The Hola Mexico Film Festival stepped up what is typically a screen-only agenda this year by hosting some of Mexico’s brightest culinary talents for a food and wine event of epic ambition on Sunday. Celebrity chef Aquíles Chávez, Toluca’s tatted bad-ass Pablo Salas, Javier Plascencia of New Yorker fame, Oaxaca’s Rodolfo Castellanos, and celebrity chocolatier José Ramón Castillo offered guests tastes of their Alta Cocina styles, taking over the spacious, albeit-scorching courtyard in Downtown’s La Plaza de Cultura y Artes. With the help of locals like Josh Gil of Tacos Punta Cabras, Cristian Velasquez of Escuela Taqueria, and volunteering Cordon Bleu students, near disaster was narrowly averted after some of the scheduled help failed to materialize. The dish roster included crispy grilled tacos filled with braised tripas and octopus with fresh green garbanzo beans from Plascencia, and tacos topped with fried veal and a citrus-tinged roasted manzano chile salsa from Salas, while dessert included cinnamon and mezcal marinated fruit topped with deliciously grainy Oaxacan chocolate snow from Castillo. To see everything the chefs were cooking yesterday, come take a look in our slideshow.
Additional reporting by Javier Cabral.