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Hi everyone.

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Welcome to Pot Luck Food Talks.

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Today we have a special guest, Deora Fadul from Guatemala.

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She's running Diaca, one of the leading restaurants in Guatemala City.

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And we're going to have a talk today.

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Welcome Deora.

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Thank you.

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Thank you so much.

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Thank you so much for having me.

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Well, to talk a bit about your current project, Diaca.

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As far as I understand, I haven't been there.

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I haven't eaten there, but as far as I understand, it's a restaurant that has,

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that links, anthropology and understanding the territory and showcasing local

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products.

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And that's kind of like your proposal.

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How did that start?

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Because I guess if you go to culinary school, most of the times you learn French

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traditional cooking in most of the restaurants.

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At least 20 years ago, there was no Latin American fine dining.

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This is something relatively new.

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So how was your process to find that and deciding to get into that, that

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wave, that train?

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So when I started 18 years ago, imagine that 18 years ago, the first thing that

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popped into my mind, like I said, I like to question everything.

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So for me, it was more about, it is more about the why of everything, why we're

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doing this, why we're here, why, why we use this, why we cook like this, why

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everything was why.

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And like you said, like I went to study to a school that everything was French.

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And, but my teacher was so nice and he was such a good teacher of teaching you,

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how to question everything and, and how to be yourself also in the kitchen and

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not get lost only on the French cuisine.

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He's from Cordon Bleu.

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So he's like, obviously like very Frenchy basis that I remember when I, I

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graduate and I started the company.

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I started the pop-up company 18 years ago.

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Every single time that I put something on the table, every word of mine was like,

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oh, these tomatoes are so amazing.

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Where do you buy them?

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And it was like, oh, this is a type of producer that works this way from

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Guatemala.

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And I'm like, yes, from, from here.

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And they were like, tomatoes are even from Guatemala.

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And I was like, oh my God, I got it in shock.

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Like something that was, yeah, something that was normal for me.

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It was not a thing.

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So it was like an automatic like question that I did to myself.

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And I started to realizing, oh my God, what is the main purpose of a chef in

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a community, in a society?

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And I asked myself that question and it was super easy for me.

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It was like, obviously it's like, we know that what a policeman does, we

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know what a doctor does, we know what an architect does, but chefs have a more

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deep relationship with society that you can't imagine.

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Cuisine, culinary, the culinary world, gastronomy touches everything.

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It's the base of society at the end of the day is that what we eat is what we are.

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I started to question myself like, oh my God, we'd have lost our main purpose

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as chefs, as cooks, as leaders in the kitchen to connect what is the most

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important, to connect two worlds at the same time that is on the same.

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The nature world with the producer passes through our kitchens and we're like a

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channel, we're like a channel, communicators, and we're channeling this information to

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the customers, to the people, to the person that is eating our food.

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So we have lost that main purpose.

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Like our main job is to connect.

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So I started to say like, oh my God, like I need to go more and more and more and

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more deeper and deeper and deeper and deeper and rooted myself in Guatemala

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and trying to get to know more our territory, our producers, the way we do

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farming.

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And that time I had three people that had impacted in my life in a very amazing way,

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my dad, my mom, and my grandmother.

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But then my now husband came into my life and he's a farmer.

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And I started to realize how something that I knew that it was hard, something that I

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knew that it was something that we as chefs had to do to take out ourselves from the

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center and be part of the chain and be part of this amazing wheel.

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I just reassure it with my husband whenever I have to listen to him like, oh, this is

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so hard because we have to do this.

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And I was like, this is so unfair.

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Why the government or why the newspapers or why nobody knows this?

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Like nobody's talking about this.

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Nobody's like defending this amazing job that you guys do.

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Nobody's talking about this.

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I was like very strong and I still like I'm very stubborn about that.

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Like we have to tell the stories.

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We have to make the connections.

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We have to do this stuff.

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So that's why the first 10 years of the company, we were a pop-up and we were like popping

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in different places and doing stuff.

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But the name that I put it, it was Chef of Moncure.

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That is Chef of my heart.

