""The corn is so delicious on its own. We want it to taste like Mexican cuisine. We want it to taste like summertime," Cantu says."
""And moles are just these sauces that the mother or grandmother would make, again, to celebrate a birthday, celebrate a quinceañera, celebrate all these different moments in our lives," Cantu says. "And, you know, so much of Mexican cuisine is time-consuming and difficult, and needs to cook for a long time, needs to grind in a special grinder.""
""It's almost harvest time. We'll take the team to Santa Rosa and we'll harvest the corn ourselves," he explains."
Chef Val Cantu runs Californios, a two-Michelin-starred restaurant in San Francisco. Warm handmade tortillas arrive as signature starters, their aroma filling the small dining room. The 24-seat restaurant focuses on ingredients sourced from California farms, with the team harvesting produce like corn directly. Cantu blends Mexican tradition and modern technique, featuring dishes such as charcoal-grilled local quail paired with house-made mole. Moles are treated as celebratory family sauces that require lengthy preparation and special grinding. Cantu draws inspiration from historical Mexican cookbooks, including an 1800s volume by Encarnacion Pinedo containing roughly eight hundred recipes, which he shares with young chefs.
Read at ABC7 San Francisco
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