Food, Home & Lifestyle
Meet Your Instructor: Gabriela Cámara
Lesson time 04:59 min
Meet your new instructor: internationally acclaimed chef and restaurateur Gabriela Cámara. Gabriela shares how she became a chef, the origin story of her famed restaurant Contramar in Mexico City, and her philosophy on food and hospitality.
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Topics include: Gabriela Cámara Teaches Mexican Cooking
Teaches Mexican Cooking
Celebrated chef Gabriela Cámara shares her approach to making Mexican food that brings people together: simple ingredients, exceptional care.
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[MUSIC PLAYING] GABRIELA CÁMARA (VOICEOVER): Food is such an important part of Mexican culture. It's just such a binding element of who we are. I grew up in a family where food was the glue of everything. Just sharing a table brings people together in a way that few things do. I never set out to become a chef. It just-- I opened Contramar, and it sounds ridiculous, and that's what it is. I opened the restaurant, and it was an experiment that was so successful that I turned it into my career. - [SPEAKING SPANISH] GABRIELA CÁMARA (VOICEOVER): When we opened Contramar 22 years ago, it really was a different world. Contramar was a, funnily enough, very farm-to-table restaurant in Mexico City in a context where that was not the popular way to go. I think that the common thread in my food has to do with caring about each part of what I do. It's the care in what ingredient you choose. It's the care in how you treat it. It's the care in how you present it. And I believe that the spirit that has always been part of my household somehow was translated to the restaurant because I wanted to welcome people as I would to my house, and I believe that that's what makes the restaurant special. So this is what I try to carry through the restaurants-- Contramar, Entremar, Cala, Onda, and everything that I am a part of because it's what really matters to me. - My mother's Italian. My father's Mexican, and they met in the United States. And so I grew up in sort of these three countries. But now we're going to talk about Mexican foods, so I'm going to focus on my Mexican part. In my MasterClass, I want to give you a taste of a few things that are very loved from my restaurants, and I also want to teach you a few recipes for cooking what I cook at home and what we eat in Mexico City. I want to teach you how to make a few delicious salsas. I'm going to teach you how to make pescado a la tallo. It's our most popular dish at Contramar for sure. It was the first dish on the menu. Tuna tostadas, a dish that is on so many menus in Mexico and abroad. Contramar was the first restaurant to serve a tuna tostada I'm very proud to say. We're also going to make a quesadilla, and we're going to fry it. And I'm going to teach you how to make aguachile, tamales. We're going to make tacos al pastor. And I'm going to teach you how to make tortillas, and I'm going to teach you about corn. I want to teach you how central to the Mexican diet corn is. It's really difficult to think of a Mexican meal without thinking about corn. It's sort of like thinking about a French meal without bread. That's been the main ingredient in every meal of every person that has a little bit of Mexican blood. I'm going to share stories about my experience as a cook and things that have to do with Mexican culture, the way we use ingredients that pave the way for a very, very complex cuisine that has just become richer and richer through the years. I want to give you ba...
About the Instructor
A “star of modern Mexican cuisine,” Gabriela Cámara brings her local, sustainable twist to time-honored traditions. Now the chef of Contramar shares the richness of her culture through the art of food. Learn step-by-step recipes—for dishes of her own design, like tuna tostadas, and staples like tacos al pastor, salsa, and tortillas—and delight loved ones with your own delicious renditions of Mexican favorites.
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Gabriela Cámara
Celebrated chef Gabriela Cámara shares her approach to making Mexican food that brings people together: simple ingredients, exceptional care.
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