Oaxaca’s charming embrace
Old soul of historical Mexican city evident in markets, centuries-old buildings and cuisine
If Mexico City is the sprawling, cosmopolitan member of Mexico’s collection of diverse cities, and Cancún its sexy, sunkissed cousin, Oaxaca is the old soul of the family. The romantic, the mystical.
The city of Oaxaca, capital of the state of the same name, is nestled near the foothills of the Sierra Madre mountains, about 300 miles south of Mexico City. Though the effects of poverty and blemishes of globalization can be seen throughout the outer layers of the city, at Oaxaca’s core sits a charming, brick-paved historical center, lined by centuriesold churches, towering trees and colonial buildings awash in Technicolor primaries and pastels.
Small surrounding villages populated by artisans and farmers imbued with an indigenous spirit connect the city of Oaxaca to ancient Zapotec traditions, a relationship that has created a city bursting with markets selling local crafts and textiles and a culinary scene populated with street vendors and restaurants deserving of international acclaim.
Strolling to dinner from our hotel, the palatial Quinta Real de Oaxaca, built as a convent in the 16th century, we passed through the Parque Labastida (a narrow park between streets), where teenagers twirled and twisted in a group dance, children kicked a soccer ball and an artist painted his vision of the moon-splashed Templo Sangre de Cristo at the park’s west end. A young couple, silhouetted in the twilight, shared a kiss on the church’s bottom step. Oaxaca embraces you instantly.
One of the most revered restaurants in Oaxaca, Los Danzantes, sits in the back courtyard of a remodeled 16th-century colonial building between the Templo Sangre de Cristo and the magnificent Templo de Santo Domingo.
A massive brick wall, rippled like an accordion, abuts a water fountain in the open-air dining room partially draped by Vshaped sails that allow for a view of the bruised blue of twilight. The culinary traditions of Oaxaca have been passed down for gen- erations, but if you aren’t lucky enough to find an abuela to cook you dinner in her home, restaurants such as the widely revered Los Danzantes offer a modernized taste of tradition.
The hip yet ancient restaurant sources from the region’s bounty to create seasonal dishes with ubiquitous Oaxacan ingredients including hierba santa, an aromatic herb used in everything from tamales to moles. Here it wraps tangy goat cheese and creamy quesillo, another Oaxacan staple, that sits in a piquant, army-green pool of sauce made from tomatillos and chipotles. The meal, like so many you will encounter in Oaxaca, starts with supple stoneshaped rolls and crackling blue-corn tortillas that you splash with electric green and dark pasilla salsas.
Sautéed bitter local greens were scattered in a squash-blossom cream sauce that coated linguine and octopus on an entree that highlighted early summer produce. You’ll find chapulines (grasshoppers) at stalls and on menus throughout town, and chef Hugo Arnaud Zarate of Los Danzantes fries them to a toasty finish, which made for a perfect balance with the earthy funk of huitlacoche stuffed into an ancho chili on a dish sweetened with chunky plantain purée and a viscous ring of piloncillo sauce.
The state of Oaxaca extends south to the Pacific Ocean, and the meal’s highlight was a thick piece of mahi mahi on a plate that celebrated another centerpiece of Oaxacan cuisine: peppers. The mahi mahi was crusted with dark chilhuacle chilies, seared and surrounded by mole amarillo, one of the seven moles of Oaxaca, its deep, rich blend perfumed with cloves. Most important meal of the day
Breakfast is a meal not to be skipped in Oaxaca. Though we ate most of our breakfasts at our hotel, we made a reservation to start one day at the elegant yet quaint La Casona de Tita, a hotel a few blocks north of the Templo de Santo Domingo.
Amelia Lara Tamburrino, a former cultural counselor at the Mexican Embassy in Rome, helms a staff that provides the kind of warm and professional hospitality you’d expect from a leader with such an impressive background.
