{"id":233187,"date":"2026-03-23T22:35:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-23T22:35:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/233187\/"},"modified":"2026-03-23T22:35:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-23T22:35:10","slug":"one-of-mexico-citys-best-restaurants-began-in-oakland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/233187\/","title":{"rendered":"One of Mexico City\u2019s Best Restaurants Began in Oakland"},"content":{"rendered":"

Oakland\u2019s grassroots influences, along with Listman\u2019s leftist upbringing in Mexico and Keval\u2019s post-colonial literary acumen from his days at Sonoma State University, are unmistakably baked into Masala y Maiz\u2019s philosophies of collectivism, equity and universal workers rights. A few times a year, the restaurant hosts an \u201cEat What You Want, Pay What You Can\u201d night, inviting anyone \u2014 particularly locals combating the rising cost of living in a gentrified Mexico City<\/a> \u2014 to enjoy a Michelin-starred meal, even if all they can afford to pay for it with is a piece of original artwork<\/a>. The restaurant\u2019s regular menus often feature large, bilingual phrases (\u201cwhite supremacy is terrorism\u201d; \u201cque vive la lucha femenista\u201d) based on current events.<\/p>\n

\"AAn impressive spread of dishes at Masa y Maiz. (Ana Lorenzana, courtesy of Masala y Maiz)<\/p>\n

The messaging isn\u2019t only for show. In 2018, the restaurant boldly challenged Mexico City\u2019s government officials, citing corruption and bribery<\/a> \u2014 and somehow came out unscathed. Then, in 2021, the couple rejected a nomination from The World\u2019s 50 Best Restaurants, calling out the foundation\u2019s culture of exploitation and sexism. On Instagram, Masala y Maiz expressed gratitude for the recognition but didn\u2019t yield, sharing a graphic of their invitation with a simple declaration overlaid above it: \u201cGracias, no gracias<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

The restaurant has also proven to be far more transcendentally savory than any political statement could ever be on its own. That is to say, the food at Masala y Maiz reflects Oakland\u2019s famously eclectic flavors, too, in its borderless mezcla of dishes: an edible tapestry of Mexican, Indian and East African ingredients. The paratha quesadilla, which uses Indian flatbread in place of traditional corn tortillas, is gooed together with a blend of Oaxacan and mountain cheeses, and served with a side of salsa machaar and herb salad. For the uttapam gordita, a thick South Indian dosa is topped with shredded barbacoa, butternut squash, asparagus and housemade salsa verde. And the esquites makai pakka is a Kenyan remix of Mexico\u2019s beloved street corn dish \u2014 a stir of corn kernels, coconut milk, East African masala, in-house mayo and crumbled cotija cheese.<\/p>\n

\"JarsMasala y Maiz is a reflection of the commonalities that can be found across different parts the Global South. Here, a medley of Indian and East African spices sit beside Mexican ingredients like corn and guajillo peppers. (Sana Javeri Kadri, courtesy of Masala y Maiz)<\/p>\n

Now, Oakland\u2019s past is reuniting with the restaurant\u2019s present. This month, the duo is hosting a series of guest chefs from all over the map in honor of International Women\u2019s Month. The series concludes on March 25 with a collaborative dinner featuring the Bay Area\u2019s own Reem Assil and Nite Yun, who both got their starts cooking in Oakland. Yun is the Cambodian American chef behind Lunette<\/a>, a Khmer gem inside San Francisco\u2019s Ferry Building; Assil is the Palestinian-Syrian culinary icon of Reem\u2019s California<\/a> fame. The Bay Area chefs will join Listman and Keval to create a one-night-only menu centered on their Cambodian, Palestinian, Indian and Mexican backgrounds.<\/p>\n

But how, exactly, did this internationally renowned hot spot make it all the way down from the East Bay\u2019s shores to the pedestrian-flooded Centro Historico of Mexico\u2019s trending capital to begin with? As it turns out, it all originated as an Oakland love story.<\/p>\n

