Mixtli

MEESH-LEE, MIX-TLI / has the variant form MEX-TLI: Aztec spoken word for cloud.

The Cloud

To define Mexican cuisine is impossible. Mexico is as diverse as it is vast. Within its borders lie rocky mountains, humid jungles, arid deserts, and endless coasts: a stark diversity that forced each region to develop uniquely rich cultural and culinary histories.

Like clouds, our menu travels from place to place offering a tour in Mexican gastronomy. If the state has a border with the ocean, we start our trek on the coast and work inland, bringing dishes specifically from that region or state. After each season, the cloud travels to other lands and we begin again.

It is our mission that you fall in love with Mexico.

Our current menu: El Bajio and the central highlands.

El Bajío and the Central Highlands lie at the heart of Mexico, where valleys and volcanic plains bridge the mining north with the bustling markets of the capital. The region spans Guanajuato, Querétaro, Aguascalientes, Michoacán, San Luis Potosí, Hidalgo, Estado de México, Zacatecas, and parts of Jalisco and Puebla. For centuries, it has been a crossroads where Indigenous, colonial, and mestizo traditions converged to shape the very essence of Mexican identity and cuisine.

This land has long sustained Mexico. From its soil come wheat, maize, beans, fruit, and maguey—crops that have nourished generations and fueled the mines, ranches, and convents that marked its history. The Otomí, Purépecha, Chichimeca, and Nahua peoples established early systems of agriculture and trade, laying the foundation for a culinary landscape later transformed by Spanish settlers who brought wheat, livestock, and new methods of baking, fermenting, and preserving.

What emerged was a profound exchange—Indigenous ingredients and traditions reimagined through European influence, giving rise to the diverse, layered flavors that define the region today.

Winters here are austere yet comforting. Under pale skies and across dry fields, kitchens turn inward. Food becomes warmth: dried chiles ground for guisos of chile colorado, lamb slow-cooked in maguey leaves for barbacoa, squashes roasted over glowing coals. Families gather around stoves and fires, preserving fruit in syrup, curing meat in fat or vinegar, and sharing slow meals that speak of endurance, gratitude, and celebration.

This menu follows those rhythms. It is an homage to the farmers, cooks, and women who gave permanence—and soul—to the food of Mexico’s highlands.