Adriana Cavita: “Always be open to learn and improve, no matter who you are.”

I recently had the pleasure to sit down and chat with Adriana Cavita, chef, founder and owner of Cavita, a Mexican restaurant in London. In this interview, we talk about her various experiences as a chef, including her passion to learn about Mexican cooking, working in top restaurants like El Bulli, and the opportunity and challenges of opening her own restaurant in London.

How did you get into cooking in the first place?

I think some of my first memories of cooking were with my grandmother in Mexico. She used to cook loads and actually owned her own little business. Literally in her house, with the doors open, she would be cooking and serving Mexican-style food like tamales, huaraches, tostadas, quesadillas, and the whole family would help out at times. So I think I got that first connection with food from her.

When I was growing up, I was painting and drawing loads and I wanted to be an artist, but then my mum was like, no Adriana, you’re going to die hungry! [laughs] She told me to go to university, but I knew I could never work in an office or anything like that, I needed to do something with my hands. And then one of my friends told me that he was going to study gastronomy, and I was like, gastronomy? What is that? Can you even study that? This was eighteen, nineteen years ago, so nobody was really talking about gastronomy in Mexico. But still, I looked into some courses and the university I found was Claustro de Sor Juana. I chose this university because it was more focused on Mexican food. While they taught me things like French cooking, pastry, chocolate, sugar, wine, cooking chemistry and all that, they also did almost two years of history of Mexican food and food in general, and they got me to do research and even write my own book, so it was very diverse and in-depth.

So it wasn’t like some other cooking schools where there is this focus on the so-called “classical” cuisines and French cooking?

Exactly. A lot of schools weren’t teaching any history and were still mostly focusing on French techniques, and for me, cooking is so much bigger than that. Food and gastronomy are so culturally and historically connected, and that’s how they should be talked about. The course I did was basically a degree in anthropology and social studies in addition to the technical teachings, so I really loved it.

When did you start cooking in restaurants?

I started working while I was doing my course which lasted five years, so I needed to pay for the fees [laughs]. The first restaurant I worked at was Nicos, one of the oldest restaurants in Mexico City which focused on Mexican food. It was quite tough when I started working there, because none of the chefs wanted to share any of their recipes with me, so they just sent me to the back to peel onions [laughs]. It was old-school and you needed to work hard to get a better position and for people to start trusting and appreciating you. After that I moved around some different restaurants and places, I also went to work in Brazil for four months, and in the last few months of university, I was selected to go to El Bulli for a few months.

Wow, how did that come about?

The university had this connection with El Bulli, and they basically organised this competition where they selected ten students who had to pass a written exam and prove their skills at a local restaurant, and then the best four would be able to go to El Bulli. One of those was me, so that’s where I went.

How long were you there for?

Initially, I was meant to be there for three months, but I ended up staying for eight. That was in the last year of El Bulli being open, so I was able to be there in its final season.

What was your experience working there?

It gave me this real view of a professional restaurant. Everyone and everything ran like clockwork. It was very tough. I was living with the other chefs who were interning there in flats provided for us, we worked five to seven days in a row and get two days off, or we would do ten to twelve days straight and get four days off. Unpaid. Those were different times. Newer generations may not do that anymore, but in my generation, we just worked hours upon hours for free. I don’t know how many unpaid hours I have done in my time, probably three thousand, four thousand, who knows. But I enjoyed it. It was my first time in Europe, and I would try and visit new places on my days off, so it was nice, everything was new.

And at the end of the day, it always depends on the people you work with and there were some very nice people there. Some were definitely also just there to add the experience to their CVs, but generally I felt like I found some good connections. We were there to learn, so it was up to us to make the most of it.

I do enjoy that about working with chefs because you can’t really do the job unless you’re fully invested. I assume the people who were at El Bulli went through so much hard work and learning, even competitions like you, so it must have been quite inspiring to work with them.

Exactly that. So I focused a lot, and learned loads from everyone there, it was super inspiring.

After that I wanted to continue to do Mexican food, so I came back to Mexico. I worked in a few different restaurants and chef roles for a while, I also lived and worked in New York for a year, before coming back and wondering how I could learn more about Mexican food. And that’s how I got the idea of learning from the Mexican maestros cocineras which are mostly women who hold the knowledge of local recipes, traditions from generations of grandmothers and great-grandmothers. A guy I knew in New York had a grandmother in Oaxaca who he got me in touch with, so to start off, I went there to learn from her and ended up living with her for eight months. She’s like my second mother now [laughs].

Eight months! How did that come about?

Basically, I went to Oaxaca to meet her and asked her if she could show me her ways of cooking different dishes. I would get the ingredients and she could teach me. And she agreed. So initially we hung out for a few days and realised that we got on well, so I kept coming back. I was still working at a restaurant at the time but soon realised that I wanted to focus more on my learning. So it was then that I started living with her and we actually wrote a book together which I am trying to publish. The one I have already published contains mostly my own recipes, but this one is about her recipes, her memories, and also how the food connects to the culture in that region. Because you can write a recipe, but so what? What is the meaning of it? You can’t have the recipes without the culture and historical context.

After my experience with her, I travelled around to learn more from women in different areas of Mexico, and each time I would stay with them for a few days. It was a wonderful experience, learning about their food but also getting to know the women cooking it.

With these experiences and your knowledge of Mexican cooking, what brought you to London?

