There was excitement in the air as the team behind Mexican restaurant Mixtli, was invited to attend the first Michelin Guide Texas event and mingle with some of the best in the Texas culinary world. But the stars, or better yet, the coveted Michelin star, quickly aligned for the Southtown restaurant.
The nearly century-old prestige of the Michelin Star collided with the rich, innovative flavors of Mixtli’s Mexican cuisine, earning them a place among the world’s most celebrated restaurants and their very first star.
At the sound of their name being called aloud and shown on a screen during the ceremony, the Mixtli team screamed and jumped before rushing to the stage. Rico Torres, Mixtli co-founder and the rest of the crew were on cloud nine after being bestowed one of the most prestigious honors in the culinary world.
“We’ve had multiple James Beard nominations, we’ve been the number one restaurant in the city, we’ve been in the top 25 Mexican restaurants in the city, so I felt like winning a Michelin Star that night might be possible, but it wasn’t until that moment, that a dream became true,” Torres says.
“I’m so excited to see how we grow from here,” says Alexana Cabrera, Mixtli chef de cuisine, who has been with the restaurant for eight years. “I grew up in Guatemala and wanted to cook. When I moved to San Antonio to go to the Culinary Institute, I wouldn’t have imagined I’d end up working at a restaurant of this caliber.”
Mixtli staff prepare ingredients before the esteemed restaurant opens in the evening.
Torres and his co-founding partner, Diego Galicia, met some 13 years ago and quickly discovered they were both on a quest to cook not just good Mexican food but food that tells the stories of Mexico.
Driven by their desire to work for themselves, they joined forces and opened Mixtli (Meesh-tlee) in a 12-person boxcar. Little did they know that they would assemble an award-winning team that would be part of the first recipients of the Michelin Star in Texas and only one in San Antonio.
A key ingredient in Mixtli’s success is its commitment to authenticity, always paying homage to their Mexican roots. For this innovative team, inspiration derives from the UTSA Mexican Cookbook Collection housed in the UTSA Libraries Special Collections. The cookbook collection includes over 3,000 volumes of original cookbooks from 1789 to the present and is the most extensive in the United States. From nopalitos en mole, to ensalada de verdolaga, and recipes by Vicenta Torres de Rubio, Mexico’s first female cookbook author, the collection is eclectic.
Torres, Galicia, Cabrera and their all-female leadership team — including Haley Pruitt, sommelier; Eve Agnić, front of house guide; and Lauren Beckman, bar director — frequently draw inspiration from the cookbook collection.
Sometimes, the Mixtli staff will view digital versions of the cookbooks online when inspiration hits late at night, and Special Collections is closed. Still, when they visit Special Collections in person and can see and touch a 300-year-old volume, that’s when their inspiration is piqued.
Every time the menus at Mixtli change, they strategically focus on different time periods and regions of Mexico to tell a food story. Thanks to this collection, Mixtli keeps its diners guessing what it will serve next. Each quarter, the restaurant unveils a new menu that begins with the team’s research in Special Collections.
“Holding these rare books in our hands helps us connect to the time period and region we’re exploring for a new menu,” says Agnić, who also collaborates on menu design and aesthetics. “Feeling the texture of the paper and seeing the details in the illustrations inspires us to ensure what we present is authentic. Those books even influence the paper we choose for our printed menu, as well as the colors and iconography to help us tell the story.”
A Quick History
Mixtli (Meesh-tlee) means cloud in Nahuatl. Nahuatl was the language of the Aztecs. It is still spoken in central and western Mexico.
1889: The Michelin brothers, Andre and Edouard Michelin, produce a small red guide with helpful tips such as how to fix a tire and travel maps.
1920: A new edition of the Michelin Guide included a list of Paris hotels, and lists of restaurants according to specific categories.
1926: The guide starts to award a star to fine dining restaurants.
Present Day: The Michelin Star System now ranges from one star, two stars and three stars.
How Stars Are Born
One Star: A very good restaurant.
Two Stars: Excellent cooking that’s worth a detour.
Three Stars: Exceptional cuisine that’s worth a special journey
Other Honors
Haley Pruitt and Lauren Beckman also earned a Michelin Guide Texas 2024 Service award. This accolade honors a restaurant’s staff for creating a warm and inviting dining atmosphere, recognizing their professionalism, engagement, and passion for service.
At the end of their dinner experience, patrons get to take the printed menus home as a memory of what they ate and experienced.
An invaluable resource, the cookbook collection allows them to explore Mexico’s rich culinary heritage, ensuring that every dish they create tells a distinctive story.
“The Mexican Cookbook Collection validates authenticity and what’s taking place inside Mixtli,” Pruitt notes.
“Restaurants have small margins. So, there’s always that challenge of keeping the doors open and staying ahead of the curve, being innovative and having that sense that people want to come to this restaurant,” Torres says.
The team is deeply committed to preserving and accurately representing Mexico’s rich culinary traditions. This dedication is evident in every aspect of their work, from the ingredients to the menu designs to their service ethic.
WATCH: Mixtli uses the UTSA Mexican Cookbook Collection to create a menu inspired by female chefs.
Every time a Michelin Guide mystery diner visited, this consistency shone through, leaving a lasting impression. When Michelin Guide Inspectors visit restaurants, they are completely anonymous and are simply dining as regular customers. The inspectors look at: quality, mastery of flavor and cooking technique, personality of chef in dining experience, harmony of flavors and consistency between visits.
To this day, they don’t know who the mystery inspectors were, when they came in, how often they came in, and how long it had been going on.
Regardless, Mixtli, strives to continue telling the stories and history of the dishes they cook.
“We don’t want to just scratch the surface of Mexican cuisine; we want to ensure we cover all our bases and represent it to its very core. A big part of these Mexican cookbooks is the human stories, the human connection — not just the recipes,” Pruitt says.
When imagining the people behind these recipes, Torres adds, “It makes you wonder who they were; they could never have imagined that their family recipe book would inspire an award-winning restaurant.”
