How Guatemalan Chefs Are Using Food to Showcase the Country's Soul
Julien Capmeil
Guatemala has a rich edible history that involves Indigenous foodways, colonial invasions, and recent immigrant arrivals. But its culinary culture has long been overlooked on the global stage. In the past decade, though, new fine-dining restaurants, including Flor De Lis, Diacá, and Sublime, have garnered international acclaim with glitzy experiences the country hadn't seen before. Now a fresh generation of chefs is establishing a modern Guatemalan cuisine by extolling native techniques and elevating humble home cooking while incorporating the flavors of various diasporas.
The movement launched in 2014 with the opening of Mercado 24, which took inspiration from the 23 municipal markets that keep home kitchens in Guatemala City stocked. Other restaurants have followed suit in celebrating local produce. A diner at Ana might be served an heirloom tomato with black salt from the town of Sacapulas; chayote, a gourdlike vegetable, comes adorned with foie gras, macadamia nuts, and epazote. “I believe that cooking and food are powerful ways to connect with the earth and its cycles,” says Ana chef Nicolás Solanilla. “We respect nature in every dish we create.”
The wealth of Guatemalan ingredients is also on display at Nanik (the Mayan word for “abundance”), chef Fernando Solís's restaurant in Antigua. His cooking, he says, is informed by “the country's microclimates, our proximity to a diversity of lakes and oceans, and different animal proteins from specialized farms,” as well as “the varied traditions and cultures that make our gastronomy rich.” Here you'll find menu items like a squash blossom tamale; a quesadilla-like dish called a doblada de queso de tusa huehueteco, made with chicharron and pepián sauce; and a dizzying array of experiments with maize, including caramelized corn on the cob with burnt tortilla and ash.
Like Solís, anthropologist turned restaurateur María Jacinta Xón has sought to manifest aspects of Guatemala's history in the plates she serves at Proyecto Tux, in Chichicastenango. Before turning to food, she studied forms of creativity that have emerged from spaces where Indigenous women found ways to resist oppression, including kitchens. Her seasonal tasting menus explore this dynamic with dishes like boxboles, flowers in a cornmeal sauce with lime and achiote. The restaurant also seeks to preserve recipes that existed before chemical fertilizers, monoculture crops, and the seizure of Indigenous lands.
Nana, another of Antigua's standout restaurants (which—surprise!—houses a vintage shop too), utilizes Guatemala's culinary bounty while casting an eye overseas for inspiration in serving what chef Rodrigo Aguilar describes as “glocal” cuisine. His culinary philosophy, which relies on a number of vintage nouvelle cuisine techniques, is on display in a sourdough bread and house-made butter with sea salt and shichimi togarashi, as well as a delicate raw snapper crudo with Guanche chile hollandaise. The surprising combinations of ingredients have dazzled locals and visitors alike, burnishing Antigua's culinary reputation.
Back in Guatemala City, the Vietnamese-inspired “cantina” Toi Doi more explicitly showcases the growing international influences on the country's cuisine. “I think the gastronomy and perception of Asian cuisines in Guatemala is changing, and people are looking for new flavors and ways to reinterpret local gastronomy,” says Daniel Guzmán, the restaurant's chef. “We have it easy. Both Guatemala and Vietnam are countries in the tropics, and we share many similar ingredients.”
There's a Spanish phrase that captures the experience of eating in Guatemala right now: barriga llena, corazón contento (“full belly, happy heart”). Appropriately, Barriga Llena is also the name of the Antigua restaurant where Carlos Sosa and Mario Godinez create their own versions of classic Guatemalan dishes, bringing their unique style to pork dumplings with “chinichurri” sauce and a beloved national snack—mixtas chapinas, made with corn tortillas, sausages, house-made sauerkraut, and garlic aioli. A word of warning, though: The menu is constantly updated, and dishes often come and go. “That's part of the charm of Barriga Llena,” Godinez says. “You should never put off until tomorrow the dish you can eat today.”
This article appeared in the July/August 2024 issue of Condé Nast Traveler. Subscribe to the magazine here
Originally Appeared on Condé Nast Traveler