\u2018Ghetto Gourmet\u2019 and PKC \u2014 that\u2019s Oakland, baby<\/p>\n

Before landing in the Bay, Listman had already established herself in the Mexico City art scene. When she came to Oakland in the \u201990s, she quickly felt aligned with the city\u2019s unsugared realness, laissez-faire freedoms and artistic energy.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe art scene in Mexico City was very avant garde, very international; it was exhilarating. I felt the same way about Oakland,\u201d she says. \u201cI fell in love with the Bay because of that similarity.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"InDuring her time in the Bay Area, Listman brought her expertise and insights as a Mexican-born artist and foodmaker, helping to introduce mezcal to the region when it was relatively unknown. Alice Waters (right), the founder of Berkeley\u2019s Chez Panisse, attended one of her many events. (Courtesy of Norma Listman)<\/p>\n

The Oakland of then was far from the Oakland it would later become. In the mid-to-late aughts, Listman was among the first in the Town to purvey artisanal mezcals, when the libation was more mystery than mainstream. She was invested in fashion, design and art. In 2007, she began working front of house in various Oakland restaurants, eventually finding her way into the kitchen. She independently experimented with food as \u201ca medium to tell a larger story\u201d with a project she titled The Salon Dinners. Listman recalls those times fondly, before tech billionaires and real estate conglomerates completely uprooted artists and storytellers in the region, leaving a profit-driven void in their wake.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn Oakland, there was something called \u2018Ghetto Gourmet,\u2019\u201d she says, describing an underground community of Oakland home chefs at the time, not to be confused with the Berkeley neighborhood nickname<\/a>. \u201cPeople turned their houses into restaurants and began cooking their own food, and it was a really cool time in the Bay to have those experiences and to be experimental. I started doing some of that,\u201d she says. \u201cWhere I grew up in Mexico, it\u2019s common that some homes and garages and family dining rooms become restaurants to serve pozole or some other dish that the family matriarch does well. [My dinners] felt like a blend of that, in terms of food, but it was shot down by the health department. It lasted about a year and a half, and it was so cool.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Listman, these kinds of secretive, word-of-mouth happenings gave Oakland a certain magic in that era: \u201cEverything felt more hidden. Back in the day, nothing was exposed, but if you knocked on a door, it would open, and then another door would appear behind that, and you\u2019d find another world inside.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"ThreeFrom left: Keval, Sita Kuratomi Bhaumik and Jocelyn Jackson. The trio co-founded the People\u2019s Kitchen Collective in 2007. (Courtesy of Saqib Keval)<\/p>\n

During that same span, Keval was steadily building up PKC<\/a>, a political food program he co-founded in 2007, along with Jocelyn Jackson<\/a> and Sita Kuratomi Bhaumik, in San Francisco\u2019s Bernal Heights neighborhood. Keval\u2019s evolving vision for the group was inspired by his involvement in Bay Area restaurants and food nonprofits like Restaurant Opportunities Center of the Bay Area and West Oakland\u2019s People\u2019s Grocery, where he helped start the Growing Justice Institute<\/a>, an urban agriculture project.<\/p>\n

During Keval\u2019s time at PKC, the group held large-scale public meals at Lil Bobby Hutton Park and at urban farms. Keval developed connections with Black Panther Party elders and collaborated with the likes of Emory Douglas<\/a>, who created the fliers for the Panthers\u2019 Free Breakfast Program. \u201cIt was formative for me as an activist to understand the Black and Brown and South Asian history in the Bay. That was vital,\u201d Keval says of those years.<\/p>\n

Soon, his path would serendipitously intertwine with Listman\u2019s.<\/p>\n

\"AIn the late aughts, Keval rallied communities in Oakland and beyond around issues of food justice. (Courtesy of Saqib Keval)
\nThe road to Mexico City goes through Old Oakland<\/p>\n

Maybe no neighborhood in Oakland has retained as much of the clandestine enchantment that Listman recalls from the aughts as Old Oakland. In particular, the historic downtown neighborhood \u2014 crammed into a quaint, relatively sleepy four-block nook bordered by Highway 880, Broadway and West Oakland \u2014 has long been an overlooked bastion of delicious eats.<\/p>\n