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And it was because we respected the heart of the territory and the heart of the people

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that we were cooking.

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I put that name because when I started the company, I was 20, 2021.

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And I was like, I need a name that breaks eyes.

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Like something that when I tell the name, people ask why.

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So it was like a reason to tell the story behind it, why I was doing this.

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But then like six years or five years later, the name was working against me because whenever

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I had to do a talk or whenever I have to travel, everyone was like, you talk so beautiful

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with Guatemala.

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You do everything about Guatemala.

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But why the French name?

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Why do you have a French name?

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That's super, super interesting because I've given lectures at the Vasco Lunar Center about

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Latin American avant-garde.

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And this is a story that has repeated itself over and over again.

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I mean, even here in the Basque Country, a hundred years ago, there were no Basque restaurants.

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All the restaurants were French.

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And if you see like, I would say the key figures or the oldest figures in Latin American avant-garde,

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let's say Gastón Acurio, Alexa Tala, and Olvera, the three of them, they opened French restaurants.

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And through their process, it became gradually local, you know, but it was a process because

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that's the way it used to be.

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And it's super interesting that naturally you went through the same process in a different

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country and it happened the same.

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In a different way, because I was doing Guatemalan food.

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I was not doing French cuisine.

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I was doing everything Guatemala, everything with local ingredients, everything with producers,

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everything was Guatemalan, but not the name.

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And so everybody was like, it doesn't make sense that you have everything from Guatemala,

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but it's just this tiny part that doesn't make authentic Guatemalan.

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Right.

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And I was like, so yeah, of course it made his service for the time that I needed.

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Because in Guatemala, the name was like, as noble.

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Like when I started, everyone was like, oh, you have to call her because she asks for a

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meeting and she gets to know you and knowing your personality and knowing your taste.

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She's going to make the menu.

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So I didn't have a menu.

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I was making the menus personally with the client.

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Like I interview you and I asked your flavors and then I made the menu.

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So everything was so personal using local ingredients and everything.

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So it was like a snowball.

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But then when I got the attention outside Guatemala, it was like, everything is amazing.

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You talked about Guatemala so beautiful, but why the French name?

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So I made a promise to myself that when I got to 10 years of doing that,

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I was going to change the name to Diaca.

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Diaca in Spanish means from here, but it's like a local way of saying it.

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It's kind of like a slang, right?

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Yeah, it's a slang.

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It's not the Acá, it's Diaca, like we say it.

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So I put it that way.

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I patented the name and when I was like going like seven years and when I got to 10 years,

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I opened the first restaurant and I put it, I changed the name from Chef Amonkhe to Diaca.

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And it was the first restaurant with one table in Guatemala.

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I don't know if in Central America, but in Guatemala, it was the first restaurant with one table.

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I remember chefs and friends and everybody was like, one table?

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Just one table?

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And I was like, yeah, because I want to teach and I want to like every single time that someone

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sat down in our table, enjoy the meal and it's something more holistic.

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It's not just eating and going away.

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I want everybody to enjoy and to listen to the stories of the producers.

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So it was an amazing way of starting the Acá and now we're heading to eight years almost with

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the Acá restaurant and we had grown like very fast.

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That's also something really interesting.

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Yes.

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Yesterday, I was listening to a podcast from the New York Times on 100 years of solitude,

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the novel from Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

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And they were analyzing the novel and they were talking a lot about this novel,

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talks a lot about imperialism and colonialism and about how identities got lost in Latin America.

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And this is something that you see in food over and over again.

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And I think these movements of Latin American avant-garde are really, and this is also something

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that I've seen patterns in different countries, like projects like the Acá or other projects

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in other parts, they start to establish new value chains with their producers or indigenous

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traditions that were forgotten or are not visualized or showcased in restaurants or in

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supermarkets, let's say, and creating this connection with those producers and giving them

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a voice through a plate somehow.

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Yeah.

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And it's amazing because when people see the photos of our food in Instagram or in a website

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or in a magazine or whatever, they think we do molecular techniques or avant-garde French

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techniques, but when they come to the kitchen and they see that we only have fire and a blender

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and that's it, they get like, how do you do that?

