It’s not every day that a meal is as delicious as it is revelatory. Yet Fogones Mx, located in Mexico City’s Roma Norte, manages to serve this kind of experience every weekend. Sprung from the Centro Nacional de Investigación y Difusión de la Cocina Tradicional Mexicana (CENAIN) project (the National Center for the Research and Dissemination of Traditional Mexican Cuisine), Fogones is the result of a partnership between Sulema Vega and Luis Alberto Llanos, whose passion for traditional Mexican cooking inspired them to travel across the country’s 32 states in search for those flavors, recipes, techniques, and traditions that make up the foundations of Mexico’s rich and complex culinary landscape. "The original idea for CENAIN was born in Cabo San Lucas as a festival with 32 traditional cooks,” says Sulema. After a few bumps in the road, Luis Alberto, who remained at the head of the project, decided to embark on an epic trip across the country, and Sulema joined as a partner along the way.

On a neighborhood back street, hemmed in by cars on both sides, sits a house-turned-secret dance club, a girl selling Maruchan soup-in-a-cup under a pop-up tent, and La Chubechada – a tiny storefront with a cutout window just big enough for Maria Guadalupe to poke her head out and take your order. When your drink comes up and she hollers out your name, you better be quick on your feet to go pick it up. For tourists venturing out of the center of Mexico City, La Chubechada feels far from the trendy spotlight and more than a little intimidating, but upon arrival the place hums with a neighborhood vibe – kids hanging out and getting tipsy on the sidewalk with their friends, locals stopping by to say hello.

The word mole comes from the Nahuatl molli, which means “mixture,” and is used to refer to a number of sauces prepared all over Mexico. There’s some controversy as to which spot is the birthplace of mole (Puebla, Tlaxcala and Oaxaca all claim the prize) and when exactly these sauces were created. What we do know about mole sauces, however, is that they are the perfect culinary example of the mestizaje that took place in Mexico after the arrival of the Spanish conquistadores. They combine native ingredients such as chilies, fruits and seeds with elements brought by the newcomers, including nuts, exotic fruits and even bread.