, the the cacao and the chili.

The rest of it, you pull a thread on any of those ingredients, and it'll take you through a story all around the world of how it got.

There would be a was it the pantry that the Spaniards brought, which is Apache?

This started a thousand years prior to their arrival in Mexico, in the Middle East.

It just on and on.

It just carries you all around the world.

So it's it's very interesting how Mexico is, in a lot of ways, the last leg of human globalization because it and how it ties to the rest of the world and how it's a global, pantry is, I mean, not a go part, but it's a, agricultural cradle to the world.

They've discovered cacao, vanilla, chilies, tomatoes, and on and on.

Ingredients that have changed everything.

Now, I know you've made use of the UTSA, library.

They have a huge, selection of Mexican cookbooks, some of them handwritten.

Yeah.

Tell me about that.

Yeah.

So first of all, kudos to the team that curates this collection.

UTSA has UTSA libraries, has a special collections department, and in that department they have their Mexican cookbook collection.

And it's, it's has about 3000 different volumes in it dating back to 1789.

So the first ones are manuscripts or diaries or, I think the very first one is that a menu of about 79 ingredients or 73 ingredients?

93 items that are going to be for a wedding, like a five day wedding.

And, you know, in Mexico, weddings are long because parties are long.

And so it just starts off that way into published works and all the women, that authors that the, the wrote it it really speaks to the collection really speaks to the history of Mexico as well.

And who was writing that history and for who were they writing and who was left out of that identity.

And, a lot of it really culminates around that time of, when Mexico is gaining its independence and really trying to create its own identity.

And so the that introduction of things like tequila and mariachis and tacos and more or less are very much the Mexican identity were really getting cemented during that time.

So it's fun to to interact and see those things and reading between the lines and see and, you know, you pick out little snippets of history.

And so if you're like a history nerd like myself, I kind of geek out of those things.

So it sounds like you're.

Yeah, you do enjoy going there.

Do things.

That's wonderful.

Okay, so then there's also the whole issue of the presentation that this isn't just you're not just sitting down.

It's a whole storytelling opportunity.

You've said, how do you come up with these ideas?

Because I understand, like sometimes you will present the food, underneath a dome, plate filled with smoke or sometimes on top of, but is it dry ice?

Like, where do these ideas come from?

And how do they play into what you're trying to.

For, necessity?

These ideas will come in from a necessity, wanting to stay ahead of the curve from wanting to, to give the most memorable experience.

We want you to fall in love with everything before you even taste it.

And so your eyes are already devouring this presentation, and, that kind of already starts to transport you.

And so that necessity and desire to to do cool things for cool people is just always you know, present in, in the research and in the facilitating of these details.

And response from, people who show up.

Is it generally positive?

Do you ever get somebody who says, don't you have something else that's more Tex-Mex?

Yes.

To both everybody.

You know, we do have very positive responses.

We spend a lot of time tasting and trying it ourselves, having the menu ourselves.

And we've kind of become very good curators of that situation.

And, yeah, you know, we've had a run of the mill.

Somebody come and asked for the sauce, you know, like, where are the chips and salsa on the table?

And I'm like, well, that's not the type of restaurant.

You think they would have read about it before they showed up?

Yeah, but it's okay.

We'll teach them.

We'll tell them when they get there, you know?

But, the idea is to really give somebody a very special evening.

And it really starts from the moment that they walk in the door.

Tell me about some of the ingredients you use, because you don't use a lot of you use a lot of the traditional things.

Obviously corn for the tortillas.

You do some things that are very old school roasting and grinding the cacao for the hot chocolate and all of that.

So what goes into selecting the ingredients and the spices that you use?

And, tell us about 1 or 2 that you particularly like to use.

And why.

Yeah.

Well, I mean, what goes into those ingredients is really what's going to what's happening with the menu, what's seasonally available, what's actually available to us.

You know, there's still some stuff in Mexico that I wish I could get my hands on, and I just can't find the way to get it over here.

You like really special ingredient where you get that or something, but some of the my favorite ingredients, of course, Obasanjo, which is something that, Doctor Ellen Clark gave me or if, if anybody knows who she is.

But yeah, she's an author and a professor.

