425 Daniel Vidal - How to build a zero-waste restaurant with deep ancestral Mexican roots

Daniel Vidal, head chef of Baldío, LATAM's first zero-waste restaurant, joined Koen in the kitchen in Mexico City to talk about what it actually takes to make radical food accessible to the people it was always meant for. When Baldío won a Green Michelin Star, Daniel didn't think to take his mother there for her birthday as the restaurant back then could win over critics but not his own community.

Daniel walks through how Baldío rebuilt its menu from the ground up shifting from a Nordic-inflected à la carte that impressed visiting chefs to a tasting menu grounded in tamales, tacos, and corn in every single dish. He explains why familiarity is the gateway drug for getting locals to try ant eggs, grasshoppers, and beef treated with koji to mimic the texture Mexicans already know from corn-fed imports. Daniel unpacks the 60-ingredient mole built almost entirely from kitchen waste — banana peel tart trimmings, English sauce offcuts, insect protein — as both a culinary feat and a zero-waste accounting exercise.

This is the third episode of a three conversations series recorded on location at Baldío, in Mexico City: farm, fermentation lab, kitchen. 

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Transcript

Four Big Challenges At Once

Koen Van Seijen 0:00

First challenge, make the food taste amazing. Second challenge, build a zero waste restaurant. Third challenge, have deep ancestral Mexican and early civilization roots. Fourth challenge, only work with Mexican ingredients from peasant farmers and a lot from the Chinamas. Sounds impossible? Opening any restaurant is a super risky and stressful endeavor. I'm sure a few of you can relate it. But when they opened Baldillo, locals didn't really like the menu. Danita Chef didn't take his mother, for instance. So something had to change. The perfect moment, obviously, was the day after they won the green nation and card. Now familiarity is the key. No weird things on the menu, but deeper, more complex flavors, thanks to all the ferments, which make sure they can be zero waste. If you want to go deep, take the tasting menu where you get the ants, eggs, the maggots, and all the good stuff. And yes, you get a lot of ferments as well. And it's working. The last five to six months, audio is starting to click. People, locals, not just experts looking for the Nordic snow cuisine are coming. On Saturdays, there are many families. And this is part of a three-part conversation. First, walking on land with Pablo and the Chinamas. Then the prep kitchen and fermentation tempo with Chris. And finally, the kitchen is working with Danny. Enjoy.

From Farm To Restaurant Loop

Koen Van Seijen 1:12

This is the Investing in Regenerative Agriculture and Food Podcast, where we learn more on how to put money to work to regenerate soil, people, local communities, and ecosystems while making an appropriate and fair return. Welcome to another episode. We're going full circle today. We're going from the farm to the processing, prepping center, all the way to the restaurant. I just had an amazing lunch. Thank you very much for that, Amy. And I would love to unpack in this short episode what brought you here. How come you ended up with Baldillo and focused so much on zero waste, on ingredients, quality, flavor because it tasted absolutely amazing. And what's how come you spend most of your waking hours thinking about food and acting around food?

Why Danny Chased Baldío

Koen Van Seijen 2:00

What made you a champ?

Daniel Vidal 2:01

Yeah, when I listened about uh Baldillo in the beginning, it really sounds really familiar for me. Always I like to see a project like this in Mexico City because I feel we don't have. Because you knew there were others around the world and you were missing it. I've been in Spain, in Mugarit, so I think that love with the kit with the kitchen with the food in the that type of level I can see in Mexico and a really interesting project. When I listen about uh the star of Baldillo, the star so I really want to come. And now it's a joke with Pablo because I send my CD like 10 times. And Pablo said persistent, yeah, yeah. But now I'm here at the beginning at the Baldillo. I started the Valdega like a cook and then uh I moved to the head of fermentation and then head of development. And now uh we do a lot of change in the in this year in Baldillo. Yeah, because the hard part for me in Baldillo is we are like a three different place, and you need to you need to connect each place with the other because if one place failed, everything failed. So that that's the the main idea for us in the last month. And now I moved here to the kitchen with the restaurant. But we need to work together with Chris, with Carla, with the Arcatira team to make this happen, huh?

Koen Van Seijen 3:32

Yeah, with the farming team, the processing and prepping team, and the restaurant. If something, if one of the connectors fails, it fails. So, what are the changes you've made the last months?

Rebuilding Systems After The Green Star

Koen Van Seijen 3:45

What is what has shifted? What has you been open for two years? No, a year and a half, year and a half, a year and a half, which is nothing in restaurant world, but still, it's it's very long, it's a lot of evenings.

Daniel Vidal 3:55

Yeah, it's crazy because we start with everybody with this change the last the next day that we get the green meeting start. You got the green mission start. And the next day we start with a new system.

Koen Van Seijen 4:08

Was it already planned?

