A dash of Latin flair in Doha

Internationally renowned chef Richard Sandoval.

Think of Mexican food and chances are you’ll picture a plate of cheesy nachos, fajitas or perhaps a chilli burrito.

Satisfying? Certainly, but gourmet food it isn’t. Which is why, says celebrated Mexican chef Richard Sandoval, people often need to be guided around the menu at his restaurants, as the choices can leave even the most seasoned foodie slightly confused.

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“When I moved to New York 14 years ago and I saw what was happening with Mexican food, it was obvious to me that French food had gone through its transformation, from the traditional to the nouveau, Italian was going through its transformation, like a lot of cuisines, but Mexican hadn’t,” Sandoval explains.

“Mexican was very stagnant — it was seen as fast food, very inexpensive, very heavy. I said ‘this is not what I grew up eating in Mexico’, so it was a very easy decision for me to be able to introduce people to what I grew up eating and help modernise the cuisine.”

Redefining Mexican food as up market cuisine is no mean feat, but with seven different Latin-inspired concepts and 24 restaurants around the world, it seems Sandoval has a handle on marketing his concept to the masses.

One of his 24 outlets is Mexican seafood restaurant Pampano, which has recently opened at The Pearl in Doha. Not the most obvious choice for location or the style of food, but no matter — Sandoval isn’t a stranger to pioneering concepts and believes Doha is ready to be shaken up.

“What you saw in Dubai seven years ago is happening now in Doha and they are bringing the best chefs, the best concepts, the best ingredients — it’s amazing what is happening in such a short period of time,” he enthuses.

“You can’t compare Pampano and Maya (Sandoval’s traditional Mexican restaurant, which opened in Dubai three years ago) to a Tex Mex restaurant or a fajita restaurant. Basically you have to compare us to a great French restaurant, a great Italian restaurant, where we use the same proteins but instead of using crème fraiche we use crema fresco and instead of using thyme we use cilantro.

“What I love with Mexican food is that there are so many ingredients I get to work with — I mean there are 100 different varieties of chilli,” he says.

Celebrity competition

Although Pampano brings a unique offering to The Pearl, Sandoval says that his closest competition is Gordon Ramsay’s restaurant “as what he does is similar but [mine is] with Mexican. So that’s the closest thing you can compare it to”.

Does this make Sandoval the Mexican Gordon Ramsay? “Exactly,” he says. “Except i'm nicer.”

Sandoval does cite other chefs as being inspirational — clearly preferring innovative concepts which challenge the public perception of traditional cuisine.

“I think Nobu is a great inspiration,” Sandoval says.

“I love what he did with Japanese cuisine in Peru — he took the Japanese and put such a lot of Latin influences in and really combined Japanese using cilantro and chilli, so I appreciate what he has done.”

There is already talk of bringing another of Sandoval’s restaurants to The Pearl, though it is undecided which one of his existing seven concepts it will be, and he exclusively reveals to Caterer Middle East that he will be bringing out a totally new restaurant brand, which will be launched in Dubai next August.

“It is going to be in the new Grosvenor House tower and we were looking at what made sense with the location, so we wanted to do something similar to the Buddha bar but with a Latin flair and we didn’t have anything like that so we developed something new,” he explains.

Latin flair, it seems, will get you a long way and luckily the Middle East's diners are getting ample opportunity to sample this for themselves.