How To: Design A Dish by Lucho Martínez
Sometimes I improvise during service in an attempt to put together new, beautiful flavors for our regular guests on the fly. But most of the time, when I’m conceiving a dish, I find it helpful to be in a place free from distractions—WiFi, social media, other cooks and chefs. Lately, the best spot, one where I find clarity in my feelings and creative flow, is on a plane. I have had virtually no days off since the pandemic started, and in these moments of transit, I’m guaranteed to be alone in my thoughts.
I have been working in kitchens since I was 14 years old, but I have always been drawn to visual mediums. When I’m not cooking, I turn to photography and illustration. I often come up with ideas or entire dishes on paper—my notebook helps me to look beyond individual components to the finished product, a single course or a whole menu. To start, I make lists of local and seasonal ingredients that are available or exciting to me in a given moment. Writing things down allows me to interpret flavors, textures and smells and put ingredients together in surprising ways. I imagine the plated outcome and sketch it out. A lot of my effort goes into making food appear simple. I like to limit how many things people see in the final dish that I put on the table.
I want to evoke the feelings of places I’ve visited, whether Japan, Europe or other parts of Mexico, and the people that I’ve met in my cooking. It’s essential to know what motivates you in any creative space, including the kitchen. My daughter Emilia, the namesake of my restaurant, is my biggest point of inspiration. I have a dream that every time she sees one of my dishes, in a picture or in person, she can immediately tell that it’s my—her dad’s—creation. I want her to feel proud, and that drives everything that I create.
Born in Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, Lucho Martínez spent the majority of his youth in Nashville, Tennessee before returning to begin his career in the culinary world as a teenager. He later landed in Mexico City where he worked in Quintonil’s kitchen and went on to helm Mia Domenicca and Máximo Bistrot under the direction of his mentor Eduardo García. Now the chef-owner of his own restaurant Em, run in collaboration with his wife Fernanda and named for their young daughter Emilia, Martínez expertly marries Japanese and French technique with Mexican ingredients in the heart of the capital city.