At that time, I found myself a little lost about what to do next. Then Eduardo Garcia, a great chef I had worked with for a while, told me about this place opening in London called Peyotito where they were looking for chefs. So that’s basically how I came to London. That was around eight years ago.

What was your experience moving here?

I basically had to start again from zero. The people are different. I also had to relearn English because the English here was different from what I had gotten used to in New York and people didn’t really seem to understand what I was saying at the beginning [laughs]. I was working at the restaurant a lot and learning loads. But then the restaurant had to close, at which point I decided to open my own catering company, and soon after that I met Ana Lucia and Basit, with whom I opened this restaurant.

How exactly did the process of planning the restaurant start?

Ana and Basit already had opened a few restaurants here, and when I met them, they were really enthusiastic about opening a restaurant with me. So we sat down together and started gathering ideas, asking ourselves, what’s the idea, what’s the vision, pulling up pictures, dishes, concepts, and started to visualise what kind of restaurant it would be.

When did the restaurant open?

May 2022. We started planning at the end of 2020, but with Covid still going on, we didn’t really want to go forward in such an uncertain period. We got the restaurant space after searching for nearly seven months. We really fought for this place, we were up against some big names, so at some point, we pretty much gave up hope because we weren’t sure we would get the finances together. But the landlords really loved the idea of the restaurant with my Mexican background and having a women-owned restaurant too. So in the end, we got it.

How did you feel when it was confirmed, knowing that you were going to have your own restaurant?

There were so many sensations. On one hand, I was really happy and excited to have the opportunity to create this vision. But it was also challenging because I didn’t want to end up doing something boring. I was wondering how I was going to bring something new to London and how to make this place special. So when I was thinking about the menu, I was quite terrified.

I can imagine. And I suppose you wanted to do justice to what you’ve learned back in Mexico.

Yes absolutely. We wanted to make sure we make everything from scratch. I don’t think people always realise how much work Mexican food requires. For example, I get the corn and many ingredients from Mexico, not just for the flavour, but also to support the local farmers in Mexico. Then it’s important to get the basics right. Think of tortillas. If you don’t have good tortillas, it’s like not having good bread here, you know? In Mexico, we say that we are the tribe of humans made of corn. We are made of corn, corn is us [laughs]. And so here we are continuously adjusting the recipe because it is so hard to get the quality of tortilla that we want. There are so many factors involved, like the water, the calcium hydroxide, how long you cook the corn for, the combination of corn varieties, blue, yellow, white, where the corn comes from, the calcium levels, it really varies. You need to be able to adapt continuously.

How do you balance respecting traditional recipes with staying creative and flexible?

As a chef, I think it is important to learn the basics and understand the real flavours to start with. That has been important to me with all my learning, to experience all those real, old recipes and dishes. And then to think, okay cool, we learned this, now what can we do with that? Also we have to remember that we are not in Mexico. I am taking these traditional recipes and flavours, but I can’t do them the same way here as I could back there. We are in a different continent. All the ingredients are going to taste different. Here, I have to adapt the recipe to create something that tastes similar and makes sense in our context here. So when someone from Mexico comes here to eat, they may say it doesn’t taste the same – of course it doesn’t, it’s impossible! But that’s okay, you have to stay creative and have an open mind.

To fulfil your vision of the restaurant, you need a strong team – how has it been getting a team together?

I am mostly responsible for the kitchen, and I think we are a very strong team. Everyone has been great and very involved in the process and project. But we are also still trying to get more people, especially for front of house. It can be very hard finding people who care. When serving people, you need to know about everything, you need to be able to talk to the client, read them, know how they want to be served, but also communicate the food and restaurant philosophy appropriately. And I don’t know if it’s specifically in this country, but I feel like sometimes waiters and waitresses don’t take too much pride in their job. I’m trying to pass on my knowledge, focus on training, and give them an understanding of why it’s important to talk about what we do here. Front of house are our connection with the customers. If they don’t communicate, then the point of the kitchen is lost.

What has your experience been working in kitchens in the last few years, both in general but also as a woman?

As a female chef, I think it was much more difficult back in Mexico. A lot of macho behaviour. When I was starting off working in kitchens, I learned that I had to be very tough. I probably wasn’t always a very nice person because I learned that this was the way to survive. You had to be very strong, you had to be able to take everything, no matter how much they tell you off or shout at you. But it is also just generally very hard for women in Mexico, and sexual harassment is a problem whatever you do there. That is also one of the reasons why I left Mexico because I never really felt safe. But in terms of work, it also helped me realise how I wanted to manage my own place, and how important it was for me to create a safe space for the workers, and make sure my team is happy to come here. Right now, we have a good balance of men and women working in the kitchen, which I think is great.

Where do you see yourself going forward now?

The most important thing for now is to keep the restaurant going strong and to maintain the quality. It’s always hard to open a restaurant, but much harder to keep up. So I don’t want to relax. But further down the line, there are plans for a second restaurant in London, so I’m excited for that too.

Finally, do you have any advice for people who are thinking about cheffing and are starting out in the industry?

It’s good to be stubborn sometimes [laughs]. But also, always be open to learning. No matter where you come from, if you are interested and passionate to learn, you will get there. I see chefs who think they know everything and therefore lose the ability to learn new things and improve. You have to accept that, occasionally, someone else will know better than you or has a different way of doing things. Who am I to say that I know best? If something different works better, then that’s great. Always be open to learn and improve, no matter who you are.

Cavita, 56-60 Wigmore St, London W1U 2RZ

Image taken from the Cavita Instagram page, 4th January 2024.