Without Social Media, This Astonishing Restaurant Remains Under the Radar
A beloved chef returned to Oaxaca to cook with his family: Alfonsina is a celebration of homecoming
On a dirt road a few miles from the Oaxaca City airport, the prodigal son has come home. A little more than a year ago, Jorge Leon left his position at Mexico City’s most celebrated restaurant, Pujol, to move back to his neighborhood of San Juan Bautista la Raya and cook with his mother, Elvia Leon Hernández, and his three siblings. It wasn’t a spur-of-the-moment decision; Jorge had saved up for the new kitchen, dining room, and bar he envisioned.
“We spent years making it little by little. At a certain point, I didn’t know how long it would take, and I decided I had to go back and push it forward,” Jorge said. At Pujol, he was in charge of the restaurant’s most famous dish — its mole — and was given the same nickname. “Being from Oaxaca, you grow up with an appreciation for a good tortilla, good meat, salsa, chocolate, mole. When you move away, the first thing that you miss is good food.”
“Being from Oaxaca, you grow up with an appreciation for a good tortilla, good meat, salsa, chocolate, mole. When you move away, the first…
