Tierra de Sol

These days, as cuisines from Oaxaca’s various regions are having a minute, Cabrera presides over one of the most acclaimed local restaurants– and is growing a little food empire around it. On Tierra del Sol’s large balcony suspended above Jardín Etnobotánico de Oaxaca with looming mountain views, one can begin with a craft mezcal and a miraculous multi-colored tetela, a triangular composed from three various masas and full of huitlacoche and beans.

Among Cabrera’s other tributes to Mixtecan milpas are a cozy salad of 10 varieties of antique beans, each saturated and cooked in different ways; or a tiradito de nopal including batons of 4 various cactus types offered over a zingy gazpacho-like sauce.

Chef-owner Olga Cabrera Oropeza hails from the rural town of Huajuapan de Leon in Mixteca, the rugged northwestern area shared by Oaxaca and the states of Puebla and Guerrero. She grew up with the pleasant smell of pulque-leavened breads made by her mother, a distinguished regional baker, and assisted her abuela run a rustic comedor (lunch break restaurant) well-known for pipianes (moles enlarged with pumpkin seeds) and chileajos, the Mixtecan stews powered with fruity-hot slim chiles costeños.

After transferring to Oaxaca City 20 years earlier, Cabrera opened her very own moderate comedor happily offering her area’s dishes. The city slickers right here, used to the rich sweetened colonial flavors of Oaxaca’s Valles Centrales, didn’t quickly “get” the direct, spicy Mixtecan tastes.

Downstairs next door to the dining establishment rests Cabrera’s bakery called Masea Trigo y Maiz where the conchas and guava pastries admire her mom. And surrounding is the Atoleria focusing on the thick nourishing pre-Hispanic drink called atole, here in flavors varying from blue corn and walnut to yellow corn scented with jasmine, to a champurrado blending 4 different kinds of Oaxacan cacao beans.

Among Cabrera’s one-of-a-kind moles is a seasonal umami-rich mole del campo, typically made throughout wet period and entailing chapulines (grasshoppers) and chiles costeños; and a mole de laurel she prepares with aromatic Mixtecan bay leaves, fermented fruit, and chiles pasillas. Also on the menu: Cabrera’s scenic tour de pressure mole blanco that took her months to produce– a delicate blend of almonds, chiles de agua, white cacao, and sesame seeds among more than 2 loads active ingredients, all mixed and served over meaningful sauteed oyster mushrooms.