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And I'm like, every single technique that we use are Mesoamerican techniques or American

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techniques.

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But people tend to think that dehydration, nistimalization, crystallization, like all

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of this, like even barbecue, like all of these techniques, they think are more European without

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knowing that comes from Mesoamerica.

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I was talking about the cartocho technique or the papilote technique, and it's not even

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European to it.

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It comes from Mesoamerica, from the amixiote.

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It's something that Europeans brought to Europe and then they started to do the papilote and

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the cartocho with obviously a wax paper.

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But here in America, in Mexico, it was in the part of Mexico and obviously Guatemala

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and all this part of Yucatan, the amixiote that they use the part of the agave that looks

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like wax paper and they used to cook this, all of their meats like that.

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So it's something that came from here too.

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So there's a lot of techniques that we missed out to know that they come from our side of

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the world.

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And I think it's something because I had a lot of friends and chefs and like journalists

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and whatever that they come to the restaurant and they go into the kitchen and they see that

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everything is so basic.

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And they always ask, like they get in shock, like they don't know why I don't have like

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a flash blast freezer and all of this like new stuff that everybody uses and it's okay

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if you use it.

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But in my case, I always tell them, I have a lot of people that comes from other parts

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of Guatemala that doesn't have the money or doesn't have like the sources to buy all

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of this expensive cuisines and they come to do internships in the restaurant.

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And it's for me, it has more value that they see everything that we have achieved without

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using that stuff.

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So it gives them like power and it empowers them to see a comal, to see fire, to see stuff

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that they get related to.

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They go in without thinking that they are creative and that they don't have money.

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And when they go out, they feel so empowered that they have the power.

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They have gold in their hands.

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They have fire.

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They have nature.

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They have everything that they can use that surrounds them, that it's beautiful to maintain

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the kitchen.

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So if you go to my kitchen, you will see stuff that comes from Mesoamerica like the pollo,

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the comal, like I said, like the fire.

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It's a Mesoamerican kitchen.

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It's not a European kitchen.

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If you go to the restaurant, yeah, you will see that.

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By the way, for people who don't know, tomatoes are from America, not the European.

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Well, from America, because we're still trying to figure out if they came from the Masonian

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and at some point they mix it.

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It's America.

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Like I always said that I always talked about America as the whole continent.

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Yeah.

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Yeah, it's a messy continent.

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There is a lot of, for example, when I was young, I remember somebody discovered that

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cocoa beans and cacao came from some part of Venezuela.

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Now I'm listening to the same thing about Ecuador.

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So to determine where these ingredients originated is sometimes complicated.

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Because in time, you are discovering new stuff.

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You're figuring out new stuff.

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So it's something that evolves, right?

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The story you mentioned about the equipment, it also reminds me of Maria Fernanda de Jacobé

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in Venezuela.

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She created this project Cacao de Origen where she trained thousands of women in chocolate

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producing.

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These were women that were originally cocoa farmers, but had never been in the production

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side of creating chocolate out of their produce.

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And they started creating chocolate basically with blenders.

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You will have different qualities with different equipment, but if your cocoa is amazing, your

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chocolate will be pretty good with any kind of equipment.

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Imagine doing chocolate here in Guatemala.

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There are still some parts in the country that they use the piedra or el brazo.

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I was talking about...

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Like a stone mill, right?

235
00:15:41,240 --> 00:15:42,360
It's a stone.

236
00:15:42,360 --> 00:15:44,360
It's called...

237
00:15:44,360 --> 00:15:44,920
Yeah.

238
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It's made with volcanic stone.

239
00:15:47,080 --> 00:15:49,800
So we have two types.

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We have the one for corn and the one for cacao.

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And it's beautiful to see the difference between el brazo that it's from corn is like more

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flat round and the other one is like more long and super round.

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So you can really take out the fat of the cocoa beans.

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00:16:10,200 --> 00:16:15,640
So it's beautiful to see that in like, I don't know, like 60% of the country, we're still

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doing chocolate like that.

