Born in the city of Aguascalientes in North-Central Mexico, Yahir worked in a local French restaurant from the age of 15, where he developed a passion for cooking. He moved to Spain to study at the Centre Superior Hosteleria de Galicia, and after graduating stayed in Spain, working at acclaimed restaurants such as A Rexidora and Pepe Solla.
In 2010, he relocated to London to be executive chef of Aqua Restaurant Group’s new Spanish restaurant Aqua Nueva. Yahir remained in this role until 2022, garnering positive reviews for the restaurant’s innovative and visually stunning food. He then opened Zapote in February 2023 with his business partner and friend, Tony Geary. Zapote is a contemporary restaurant and bar serving authentic and vibrant dishes that push the boundaries on trailblazing Mexican food in London.
He maintains close ties with Mexico; his wife’s family runs a ranch there which specialises in dairy, corn and cattle and supports the local community. Its branding-mark is in the shape of a zapote and has been used for his restaurant’s logo.
We sat down with Yahir to find out more about his exciting career, his inspirations and why corn is his most treasured ingredient.
Can you tell us a little bit about yourself, including where you are today, professionally, and what got you here?
I am the chef and co-founder of Zapote restaurant, a contemporary Mexican restaurant in Shoreditch. It has been a long held dream of mine for many years to open my own restaurant and to cook my own food. Prior to Zapote, I spent 12 years working for Aqua Restaurant Group, primarily as executive chef of Aqua Nueva, the Spanish restaurant on Regent Street, but also working with their other restaurants in Hong Kong and Beijing. Prior to that I left Mexico at the age of 16 and moved to Spain to train to be a chef and I studied and worked in Galicia, and I really learned how to become a chef in Spain.
What or who inspired you to become a chef?
My mother and grandmother were very good home cooks, they would go to the local markets every day, no plan or shopping list, they would just buy what was fresh that day and come back home and create something from seemingly nothing – this sense of creation inspired me to become a chef.
Who has been your biggest influence to get you to where you are today?
My grandfather (on my mum’s side) – he always believed in me, always pushed me to become better, or encouraged me and gave me a belief that if I worked hard then there were no barriers to what I could achieve. Unfortunately he never got to see Zapote but I am sure he would be proud.
What’s your signature dish?
The first dish that I planned for Zapote, long before we had even found a site was our Passila Octopus with pipian mole (sauce), the octopus is slow cooked then finished over the charcoal grill served with a mole consisting of crushed and roasted pumpkin seeds, jalapeno, roasted garlic and a handful of other ingredients, it looks quite simple but it has been on the menu since we opened and I doubt we would ever remove it, it is one of our best selling dishes.
What are the most important considerations when crafting your menu?
The guest – it is important to create a menu I believe our guests will enjoy, not just the dishes I would eat. We change our menu every six weeks or so, which means we are exceptionally focused on seasonality, we have three open kitchens at Zapote, so it is important the menu has equal amount of dishes coming from each kitchen.
Do your personal preferences influence the menu at all?
Yes, the menu is influenced by dishes I had when I was younger growing up in Mexico City, and by more recent trips we have made to Oaxaca, Jalisco and my wife’s family dairy ranch in Aguascalientes, which is in central Mexico.
How would you describe your cooking style?
Simple, each dish has no more than a handful of ingredients, I like to showcase the produce and to not ‘interfere’ with it too much, of course our home made moles and salsas can be very complex and have as many as 20 ingredients in them but the rest of the dish is relatively simple.
Do you have a favourite time of year or set of ingredients that you look forward to working with?
One of my favourite products to use is Secreto Iberico, the finest cut from the pig which has a beautiful marbled fat. We marinade the secreto in a traditional Mexican al pastor rub which gives it an almost sweet and sour taste, we then cook it over the charcoal so the outside is charred but the inside is still a little pink and allows the pork to maintain its juiciness.
What is your favourite ingredient to create with?
The one ingredient that is integral to everything we do at Zapote is corn, we source from three different sustainable farms in Mexico and it is shipped over every quarter. We then put it through a process called nixtamalization which is essentially the corn soaking overnight in an alkaline solution, the corn is then made into a dough and then we make our tortillas at 5am every morning, making hundreds a day.
What would you be doing if you weren’t a chef?
I couldn’t tell you, I have never wanted to be anything other than a chef!
What is your favourite dish to cook at home?
Everything tastes better when it is on a tortilla, although if you ask my kids they enjoy my home made pizzas the best.
When are you happiest?
On a Sunday morning, after a busy week at the restaurant, I go to Queens Park Market every week which is close to where I live, sometimes with my wife and the kids, sometimes alone, and browse the market and buy something to prepare for lunch. I never quite know what I will buy but there are one or two vendors I visit most weeks such as ‘The Venison Man’ who I have got to know and who sells the best venison and game.
What is your favourite piece of kitchen equipment?
A sharp knife, without this you can do very little in a professional kitchen, I must spend at least an hour every week sharpening my knives.
When you’re not in the kitchen where can you be found?
At home, the restaurant is still just over a year old, we open Tuesday to Saturday so I am here all day every day for those five days, Sunday is with the family, on a Monday night I may go for dinner with my wife. You will never find me in the office or in front of a computer – if I am at work I am cooking or prepping.
What’s your favourite takeaway or comfort food?
Yard sale pizza – they are best takeaway pizzas and I can occasionally be found eating one with my daughter watching Formula One on a Sunday.
Where is your favourite place to dine?
On my days off I tend to stay local, our go to restaurant is Carmel in Queens Park which is casual but serves excellent east Mediterranean food.
What do you think is the most over-hyped food trend?
Everything smashed from burgers to sausages and everything in between.
What differences do you find working with local produce as opposed to non-local produce in terms of what you can create and flavour?
Some produce we have to buy from Mexico to ensure we are authentic such as corn and dried chillies, but we are trying to find ways to work more with local producers, we have recently partnered with a farm in Yorkshire that is growing tomatillos for us, whenever possible we like to work with small independent businesses similar to ours.
How do you go about menu planning? What’s the process from picking the ingredients to getting them fresh into the kitchen and into dishes?
It is very much a team effort, between myself, our head chef Hris and our head pastry chef Jarek– the three of us have worked together for many years over the last decade so we know each other well. Hris may come up with a seasonal product, he will order, for example, some monkfish and we will then play around with ways to cook it, come up with ideas for a mole or a sauce to go with it, some things work, sometimes not, but the seed of an idea or a dish may spring from this informal creative way of working together.
How would you describe the food you create at Zapote to someone who’s never experienced your kind of food?
Contemporary modern Mexican food – at first glance the food may look simple (and beautiful) but each dish packs a punch.
What’s your favourite flavour combination?
Anything that is cooked over a live flame, we are lucky at Zapote to have a huge open grill in the restaurant, about 40 per cent of the menu is cooked over the fire and all of our salsas and moles start off on the open flame – everything tastes better when cooked on an open grill.
What is the USP of your restaurant?
A neighbourhood restaurant, that is serving first class Mexican food, in a relaxed environment with good service and at a reasonable price point. It may sound slightly basic but it is very difficult to get right.
What do your future plans entail?
Our focus is purely on this one restaurant for now, in these current economic circumstances just to open and remain open is a daily challenge, that’s not to say in the future there won’t be any further Zapotes or versions of, but for now, just building on our reputation and ensuring our guests continue to come back and enjoy their time with us is our key focus.
Factbox
Address: 70 Leonard St, London EC2A 4QX
Phone: 020 7613 5942
Website: zapote.co.uk
