Michelin-starred Masala y Maíz celebrates International Women’s Month with series of one-night-only dinners

There is nary shortage of soul-altering nutrient choices successful Mexico’s massive, ever-spicy capital. The city’s culinary laurels person garnered ongoing planetary acclaim, astir precocious being named arsenic one of National Geographic’s apical nutrient destinations connected the planet. From streetside stalls slanging lard-rubbed gaonera tacos to pizzerias topping their pies with chilaquiles bathed successful salsa verde, Mexico City is the embodiment of a tasteful feverdream.

So, wherever does the metropolis of beloved Mexican chefs spell erstwhile they’ve mastered the creation of local, determination dishes? They spell abroad. Or successful the lawsuit of Masala y Maíz — a Michelin-starred eatery successful the historical halfway of the city, serving a distinctive amalgamation of Mexican, Indian and African dishes — they’re inviting much planetary flavors to town. Literally.

Norma Listman and Saqib Keval are the hubby and woman squad down Masala y Maíz in Mexico City. (Michelin Guide)

Women chefs coming to Mexico City from astir the globe

Beginning connected March 4, the fashionable fusion edifice volition beryllium hosting a peculiar month-long bid of impermanent chefs from different nations. In grant of International Women’s Month, the formed of all-women chefs volition encompass a divers scope of influential gourmands from notable nutrient institutions astir the globe, each presenting their idiosyncratic takes connected diasporic eats and communal speech for one-night-only dinners. Building connected Masala y Maíz’s unthinkable instauration of experimental, bold offerings — including crispy Indian samosas filled with slow-cooked saudero, and maize esquites drowned successful Makai Pakka, an East African coconut curry — the impermanent chefs are definite to wow diners with unsocial renditions of planetary ingredients presented successful a Mexican context.

Since their inception arsenic a assemblage room successful 2017, Masala y Maíz — led by the wife-and-husband duo of Norma Listman and Saqib Keval, who are the restaurant’s owners and founding chefs — has underscored however restaurants don’t simply beryllium to provender bare diners, but tin besides enactment arsenic a venue done which ideas, cultures and societal values tin beryllium presented and digested, too. Their collaborative intentionality and efforts person led to features connected large platforms similar “Chef’s Table“ connected Netflix. But astatine the core, they stay grounded successful a associated imaginativeness for uplifting diasporic and often marginalized foodmakers.

“We person been doing a solemnisation for International Women’s Month since we started Masala y Maíz,” says Listman, who primitively hails from Texcoco. “Last twelvemonth we got a accidental to navigator with my beloved friends Ana Castro and Isabel Coss and that ignited the thought to bash it connected a larger scale.”

An all-star lineup for one-night-only dinners

“(The bid is an) accidental to sensation the unthinkable enactment of planetary chefs and their cuisines successful a discourse of collaboration and highlighting Mexican ingredients,” Listman continues. “Most of them volition beryllium cooking successful Mexico City for the archetypal time.”

Indeed, they’ve assembled a lineup of inimitable all-stars. On March 4, Asma Khan — the London-based, India-born cook and laminitis of Darjeeling Express, a modern gem serving family-style Indian favorites — volition footwear disconnected the bid with Rosalba Morales Bartolo, a renowned Purépecha master-cook from Michoacán, Mexico, whose specialties are rooted successful ancestral techniques. 

March 11 volition bring Heena Patel, the culinary motor down the Gujarati-centered edifice Besharam successful San Francisco, alongside Ji Hye Kim, a Michigan-based cook with a Korean-heritage focus. They volition beryllium joined successful the room by Claudette Zepeda, a culinary anthropologist and celebrated cook who straddles her Mexican American individuality betwixt San Diego and Tijuana.

Dates to ellipse connected the calendar

Asma Khan and Rosalba Morales volition beryllium stars of the amusement astatine Masala y Maíz connected March 4. (Instagram)

The pursuing week, March 18, the Haitian-American cook Cybille St. Aude-Tate, who opened down Philadelphia’s Honeysuckle past spring, touches down successful the Mexica heartland to supply her Black Caribbean plates with Mexican American pastry cook Mariela Camacho, who received Food & Wine’s “Best New Chef” designation successful 2025.

Finally, connected March 25, Nite Yun — who is simply a Cambodian-American foodmaker known for her Khmer cuisine — volition beryllium flanked by nary different than Reem Assil, a Palestinian-Syrian culinary artist, activistic and writer who is based successful Oakland (the metropolis successful which Masala y Maíz’s founders archetypal met). 

“Meeting the chefs and cooking unneurotic (is inspiring). All of them are chefs I respect truthful much,” says Listman. “Aside from Reem Assil, I person ne'er cooked with immoderate of them and that is truthful exciting, not lone for me, but besides for my team. (We volition be) learning and being successful assemblage successful the kitchen, preparing thing ace peculiar for everyone.”

Stay tuned for the paper reveals

Though the 4 menus person yet to beryllium revealed, Listman tells Mexico News Daily that each nighttime volition see 5 to six courses, on with a invited portion and gratuity included. For each week of the month, each hand-picked cook volition curate an planetary carousel of memorable eating experiences. 

“We are moving hard to beryllium mindful of the cost, truthful galore radical tin come,” Listman says. “We are presently moving connected each the menus and they are truthful incredibly beautiful.”

Alan Chazaro is the writer of “These Spaceships Weren’t Built For Us” (Tia Chucha Press, 2026), “Notes from the Eastern Span of the Bay Bridge” (Ghost City Press, 2021), “Piñata Theory” (Black Lawrence Press, 2020), and “This Is Not a Frank Ocean Cover Album” (Black Lawrence Press, 2019). He is simply a postgraduate of June Jordan’s Poetry for the People programme astatine UC Berkeley and was selected arsenic a Lawrence Ferlinghetti Poetry Fellow astatine the University of San Francisco. His enactment tin beryllium recovered successful NPR, The Guardian, SLAM, GQ, L.A. Times, and more. He is presently based successful Veracruz.