Parakeets welcomed us from their perches as we relaxed into a meal that started with doughy rolls powdered with flour and accompanied by lush butter (inscribed with the hotel’s name) and a trio of sublime homemade marmalades: guava and anise, mango and passionfruit, and grapefruit and ginger. There were
also soft, homemade corn tortillas encasing creamy and gooey Oaxacan cheese that we dipped in green salsa packed with peppers, onion and garlic — because I will eat that any time of the day.
Local chickens that supply the eggs for Casona de Tita are fed organic vegetables and alfalfa, and the birds’ health and contentment were apparent in the sunset-colored yolks that centered sunny-sideup eggs separating piles of crunchy tortilla strips, one colored with bright-green salsa, the other with a deeper, smoky red. Off to market
There are several day trips and quick excursions you can take while staying in the historical center. Grab a taxi (or schedule one through your hotel) and make the 7-mile trip to Monte Alban. The pre-Columbian Zapotec capital thrived for almost 1,500 years, beginning in 500 B.C. Explore the dams, canals, pyramids, temples, ball court and tombs on the grounds and climb to the top of the platforms at both ends of the 300-meter esplanade in the center of the UNESCO World Heritage Site for stunning views of the surrounding mountains and valley.
Our two-hour visit in the late morning ignited a hunger that we satisfied with a trip to the Mercado 20 de Noviembre. Dining stalls and vendors cram the boisterous market, but meat lovers should follow the smell of smoke to a side hallway known as both the pasillo de humo (smoke hall) and the pasillo de carnes asadas (roasted meat aisle). Both are apt descriptions.
The meat vendors each give the hard sell on their crimson meats that drape across their stalls and dangle overhead. We selected aged beef (tasajo) that the cooks toss on the grill. They lift the grills and scatter peppers and onions directly on the coals as older ladies with wicker fans stoke the flames. The juicy, thin-sliced beef and soft, charred corn tortillas the size of dinner plates are delivered to your table in the hallway, and you complete your tacos by selecting fresh rounds of radish and cucumber from a tray that also offers piquant green salsa and roasted tomatoes. Rooftop revelations
With the exception of the rainy season in summer, Oaxaca offers clement weather perfect for rooftop drinking and dining. After exploring some of the labels from Mexico’s burgeoning wine producers and microbreweries while taking in the stunning views of Templo de Santo Domingo from Casa Oaxaca’s rooftop terrace, we made our way a few blocks over to La Olla restaurant.
Under the twinkling lights on the terrace at La Olla, I got my first taste of the popular Oaxacan snack tlayuda. The crispy corn tortilla came spread with a thick layer of fatty beans and topped with cabbage, crimson tomato, avocado and steak cooked on the rooftop grill. We completed our own take on surf and turf with shrimp sautéed with chipotles and garlic and washed it down with a nice spin on an American pale ale, the Rey Oh! Baby from Consejo Cervecero of Oaxaca. Ending at Origen
A final fine-dining experience in Oaxaca was weighted by the dichotomy of indulgence surrounded by strife and forced us to confront an unsettling and ongoing issue plaguing the impoverished state. In an attempt to reform Oaxaca’s education system, the federal government has imposed mandatory teacher testing. Members of the teachers’ union have responded with massive protests that have barricaded roads outside town and clogged the area surrounding the city’s centerpiece zocalo with tent villages connected by a series of tarps.
We manipulated the makeshift obstacle course of peaceful protesters, hundreds encamped with their families, and made it to a relatively quiet Origen. The restaurant from “Top Chef: Mexico” winner Rodolfo Castellanos seemed to be suffering from the effects of almost unnavigable streets.
Chef Castellanos learned to cook at home as a teenager before studies at the Culinary Institute of Mexico and opportunities in San Francisco and Monte Carlo. He returned home to Oaxaca in 2009 and in 2011 opened Origen.
The skin on the suckling pig was executed to a glistening, candied crunch, the accompanying mole made with grassy guaje seeds like nothing I’d encountered in the States; and the coconut flan studded with pineapples could be right at home on any fine-dining menu. But as the night shrouded this fairy-tale town I had come to feel at home in and the snap of tarps echoed in the street, I realized I’d never felt like more of a tourist.