She gave me my first four plants about ten years ago, and, and they've grown in my yard and in the business for years.

And they kind of move around the they move around the garden, but.

Oh, that's not this minty.

It's a Niecy.

It's a shape like a heart.

It grows definitely in tropical climate.

So it's harder to keep alive in this weather, but we've used it from cocktails to desserts to right now, it's we're it's a one of the, the dishes where it's wrapped around a saddle of tenderloin.

Chili.

Here's my favorite chili.

I think it's, chili that is, smoked in a cave in Oaxaca.

And so it has this beautiful, smoky flavor.

Like, if you add that to a pot of beans, it's almost like adding instead of adding bacon, you get that same flavor.

I keep a I my house next to my in the stove is the salt and then the chili baking powder.

For that I blend it up in the in the in the blender.

It's.

And I don't even know where the black pepper is because, those are my two spices, my two things that I always have on hand.

Queso, or single from Chiapas is one of my favorites as well.

It's, in the shape of a ball, but it's this amazing, almost super dense cream cheese texture, but very funky at the same time.

And it's just one of my favorite cheeses that I've experienced from there since.

It's just a bunch of cool stuff here.

I'm partial only to only my rice.

I'll only my.

They'll.

Okay.

But, so what would you say to somebody like me who's super basic?

Not a big, a person to go experiment with foods.

What would you say to me?

To encourage me to come here.

Start off by saying that you're a dynamic person.

There's nothing basic about you.

So let's build on that.

You know, there you you have to at some point, let go of the reins a little bit and allow us to show you how we do as well.

I agree, there's only certain things that I like to eat as well.

But there is this, you know, there is a, a group of very highly skilled, passionate chefs that are curating things for every palate.

And it kind of has to be it has to be great all across the board.

So this is something that's been going on for over a decade.

I think that I say, just give us a chance to impress you.

Okay.

And now you're also expanding more into, cocktails.

Agave.

Wine?

Yeah.

Well, I.

Want to say so much expanding is part of the process, is part of the business.

But, yeah, I have a wonderful team that curates those things as well.

And the cocktail menu is also meeting to in consideration with what's happening with the current menu.

So if you wanted to do the menu with cocktail pairing is that is an option that's available for you.

And the cartels are made with with your consideration to the items in the menu and oftentimes working, the bar director will be working in tandem with the chefs.

And, you know, like the pastry chef might be working on on a garnish for them.

Or we're making a dish that has, some leftover stuff that gets turned into something special.

And then those two things at a party.

Well, the the wine is also another huge part of the story.

The research that goes into it has improved, has done an amazing job with it.

And we have, I think, the largest collection of Mexican wines in the restaurant.

I'm like 1200.

Right.

Well, not not.

Altogether.

Whites, but of Mexican whites in the specific, the largest collection of that, at least varieties.

And that's a beautiful story in itself.

I mean, just talking about how these vineyards were created in Mexico, like the way they pass or, and, in Baja, de Santo Tomas, like, it's just the stories are amazing and they talk a lot about the origins of Mexico and, the people that created it.

I love that so much is focused on history.

So that, and I love that you talk about how everything is, is presented, has a story and, and your people tell that story.

How hard is that to do to get everybody on the same page and to be, entertained, but also educating?

You mean to get the rest of the staff on board?

You.

It's, it goes from being in a restaurant to the theater, you know?

So I have to remind people, like, speak from the diaphragm.

Speak over there to that person, and, smile with your eyes.

So there's a little bit of stage training as well.

And it's always the newer ones that we, you know, we we we'll take them outside and we'll work on it for a little while to get all the jitters out.

Is that if you can get to me, that you can talk to any table and, you know, it's a process of training and writing scripts and telling stories.

I write all the scripts for the, for the storytelling.

I do most of the research, but also at that point it goes into like, you need to be able to also say this naturally.

So we work on it.

So they have homework.

Yes.

They always have homework.

Yeah.

Oh that's amazing.

And now you do something a little bit similar in El Paso.

Correct.

So I founded El Paso Family Meal back in 2019.

And that was an idea of bringing back chefs that grew up in El Paso and chefs that are living in El Paso to energize the community and to also use our clout to raise money for for charities there.