246
00:16:17,240 --> 00:16:23,560
And it's beautiful to see how they can go to very refined chocolate because it's like

247
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doing chocolate is another world.

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Like you have to...

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00:16:26,840 --> 00:16:33,800
The fat content and the way you dry it, you ferment like first ferment it, then you dry

250
00:16:33,800 --> 00:16:34,600
it, then you...

251
00:16:34,600 --> 00:16:36,600
It takes so much to do chocolate.

252
00:16:36,600 --> 00:16:41,880
Like you said, like even like a tiny part of it, it could change like the flavor, it

253
00:16:41,880 --> 00:16:44,440
could change the color, the texture.

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Everything.

255
00:16:45,800 --> 00:16:49,000
But when you have really good product, you can do...

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It's no way back.

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00:16:50,040 --> 00:16:56,680
But like I said, I always said to my team, you have to first respect yourselves and then

258
00:16:56,680 --> 00:17:03,080
respect the ingredient because it doesn't matter if you have like top notch ingredient

259
00:17:03,080 --> 00:17:09,560
in your table, but if you're not paying respect to it, the ingredient is kind of messed up.

260
00:17:09,560 --> 00:17:15,880
So I think it's a mix between like having respect to the ingredient and knowing the

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quality of the ingredient that you have in your table.

262
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Yeah.

263
00:17:18,760 --> 00:17:25,560
Then I also wanted to talk about around, I don't know, like maybe six years ago or so

264
00:17:25,560 --> 00:17:30,920
you started to get recognition from Latin America and 50 Best, just recently from the

265
00:17:30,920 --> 00:17:32,120
Best Chef list.

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I also understand that your current venue on a rooftop is not so old.

267
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Like, how was the transformation from the early Diaca to the spot where you're right

268
00:17:43,800 --> 00:17:44,600
now?

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It was a nice transition because we started as a one-table restaurant, like I told you

270
00:17:49,400 --> 00:17:56,520
in a tiny street in an old part of the city that I love that part of the city.

271
00:17:56,520 --> 00:17:59,960
And it was a one-table and everything was going super good.

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00:17:59,960 --> 00:18:05,960
That was the first time that 50 Best recognized our job as best.

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On that list, it was the first year.

274
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It was in 2020.

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First, it was a racing star for Female Chef.

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We were four or five.

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I think it was Marcia.

278
00:18:16,680 --> 00:18:19,880
Yeah, it was Marcia, Pia from Nueva.

279
00:18:19,880 --> 00:18:21,560
I think it was Tasia too.

280
00:18:21,560 --> 00:18:26,280
And we were like five girls and the racing star was for Marcia.

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She's an amazing cook.

282
00:18:27,880 --> 00:18:29,800
I have a pending interview with Marcia.

283
00:18:29,800 --> 00:18:32,200
I worked with her for two years.

284
00:18:32,200 --> 00:18:33,080
She's amazing.

285
00:18:33,080 --> 00:18:34,120
She's amazing.

286
00:18:34,120 --> 00:18:37,320
She's an amazing person and she's an amazing cook.

287
00:18:37,320 --> 00:18:40,520
And then the pandemic came.

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I remember that when we talked with the team, I was like, listen, first we need to think

289
00:18:46,680 --> 00:18:49,720
about our farmers and how we're going to help them.

290
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With us, don't get nervous.

291
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I will figure it out.

292
00:18:53,480 --> 00:18:57,960
Just give me three days and I will think about an idea so we can do.

293
00:18:57,960 --> 00:19:02,280
So we did the tasting menu and delivery.

294
00:19:02,280 --> 00:19:07,000
It was a delivery tasting menu, but everything was very delicate.

295
00:19:07,000 --> 00:19:10,200
And it was two wood boxes.

296
00:19:10,200 --> 00:19:14,680
Everything was designed for you just to open it and eat it.

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00:19:14,680 --> 00:19:16,360
You're eating hors d'oeuvres.

298
00:19:16,360 --> 00:19:20,600
The menu at that time were eight curses.

299
00:19:20,600 --> 00:19:26,760
And I don't know why I decided that we're going to do it 16 curses in delivery.

