There is no shortage of soul-altering food choices in Mexico’s massive, ever-spicy capital. The city’s culinary laurels have garnered ongoing international acclaim, most recently being named as one of National Geographic’s top food destinations on the planet. From streetside stalls slanging lard-rubbed gaonera tacos to pizzerias topping their pies with chilaquiles bathed in salsa verde, Mexico City is the embodiment of a tasteful feverdream.
So, where does the metropolis of beloved Mexican chefs go once they’ve mastered the art of local, regional dishes? They go abroad. Or in the case of Masala y Maíz — a Michelin-starred eatery in the historic center of the city, serving a distinctive amalgamation of Mexican, Indian and African dishes — they’re inviting more international flavors to town. Literally.
Women chefs coming to Mexico City from around the globe
Beginning on March 4, the popular fusion restaurant will be hosting a special month-long series of guest chefs from other nations. In honor of International Women’s Month, the cast of all-women chefs will encompass a diverse range of influential gourmands from notable food institutions around the globe, each presenting their idiosyncratic takes on diasporic eats and communal exchange for one-night-only dinners. Building on Masala y Maíz’s incredible foundation of experimental, bold offerings — including crispy Indian samosas filled with slow-cooked saudero, and corn esquites drowned in Makai Pakka, an East African coconut curry — the guest chefs are certain to wow diners with unique renditions of global ingredients presented in a Mexican context.
Since their inception as a community kitchen in 2017, Masala y Maíz — led by the wife-and-husband duo of Norma Listman and Saqib Keval, who are the restaurant’s owners and founding chefs — has underscored how restaurants don’t merely exist to feed hungry diners, but can also act as a venue through which ideas, cultures and social values can be presented and digested, too. Their collaborative intentionality and efforts have led to features on major platforms like “Chef’s Table“ on Netflix. But at the core, they remain grounded in a joint vision for uplifting diasporic and often marginalized foodmakers.
“We have been doing a celebration for International Women’s Month since we started Masala y Maíz,” says Listman, who originally hails from Texcoco. “Last year we got a chance to cook with my dear friends Ana Castro and Isabel Coss and that ignited the idea to do it on a larger scale.”
An all-star lineup for one-night-only dinners
“(The series is an) opportunity to taste the incredible work of international chefs and their cuisines in a context of collaboration and highlighting Mexican ingredients,” Listman continues. “Most of them will be cooking in Mexico City for the first time.”
Indeed, they’ve assembled a lineup of inimitable all-stars. On March 4, Asma Khan — the London-based, India-born chef and founder of Darjeeling Express, a contemporary gem serving family-style Indian favorites — will kick off the series with Rosalba Morales Bartolo, a renowned Purépecha master-cook from Michoacán, Mexico, whose specialties are rooted in ancestral techniques.
March 11 will bring Heena Patel, the culinary engine behind the Gujarati-centered restaurant Besharam in San Francisco, alongside Ji Hye Kim, a Michigan-based chef with a Korean-heritage focus. They will be joined in the kitchen by Claudette Zepeda, a culinary anthropologist and celebrated chef who straddles her Mexican American identity between San Diego and Tijuana.
Dates to circle on the calendar
The following week, March 18, the Haitian-American chef Cybille St. Aude-Tate, who opened behind Philadelphia’s Honeysuckle last spring, touches down in the Mexica heartland to provide her Black Caribbean plates with Mexican American pastry chef Mariela Camacho, who received Food & Wine’s “Best New Chef” recognition in 2025.
Finally, on March 25, Nite Yun — who is a Cambodian-American foodmaker known for her Khmer cuisine — will be flanked by none other than Reem Assil, a Palestinian-Syrian culinary artist, activist and author who is based in Oakland (the city in which Masala y Maíz’s founders first met).
“Meeting the chefs and cooking together (is inspiring). All of them are chefs I admire so much,” says Listman. “Aside from Reem Assil, I have never cooked with any of them and that is so exciting, not only for me, but also for my team. (We will be) learning and being in community in the kitchen, preparing something super special for everyone.”
Stay tuned for the menu reveals
Though the four menus have yet to be revealed, Listman tells Mexico News Daily that each night will include five to six courses, along with a welcome drink and gratuity included. For each week of the month, each hand-picked chef will curate an international carousel of memorable dining experiences.
“We are working hard to be mindful of the cost, so many people can come,” Listman says. “We are currently working on all the menus and they are so incredibly beautiful.”
Alan Chazaro is the author of “These Spaceships Weren’t Built For Us” (Tia Chucha Press, 2026), “Notes from the Eastern Span of the Bay Bridge” (Ghost City Press, 2021), “Piñata Theory” (Black Lawrence Press, 2020), and “This Is Not a Frank Ocean Cover Album” (Black Lawrence Press, 2019). He is a graduate of June Jordan’s Poetry for the People program at UC Berkeley and was selected as a Lawrence Ferlinghetti Poetry Fellow at the University of San Francisco. His work can be found in NPR, The Guardian, SLAM, GQ, L.A. Times, and more. He is currently based in Veracruz.