So our benefactor is El Pasoans, Fighting Hunger Food Bank.

And we are on our eighth, our dinner.

So far our event and, energy is big when you go back to El Paso or they had it's like, hey, we're bringing these chefs and these chefs from El Paso are going to be involved.

It's a huge and it's not just at home.

The El Paso is everywhere.

So one of my favorites was the one that we did in Jamestown, Rhode Island on the beach and, in under the pavilion in the middle of a storm and so we were able to put some of the walls out, but it was 200 people sold out for support in El Paso, people that maybe they had never been before.

So pass up a love this idea.

And so it travels and it's, it's been a really amazing to be part of that and to lift up the community in El Paso as well from from remote.

Really?

Yeah.

The newspaper, has been writing about your restaurant, you know, from the get go when it opened in 2013.

And you have been a darling of the foodies for a long while.

Very quickly, within three years, Food and Wine named you both you and Diego.

Top chefs.

That was in 20.

Yeah.

Best New Chefs 2017.

You've been nominated multiple times for the James Beard Award.

But like Susan Lucci, you're still just kind of come through yet.

But the Michelin I love.

Lucy and, I love, Hot in Cleveland and Wendie Malick is my favorite for her arch enemy is Susan Lucci.

And it's so funny.

Yeah.

Well, yeah, I just thought of that because you've been nominated several times for that.

Yeah, the James Beard has been a little bit difficult.

We've had best restaurant, best, best chefs southwest.

The most recent show was Outstanding Restaurant.

So that was a category that was actually extended to the whole country.

And it was only five restaurants in that category.

So we got that close.

And just to be in the conversation, to be in the room is a huge, huge achievement for to be a finalist.

But yes, Antonio hasn't been able to bring one in yet.

So but you brought us our first Michelin star, and I know we're all very proud of that.

So how has that changed your life?

Changed the course of the of the restaurant.

What what are what was the immediate impact?

The immediate impact was, a lot of new customers, a lot of new reservations, which is fantastic.

These last two years at San Antonio has been very difficult for all the restaurants.

I think we've lost like 40 in this past year that we know of.

And it's not just in San Antonio.

It's about to say, oh, Texas.

So the whole industry at large was suffering.

Even in Austin, where it's busy, even the Pearl was suffering.

So that has been a big boon to the business.

And hopefully the overflow has also helped out some of the other businesses in town as well, because there's a lot of very special talent and a lot of very special restaurants in town.

And so it hurts to see any one of them closed because these are your these are your colleagues and, you know, the struggle that they're going through to keep doors open, to keep employees paid, to keep yourself paid.

If you you know, because we have our own I got to have I got to pay the mortgage on the house too and feed my family.

And all of that stuff is a huge, huge struggle.

So this kind of relieve that a little bit and, at least for a while, we're going to make the most of it.

And, hopefully it really, really went over some of our new customers.

And of course, keep all the returning customers like, we have a lot of, great customers that come through the door.

I was, committed to the staff the other day that it seems like we're hugging everybody that's leaving because they're all family, in a way.

You've got two meals that you serve, right?

And you said you're sold out right now.

No, no.

So we do an eight course tasting menu.

Reservations are spread out from 515 to, 830.

Yeah, we're sold out right now, but I've really would recommend do not let that dissuade you from coming to the restaurant.

Try to get yourself on a wait list, or at least plan out for the next month.

So a lot of stuff in January.

You know, she's always been that worked out that way, but I want everybody to experience it, so please don't let them.

Don't be like, well, I'll try next year when things slow down and try when you can and and come see me and come see the guy.

Yeah.

Well, thank you so much, Rico I really enjoyed the conversation, and I can't wait to, go try it out myself.

Of course.

And the whole year upon upon us.

So it'll be a good time.

Yeah.

Try something.

Different.

Yeah.

We're going to make you the best You're not going to like yours anymore.

I'm kidding, I'm kidding.

We'll see.

Yeah.

Thanks, Bring me Some are yours, and I would love that.

One.

With cheers.

Thank you for having me.

Thank you for being here.

Thank you for joining us today.

If you have any thoughts or suggestions for future shows, email us at Texas Talk at klrn.org Until then, I’m Nora Lopez