Some of Mexico’s oldest recipes are being lost. Chef Claudette Zepeda-Wilkins has met many of the women attempting to preserve them—during childhood visits to her aunt’s restaurant in Guadalajara, and more recently, while filming as a contestant on Top Chef México. She’s aiming to keep them alive at El Jardín, a partnership with the Rise & Shine Restaurant Group (Breakfast Republic). After her James Beard Award–nominated run at the short-lived Bracero, this one’s personal.
Along with dishes like Sonoran scallop aguachile and grilled bone marrow, she’s using a starter for mole from Puebla—the sauce’s legendary birthplace—and her aunt’s age-old recipe for mole poblano with enchiladas, as well as 40 ingredients from south of the border, like the pasilla mixe chile. The on-site garden of rare fruits and vegetables will feed part of her then-and-now Mexican menu, with top bartender Christian Siglin handling the agave spirits. What once was lost, now is found.
2885 Perry Road, Point Loma
![](/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/63ec78422c3bc4a08003f0204bd045dd.jpg)
El Jardín Opens in Liberty Station
Photo by Paul Body