In prior years, you\u2019d find beloved gems like Miss Ollie\u2019s<\/a>, the Afro-Caribbean staple with out-the-door lines, where Keval once worked. Today, the neighborhood is home to chef Anthony Salguero\u2019s Popoca, a Salvadoran American powerhouse slanging woodfired pupusas, and T\u2019chaka<\/a>, Oakland\u2019s first and only Haitian joint (which, poetically, exists in the former Miss Ollie\u2019s space). But arguably no other restaurant in Old Oakland has left more of an imprint than Cosecha. Until it shuttered in 2021, the Mexican eatery inside of Swan Market was one of the most influential restaurants in the Bay Area\u2019s culinary landscape.<\/p>\n

Coincidentally, Cosecha is also where Listman and Keval first met, around 2013. At that time, Listman was working with the restaurant to host mezcal tastings and community art events; Keval and PKC used Cosecha as a space to provide meals and build a shared foundation.<\/p>\n

\"CrowdedOld Oakland\u2019s now-shuttered Cosecha was an instrumental space for Keval and Listman, who used it as a venue to build community and inspire change. For a time, the restaurant hosted many of the People\u2019s Kitchen Collective\u2019s pay-what-you-can meals. (Courtesy of Saqib Keval\/People’s Kitchen Collective)<\/p>\n

In terms of how they started dating? Listman tells it straight: \u201cWe never really engaged that much. We were busy in our own worlds.\u201d That changed when the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco began a new residency program and recruited both Listman and PKC to collaborate. Listman smiles: \u201cWe worked together on that event, and since then we\u2019ve never stopped working together.\u201d<\/p>\n

Dominica Rice-Cisneros, Cosecha\u2019s Mexican American chef-owner who currently runs Bombera in the Dimond District, knew the couple long before they were star chefs. Since hosting them in her own restaurant, Rice-Cisneros has gone on to eat at every version of Masala y Maiz (the restaurant has had different locations in Mexico City over the years).<\/p>\n

\u201cI consider Masala y Maiz to be a Bay Area restaurant, even though they\u2019re in Mexico City. They are an Oakland restaurant, to be exact. True Oakland,\u201d says Rice-Cisneros. \u201cIt\u2019s definitely international and could do well everywhere, but first and foremost, it\u2019s Oakland.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"AKeval drew inspiration from Bay Area restaurants like Cosecha, where he is pictured in this photo during his People\u2019s Kitchen Collective years. Behind him, Cosecha chef Dominica Rice-Cisneros prepares a dish. (Courtesy of Saqib Keval)<\/p>\n

This week, Rice-Cisneros will be flying out to attend the International Women\u2019s Month dinner that Listman is hosting along with Assil and Yun. It doesn\u2019t get more Bay Area \u2014 in Mexico City \u2014 than that.<\/p>\n

While Rice-Cisneros doesn\u2019t take any credit for uniting Listman and Keval, the couple is quick to point out Cosecha\u2019s importance in their lives. \u201cPKC exists because of Dominica. We exist [as a couple] because of PKC,\u201d Keval says.<\/p>\n

In 2017, Listman moved back to Mexico to research corn foodways. Unexpectedly, she was offered an on-the-spot chance to take over a dining space in the San Miguel Chapultepec neighborhood of Mexico City. She took the risk and invited Keval to join her. The result was Masala y Maiz: a combination of their families\u2019 migratory lineages told through recipes. In that way, the restaurant is an expression of all of the parallels that Listman and Keval have found between the cuisines and cultures across Mexico, India, Kenya and the Global South at large.<\/p>\n

\"AIn 2017, Listman and Keval left the Bay Area, where they had met and began dating, with the shared vision of changing the restaurant industry together. (Courtesy of Saqib Keval)<\/p>\n

The restaurant\u2019s stature has only grown over the years as it moved into larger spaces and solidified itself as a culinary destination and activist force in Mexico City. But even as the couple was building out their restaurant, the Bay Area was always close to their hearts \u2014 and the Bay hadn\u2019t forgotten about them, either. Listman notes that her former mentor, San Francisco chef Anthony Strong (of Pasta Supply Co.), supplied Masala y Maiz with its inaugural set of silverware. Eight years later, it\u2019s still the crown jewel of the restaurant\u2019s collection.<\/p>\n