300
00:19:26,760 --> 00:19:27,320
Yeah.

301
00:19:27,320 --> 00:19:28,040
Why not?

302
00:19:28,040 --> 00:19:29,400
Yeah, why not?

303
00:19:29,400 --> 00:19:32,440
Yeah, why not?

304
00:19:32,440 --> 00:19:37,720
So we changed the menu six times in the pandemic.

305
00:19:37,720 --> 00:19:42,440
It was like the same because we changed the menu seven times in the year because we change

306
00:19:42,440 --> 00:19:44,200
it in every single season.

307
00:19:44,200 --> 00:19:46,280
For us, we have seven seasons.

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00:19:46,280 --> 00:19:50,600
We don't have two like most Guatemalan things that we only have summer and rainy season

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because we have a relationship with the producers.

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00:19:52,680 --> 00:19:55,480
We know that we have more than two.

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00:19:55,480 --> 00:19:56,520
We have seven.

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00:19:56,520 --> 00:19:59,640
We changed the menu six times in the pandemic.

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We went into the kitchen at 3 a.m.

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00:20:02,120 --> 00:20:05,000
And we started cooking at 3 a.m.

315
00:20:05,000 --> 00:20:13,720
And went out at 1 p.m. to deliver ourselves the boxes to the clients.

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00:20:13,720 --> 00:20:20,840
Imagine that before the pandemic, we only have like two or three tables per day because

317
00:20:20,840 --> 00:20:21,800
it was one table.

318
00:20:21,800 --> 00:20:27,800
So it was a reservation of 12 people or 10 people or mixed people in the same table.

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00:20:27,800 --> 00:20:31,960
But we only can do like three because it was like three different hours.

320
00:20:31,960 --> 00:20:38,600
But in the pandemic, that grew a lot because we could do like more tables, right?

321
00:20:38,600 --> 00:20:44,360
So the idea was that we were five working at that time in the restaurant.

322
00:20:44,360 --> 00:20:48,920
Every single one of us did two reservations per night.

323
00:20:48,920 --> 00:20:52,360
So imagine you with your friends wanted to get together.

324
00:20:52,360 --> 00:20:54,680
So because of the pandemic, you couldn't.

325
00:20:54,680 --> 00:21:01,640
So you ask for the service and everybody from your table got into a Zoom.

326
00:21:01,640 --> 00:21:05,560
And I was the one that it was in charge of your reservation.

327
00:21:05,560 --> 00:21:07,560
So it was like your table.

328
00:21:07,560 --> 00:21:12,360
Every single one of us like accompanied the whole evening.

329
00:21:12,360 --> 00:21:14,680
It was the same as being in the restaurant.

330
00:21:14,680 --> 00:21:15,800
Wow, that's incredible.

331
00:21:15,800 --> 00:21:16,760
I never heard about that.

332
00:21:16,760 --> 00:21:17,320
That's crazy.

333
00:21:17,320 --> 00:21:19,320
Yeah, it was crazy.

334
00:21:19,320 --> 00:21:20,200
It was amazing.

335
00:21:20,200 --> 00:21:20,920
It was amazing.

336
00:21:20,920 --> 00:21:26,120
Even from Japan, we had people from Japan, from Germany that write us like,

337
00:21:26,120 --> 00:21:28,600
oh my God, we saw what you did in the pandemic.

338
00:21:28,600 --> 00:21:29,640
It was amazing.

339
00:21:29,640 --> 00:21:34,360
I can't believe that you managed to do the whole plate.

340
00:21:34,360 --> 00:21:37,480
Like it was eating like you were eating at the restaurant.

341
00:21:37,480 --> 00:21:39,720
I had people that cry in the Zooms.

342
00:21:39,720 --> 00:21:43,320
I have people that felt that it was very special.

343
00:21:43,320 --> 00:21:52,040
So imagine growing for two to one reservations per day to almost 12 or 15 reservations per day.

344
00:21:52,040 --> 00:21:56,520
So we grew three times the size of our ingresos.

