My culinary identity began long before I entered a professional kitchen. It began in Hidalgo, with my family, in the memories of my mother, and in those moments when cooking was not simply about preparing food, but about bringing people together.

I remember handmade tortillas, corn, chiles, barbacoa, and that close relationship with the ingredients. I also remember the days spent fishing—going out to find the food and coming back understanding that behind every ingredient there is a story, a place, and an effort.

Over the years, my professional training gave me the tools to give structure to those memories. Experiences in kitchens such as quintonil taught me discipline, precision, and a much deeper way of looking at ingredients. I also had the opportunity to experience different cuisines and territories, from the Mexican Caribbean to the jungle of Costa Rica and now Baja California.

Every place has added another layer to my cooking. Today, I understand that evolving does not mean moving away from my roots. It means having more tools to express them. My technique has changed. My perspective has changed. The territories i know have changed. But memory remains the starting point.

My relationship with place began long before I arrived in Baja California.

Every territory has taught me something different. Today, Baja California presents me with a completely different landscape: the sea, the desert, the aridity, the vineyards, and a very particular relationship between land and ocean.

I do not try to erase what I learned in other places. I use those experiences to interpret this new territory. I believe a chef should not arrive somewhere trying to impose a language.

First, you have to listen. And Baja California has a lot to say.
My intention is to use contemporary mexican technique to translate this territory without disguising it, allowing the ingredients, the seasons, and the landscape to become part of the narrative of the dish.

My relationship with ingredients began at home. I think of corn, handmade tortillas from Hidalgo, chiles, and barbacoa as well. I think of my mother and those flavors that I did not learn from a book or a recipe, but through observation and experience.

I also think about those days spent fishing. Going out to find the product, coming back with it, and understanding that behind a fish there is an effort, a territory, and a story. Those experiences taught me something that remains with me today: before transforming an ingredient, you have to respect it.

Later, in kitchens such as Quintonil, I learned to look at those same ingredients from another perspective: seasonality, texture, acidity, temperature, technique, and precision.

So when I think about the ingredients that define my cooking, I think primarily of corn, chiles, barbacoa, and seafood.
But over time, I have understood that an ingredient is never simply an ingredient. It can be memory. It can be territory.
It can be identity. And that is what I truly want to bring to the plate.

For me, technique is the structure, and intuition is the personality.

Working in demanding kitchens taught me that precision is non-negotiable. A dish needs consistency, balance, temperature, texture, and a clear intention.

But I also learned that cooking cannot be reduced to a formula. There is a moment in the creative process when memories, senses, place, and personal experiences come into play. That is where intuition enters.

Technique allows me to control the dish. Intuition allows me to give it identity. That is why I believe a great dish must be technically sound, but it must also contain something that cannot always be measured: emotion.

I like to think of wine and food as a conversation. I do not begin by simply asking which wine pairs with a dish. First, I try to understand the wine itself: its acidity, structure, minerality, aromas, texture, and personality.

Then I look for those points of connection within the food.
It might be acidity, fermentation, a saline note, texture, or even an aromatic memory.

The interesting moment happens when neither element dominates the other. When the wine changes the perception of the dish, and the dish changes the perception of the wine.
For me, that is the purpose of a true pairing. Not simply to accompany. But to transform.

I believe Baja California is going through a very important moment in the development of its own gastronomic identity.
The Valle de Guadalupe has the ability to engage in a conversation with the great gastronomic and wine regions of the world, but it does not need to become any of them.

It has something that cannot be imported: a sense of place.
It has the sea, the desert, vineyards, producers, extraordinary ingredients, and a deeply rooted mexican culture.

There is also a generation of chefs, winemakers, producers, and hospitality professionals developing new ways of telling the story of Baja California.

For me, the challenge is not to try to make Baja California resemble other regions. The challenge is to go so deeply into its own identity that the world wants to come and experience it.

We do not need Baja California to resemble the world. We need the world to discover Baja California.

For me, modern luxury is about intention. Of course, it can exist in an extraordinary ingredient, but it can also be found in something much simpler: a story, a gesture, a conversation, thoughtful service, or a detail that a guest may never realize was designed specifically for them.

After working across different concepts and destinations, I have understood that hospitality is not simply about serving food. It is about creating a feeling. People may forget exactly what they ate, but they rarely forget how they felt at a table.
That is why i believe a truly exceptional experience is one that goes beyond the plate and remains in the memory. That is true luxury to me: Making someone feel that, for a few hours, they were somewhere they could not have experienced in quite the same way anywhere else.

For me, sustainability begins with respect. Respect for the ingredients, the land, the sea, the producers, and the people who work in a kitchen.

It means working seasonally, understanding where ingredients come from, using them as fully as possible, reducing waste, and recognizing that every ingredient carries an environmental and human cost.

But there is another side of sustainability that I believe we need to talk about: human sustainability. A kitchen cannot truly be considered sustainable if the people working in it are not given the opportunity to learn, grow, and build a career.

I have had the opportunity to build teams and work on openings, and with every experience i become more convinced that a chef does not only build dishes. A chef builds people. If someone who started working with me can eventually become a better cook, a leader, or a stronger professional because of what they learned, then we have also created something meaningful. For me, taking care of the product also means taking care of the people who make the kitchen possible.

Every stage of my career has given me a different tool.
In México, I find my roots. Through experiences such as Quintonil, I learned precision, discipline, and the possibility of bringing Mexican ingredients into a contemporary conversation.

In Playa del Carmen, I learned from the Caribbean, the Riviera Maya, and a cuisine deeply connected to its environment.
In Nosara, Costa Rica, the jungle taught me another way of observing nature, its cycles, and its timing.

I also find inspiration in gastronomic cultures such as Japan, particularly in its respect for ingredients, seasonality, simplicity, and discipline. But all of these influences pass through the same filter: My identity as a Mexican cook. I do not want to copy other cuisines. I want to study them, learn from them, and use those tools to find new ways of expressing who I am.

I believe the evolution of Mexican cuisine does not mean abandoning our roots to resemble the rest of the world.
It means knowing the world well enough to return to our roots with a different perspective.

Beyond trends, what kind of legacy do you hope to build—and how do you envision the future of Baja’s cuisine on the global stage?

I want my legacy to be more about a philosophy than a particular dish. I want to demonstrate that a cook can travel, experience other cultures, work in great kitchens, learn techniques, and encounter different territories without losing what made them begin in the first place.

My story began with very simple things: A handmade tortilla,
My family’s food, the memories of my mother, the days spent fishing. Then came technique, fine dining, travel, restaurant openings, teams, and different territories.

Today, all of those experiences are part of the way I cook.
And I believe that combination is precisely what I want to continue building: a contemporary Mexican cuisine that can speak to the world without losing its connection to where it comes from.

Baja California has enormous potential because it possesses something that cannot be manufactured: identity. My desire is to be part of that evolution, to help this region develop an increasingly recognizable voice, and to demonstrate that Mexican cuisine can continue to evolve without losing its memory.

I also want my journey to help open doors for other cooks, to develop teams, and to demonstrate that fine dining can be built from our own stories. At the end of the day, for me, cooking has always been about this: Taking where we come from, understanding where we are, and using cuisine to imagine where we can go.