SABOR: Chef Benito Molina Talks Yucatan Roots, Love of Mexican Seafood

Benito Molina, Mexican superstar chef and restaurateur, honors his Yucatecan roots with his sharp technique and prepares savory seafood dishes in Ensenada, one of Mexico's rising gastronomic hotspots.

The French-trained chef was born in Mexico City, a metropolitan area with an innate love of decadent ingredients and enormous flavor. For Molina, the city prompted an early love of food that would take him around the world. He attended New England Culinary Institute (NECI) in Vermont, worked at Olives under acclaimed chef Todd English in Boston and returned to Mexico to work with Mexican winemaker Hugo D'Acosta. He then later became a chef at La Embotelladora Vieja, where he met his wife and fellow chef, Solange Muri. For the last 20 years, the coastal town of Ensenada has been his home, but he hasn't forgotten his roots.

"My grandmother was from Campeche, from the Yucatan peninsula, and since I was a little kid, I was very influenced by that," Molina told Latin Post. "One of my favorites when I was a little kid was cochinita pibil tacos from Yucatan. My grandmother's recipe. My grandmother was a fantastic cook, and my mother is a fantastic cook, also. So that's where my love cooking comes from. Yucatan cooking is one of the most important in Mexico, it's the Mayan heritage. The Mayan invented tikin xic, and tikic xic is a traditional dish of a fish with a chipotle paste, and it's very intricate, but it's also very Caribbean.

"[But] the ingredients are different there than what we have in Baja California. What we have in Baja California is the Mexican Mediterranean. We have the olive oil, the wine and the best fish in Mexico. [Also] abalone, lobsters, oysters, lobsters and mussels. ... We're very blessed. I worked as a professional in Mexico City. I went to cooking school in Vermont, I worked in France, I worked in Boston with Chef Todd English, and then I opened my restaurant 15 years ago in Ensenada, Baja California."

Manzanilla, the Oceanside restaurant, was opened by Molina and his wife in 2000. The husband and wife duo were two of the first Mexican chefs to open their own restaurant in Ensenada, which helped them to earn fame around Mexico. The waterside eatery utilizes Ensenada's local supply of fresh seafood and homegrown stock of alcohol and wine. Molina travels just four blocks from his restaurant to the local fish market, where he purchases fresh ingredients for his restaurant each day.

"Manzanilla is very famous for the quail we do" said Molina. "We do a quail, it's called 'el gato de Codorniz,' which translates weird because it means 'quail cat.' But, cat in Spanish is tic-tac-toe, so this dish. ... [I]t's like tic-tac-toe with quail. ... [T]he name messes with your head. It's very famous. But, the dish that's most famous is the smoked oysters. The smoked oysters were once chosen by Sabor Magazine as one of the top 100 in the world, and I was very honored by that."

When asked to discuss dishes he's recently prepared, he mentioned moist and flavorful lobster tacos. The dish is popular in Baja, a region known for its lobster tacos. In fact, there's a town called Puerto Nuevo, a seaside village, which is best known for its lobster tacos. It's a very traditional dish, prepared with beans, tortilla and lobster.

The chef is working on a book, and hopes that it will be complete by next year. Meanwhile, he wants to continue to give love to his restaurant, Manzanilla, as well as his seasonal, summertime restaurant Silvestre, one of the first restaurants to open in the Guadalupe Valley.