345
00:21:56,520 --> 00:21:57,720
I don't know how to say ingresos.

346
00:21:57,720 --> 00:21:58,600
Incomes.

347
00:21:58,600 --> 00:22:00,120
Yeah, income, sorry.

348
00:22:00,120 --> 00:22:01,960
So that's why we grew.

349
00:22:01,960 --> 00:22:04,440
We grow and it was amazing.

350
00:22:04,440 --> 00:22:10,360
And I think we did 4,000, yeah, 4,000 tasting menus in four months.

351
00:22:10,920 --> 00:22:12,360
Wow, incredible.

352
00:22:12,360 --> 00:22:13,640
Yeah, so we grew a lot.

353
00:22:13,640 --> 00:22:19,240
So we had to make the decision because when the city opened again, we were like,

354
00:22:19,240 --> 00:22:23,800
yeah, but now we want to go to the restaurant because it's one table we want just for us.

355
00:22:23,800 --> 00:22:27,080
And we started to think like, oh my God, we're getting small.

356
00:22:27,080 --> 00:22:28,680
Like we have to grow.

357
00:22:29,480 --> 00:22:37,160
So we grow to this rooftop area that we grew to one table to four tables.

358
00:22:37,160 --> 00:22:38,520
And it was amazing.

359
00:22:38,520 --> 00:22:42,440
For three years, it was the best, but it happened again.

360
00:22:42,440 --> 00:22:43,560
It was too little.

361
00:22:43,560 --> 00:22:44,520
It was too small.

362
00:22:45,320 --> 00:22:52,920
I didn't have space for my staff, for my team that could rest or something like a space,

363
00:22:53,960 --> 00:23:00,200
somewhere that they can just rest or read, drink water, whatever in a comfortable area.

364
00:23:00,200 --> 00:23:06,680
And the other part, it was that I became a mom and my daughter is just breastfeed.

365
00:23:06,680 --> 00:23:12,440
I remember the first seven months, no, the first nine months, oh, a year, sorry.

366
00:23:12,440 --> 00:23:18,200
The first year I went to the restaurant and because I didn't have a space or a office

367
00:23:18,200 --> 00:23:23,480
or something that I can breastfeed my daughter, I went to the stairs of the restaurant,

368
00:23:24,280 --> 00:23:27,160
to the door of the restaurant and to the stairs of the restaurant

369
00:23:27,160 --> 00:23:30,120
and I breastfeeding my daughter there, sitting there for a year.

370
00:23:30,440 --> 00:23:33,240
Imagine doing that nine times a day.

371
00:23:33,800 --> 00:23:35,000
Yeah, that's crazy.

372
00:23:35,000 --> 00:23:38,040
So it was like, this is too small.

373
00:23:38,040 --> 00:23:42,520
We need to grow and now we are the place that we are right now.

374
00:23:42,520 --> 00:23:47,960
And we have a space for my daughter is called Ella's office.

375
00:23:47,960 --> 00:23:54,840
And we have a, yeah, yeah, we have a space for my team that it's one of my joys too.

376
00:23:54,840 --> 00:23:58,120
And now we grow from four tables to nine tables.

377
00:23:58,120 --> 00:24:02,920
We have been growing like that, like very organic and like in 18 years,

378
00:24:02,920 --> 00:24:10,120
this is the story of the restaurant growing step by step and trying to accommodate

379
00:24:10,120 --> 00:24:12,520
to the necessities that we have every day.

380
00:24:12,520 --> 00:24:13,080
Yeah.

381
00:24:13,960 --> 00:24:14,840
Amazing story.

382
00:24:14,840 --> 00:24:16,840
Thank you so much for sharing it with us.

383
00:24:16,840 --> 00:24:17,880
Thank you.

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00:24:21,640 --> 00:24:25,000
That's it for this week's episode of Potluck Food Talks.

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00:24:25,000 --> 00:24:29,800
If you like what we're doing, make sure to subscribe to the podcast so you never miss an episode.

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00:24:29,800 --> 00:24:33,880
You can also find us on Instagram and TikTok as Potluck Food Talks.

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