Chef Gabriela Cámara’s Top 8 Recipes

The daughter of an Italian mother and a Mexican father who met in the United
States, Gabriela grew up in Tepoztlán, Mexico with a family who grew much of their own food and enjoyed sprawling, multicultural meals together nightly.

Though she’s become one of the most influential people in modern Mexican cuisine, Gabriela originally planned to become a contemporary art curator but wound up opening a restaurant in Mexico City instead. Gabriela’s Contramar, with its interior modeled after the breezy beach palapas Gabriela loved as a child, and menu emphasizing organic produce from local farms and fresh seafood sourced from Mexican waters, was “an experiment so successful,” she says, “I turned it into my career.”

When Contramar opened in 1998, most restaurants in the city served either traditional Mexican or contemporary European cuisine. Contramar’s food hopscotched across the globe—all while maintaining a distinctly Mexican point of view. One of Gabriela’s key decisions early on at Contramar was to make fresh tortillas in-house. She soon introduced an entire masa program to the menu, nixtamalizing and milling her own corn.

Since then, she’s earned a reputation for her energy and devotion to social justice causes; at Cala, she held space on staff for people with prior justice system involvement in need of stable employment. In 2019, Cámara returned to Mexico to work as an advisor to Mexican President Andrés Manuel López Obrador.

The cooking at Cámara’s restaurants captures the soul of Mexican culture, evoking the kind of timeless culinary instinct perfected by generations of home cooks with sharp technique and modern flair. Here are a few of her most beloved dishes:

1. 1. Aguachile verde. Aguachile is a Mexican variation of ceviche that originated in Sinaloa, Mexico. True to its roots, Gabriela’s elegant and straightforward aguachile verde recipe features shrimp, lime juice, and chiles blended with water (hence its name) and served with thinly sliced cucumber and red onion.
2. 2. Blackberry atole. Atole is a traditional Mexican drink made from ground masa, a fresh dough made from ground corn, served warm, usually sweetened with piloncillo, and scented with cinnamon. Atole can also be flavored with seasonal fruit juice or purées; Gabriela’s atole recipe features deep, musky-sweet summer blackberries.
3. 3. “Salad” taco. The taco is an endlessly versatile format. Gabriela’s playful and refreshing salad taco recipe features fresh strips of cactus (nopal), peppery watercress, crisp radishes, and creamy ricotta salata together in a fresh corn tortilla.
4. 4. Salsa verde cruda. Gabriela’s zippy take on salsa verde, or green salsa, features a lush profile of green ingredients: fresh green tomatillos, green chiles, perfectly ripe avocado, a handful of aromatic cilantro, and crisp lettuce. It’s bright, spicy, and cooling all at once; serve it alongside everything from tacos to tamales and beyond.
5. 5. Pescado a la Talla. This stunning two-tone fish was the first dish Gabriela put on the menu at Contramar when it opened in 1998. Inspired by a traditional grilled fish from the Mexican state of Guerrero, pescado a la talla is served with a fiery red salsa on one side—a nod to the Mexican chef’s roots—and a fresh parsley-based sauce in honor of her Italian influences on the other.
6. 6. Quesadillas doradas. These Mexico City-style quesadillas—a stuffed, fried corn tortilla similar to an empanada—feature a filling of deeply savory huitlacoche, a type of edible corn fungus. Try Chef Gabriela's quesadillas doradas recipe.
7. 7. Tacos al pastor. Gabriela’s tacos al pastor recipe pays homage to this staple street food of Mexico City with a homemade adobo rojo de chiles sauce, juicy pieces of marinated pork, and warm pineapple cooked in butter, all topped with a classic garnish of white onion and fresh cilantro.
8. 8. Tostadas de atún. This iconic tuna tostadas recipe blends Mexican, Japanese, and Italian flavors and techniques: Citrus-marinated, sashimi-style tuna (or trout, as seen at San Francisco’s Cala), a smoky chipotle mayonnaise, frizzly deep-fried leeks, and creamy slices of fresh avocado over crisp corn tortillas.

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