Cooking with Mexican Fire

Hartwood, in the middle of the jungle on Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, is now the hottest restaurant in the world. And not only because they cook over high heat. Also because René Redzepi says so. And because of the stunning book The Kitchen of Hartwood by New York owners Eric Werner and Mya Henry. After this, you’ll want just one thing: to take a seat beneath the open starry sky of this wall-less fire restaurant.

Unfortunately, we can’t all be René Redzepi, the Nordic forager, locavore, mad festival organiser and (pop-up) restaurateur who spends a few weeks every winter relaxing with his family on Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula, and then takes a seat at the varnished tables of jungle restaurant Hartwood.

Swoon
What we can do is swoon over one of the finest cookbooks of recent times: The Kitchen of Hartwood. The photographs are enticing, the recipes appetite-inducing, the writing readable and the foreword by hardcore fan René.

The photographs are enticing, the recipes appetite-inducing, the writing readable.

And for many, swooning may be as far as it goes. Even if you can buy plenty of exotic ingredients at the Asian grocery, and Mexican chillies, sweet potatoes, quinoa and yacón are now even grown in the Netherlands.

Wahoo Cheeks
But cheeks from gigantic wild fish such as wahoo or grouper? Certainly, cookbook author Yvette van Boven suggests Dutch alternatives in the margins. And ceviche made with mackerel is probably almost as delicious as that made with freshly caught wild wahoo cheek. The recipes themselves are simple, too.

Fire
But then there is the question of fire. The former New Yorkers cook exclusively with sun-dried jungle wood. Festival and restaurant chefs here also cook over fire (such as Hoog Vuur in Amersfoort, and Vuurtoreneiland and ’t Houtskooltje in Amsterdam), but in your own third-floor apartment at the back of beyond, that becomes more difficult.

Smoke
Letting an oil-rubbed cast-iron frying pan get screaming hot on the gas is an alternative. But it is still a little like factory-oven fries versus artisan fries fried in beef dripping. Quite apart from the smoke.

And now to save up so we can take a seat here with hardcore fan René Redzepi.

As a result, The Kitchen of Hartwood leans towards being a coffee-table book. One that tells, in words and images, of the Maya and their milpas (farms), the markets, the land, the fishermen, the sea, the community and much more.

Magical Oils
Those stories alone make the book worthwhile. And even if you let that wahoo swim free, there is still plenty to learn from the book. No Hartwood recipe, for example, without a magical oil made from roasted onions, garlic or chillies. Jungle chef Eric also gets nowhere without mashed roasted garlic. And neither will you.

Travel Guide
So see it as a travel guide with recipes that will inspire you to save up, so that one day you can take a seat beside René and his family in the roofless, wall-less bush restaurant. Those who have already saved enough can visit Redzepi’s own Mexican pop-up in Tulum in April 2017 for $600 per person (excluding tax and tip), and then move on to Hartwood in the same village at New York prices.

The Kitchen of Hartwood, Eric Werner and Mya Henry
€ 29.95
Fontaine
Image: Gentl & Hyers