Eat Your Way Through El Bajío

In Apartamento and Belmond’s Recipes & Wanderings series, we celebrate the joys of meandering through culinary communities around the world. In latest book in the series, El Bajío, we explore a region nestled in the heart of Mexico between rugged mountains that has long been an engine of agriculture in the country. 

A short drive north of Mexico City, this plateau is a world away from the pace of that restless metropolis. Here, plump purple garambullo berries are still harvested by hand from pincushion cactus paddles and special occasions are marked with tortillas stained with intricate ceremonial patterns. 

To capture this region and its culinary stories, our El Bajío cookbook features atmospheric photography by Heather Sten, a New York-based photographer known for her magnetic use of colour. Her images sit beside a foreword by Enrique Olvera, owner and head chef of the two Michelin starred restaurant Pujol, and essays and recipes by the likes of Alonso Ruvalcaba, Daniela Soto-Innes, Yola Jiménez and Fernanda Covarrubias. 

The fourth in our Recipes & Wanderings cookbook series after Liguria, Penang and Campania, the dishes in this book have been largely gathered from the Sazón cookery school at Belmond’s Casa de Sierra Nevada hotel in San Miguel de Allende, where chef Rubén Yáñez Hernández has gathered traditional Bajío dishes and recipes from his region to share with future generations. El Bajío classics like enchiladas del portal and esquites are joined by recipes from a range of chefs from Mexico who are inspired by the region’s rich ingredients and vibrant flavours: corn is transformed by flames into a creamy toasted soup; papaya meets tomatillos and lime for a zesty summer salad; and aromatic herbs are ground under pestle to form the base of a restorative pozole verde. 

While the region is less globally famous than the likes of Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula or Oaxaca represented in other Mexican cookbooks, El Bajío’s roots stretch deep into fertile soil. It is a place of quiet generosity: the people, of course, but also the land itself, which pours forth produce to feed not only locals but Mexico City to the south and many provinces beyond. This book is a celebration of that produce, as well as the people and recipes that keep it alive today.