Daniel Vidal 4:08

Yeah. Yeah, already planned, but we don't know we're gonna get the start. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, but uh that's happened. Um uh the first thing is to connect more Valdeo with the Valdeca. Always I think it is really important that is the processing and the process we call Valdega, like the Valdeo and Bodega. Bodega, yeah. All the ferments happen, all the ferments happen, the teacher uh the bars, the girls are there and everything. Um always I think in that's the more important part of Baldeo. But we need to close the circle here in Baldeo, right? With new process, I think in the past the 95% of the prep are ready to arrive to here and just uh cook, just plating. Yeah, but now we start to introduce new techniques with more details in the proteins when we cook, in the ceviches, in the salads, more things.

Koen Van Seijen 5:09

A bit more than you did before.

Daniel Vidal 5:11

Yes, no more. Well, now I think uh every time everything is around like 75%, and more with almost here, no? We want the salad more fresh, the fish more fresh, uh really good uh technique when you cook the pork, the beef, everything.

Koen Van Seijen 5:27

I saw the cooking, I was at the bar, I was lucky enough to sit at the kitchen at the grill, which is very impressive with the fish and all that, the kale and the pork, etc.

Daniel Vidal 5:36

Yeah, that's these uh things that usually we need to do any restaurant, yeah, but in the past don't happen here. So we need to put more attention

Designing A Real Tasting Menu

Daniel Vidal 5:44

on that. But the I think the the more important thing that we change is about the menus. So we start to create a tasting menu because when we start, we'll have.

Koen Van Seijen 5:54

Ah, okay. There was no tasting menu at the beginning.

Daniel Vidal 5:57

Maybe the first step uh was uh take the menu dish and put a small version for the tasting menu. Yeah, but that really no works. The people with they choose a tasting menu, one experience, want something that never tried something. And the first step is we create a new tasting menu. But the idea of this tasting menu is not just about the zero weight that is very important for us. We're thinking is the it's too important, the cultural ingredients, like the insects, like the grass coppers, the worms, uh the corn. I think the each dish in the tasting menu have corn, so it's really cool for a Mexican restaurant.

Koen Van Seijen 6:39

The corn for cachets, right? Yes, okay. But you're saying insects and worms, which probably if you put them on an a la carte menu, people won't really take it. But in a tasting menu, you have the capabilities and the chance, and you can quote unquote force people, and you have more of a journey with the people, like you have more dishes, more explanation, more yeah.

Daniel Vidal 6:58

You can show ingredients that uh in uh a la carte is hard to explain what we use, you know? And what in in the full menu, we try to put my more identity and more cultural product, and more like a feel like Mexican, you know? Now is I remember when I being here my first time in Baldillo for a dinner. I I think in for me, because I am a cook, was uh one of the best meals in my life because I never have this type of food in Mexico city because we're really new experience, silos, right?

Koen Van Seijen 7:29

Like the one in London, Nordic influences, etc. etc.

Daniel Vidal 7:32

Exactly. But I think it I don't want to bring my mom with her bit with her birthday to film. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I get it.

Koen Van Seijen 7:39

So it was super interesting for fellow chefs, yeah, but not for the general Mexican public. And so that's a big shift you've made.

Daniel Vidal 7:48

Yeah, so that's the our plan to change everything. I know it's really good because on Saturday uh old people's year.

Koen Van Seijen 7:56

Have you seen a shift in people coming alas?

Daniel Vidal 7:58

Common common for us exactly coming for uh return, return to Valdillo first, and then you see new people with a uh old age, like old age or everything, and everything because everything feels familiar, but when you try, it's not simple, it's more complex.

Koen Van Seijen 8:22

Yeah, the flavors are because you do all the fermentation, that's not so common. I think we were talking with Chris before, it's not so it's a common part of the cuisine, obviously, but deliberate fermentation and koji, etc., is not normal or used to, and it adds a lot of complexity to flavor, even if it's not super present.

Daniel Vidal 8:39

Yeah, I think the ideas of the food are really simple, like a tamal, like a tacos, really common Mexican things. But when you use that uh process in the fermentation and use in place water gatums or in place salts, misos in place, sugar, other type of ferment, everything changes because that uh that part of the yeah, all the things that the fermentation produces, you feel in the flavors, no. And it helps a lot with zero waste. Yeah, and helps. Yeah, everything is like a circle. You can use waste and ferment and recorporate it in the same dish when you dish, or but at the same time you have a better flavor, no? That's I think is that is uh the more important part that happened in the last month. Uh now in combined with the bar, everything feels really the unity.

Mexican Bar Program With Ferments

Daniel Vidal 9:37

Everything matched, no?

Koen Van Seijen 9:38

Yeah, because what's the uh what's so special about the bar?

Daniel Vidal 9:42

Uh use just Mexican drink, young Mexican wine, Mexican distillaus spirits, uh the mezcal, the pulte, the ferment from the agave, the curado de pulte is uh pulte with flavors, aguamiles, yeah, and really Mexican products, no?

Koen Van Seijen 10:03

Massa, maíz, etc. And a lot of non-alcoholic homemade ferments, yes as well. Yeah, Ari made uh a lot of a fermentation just for the bar, which is quite uh interesting.

Daniel Vidal 10:16

Yeah, it's a production fermentation for the bar. It's crazy, yeah. Yeah, and the other interesting is we it's sometimes hard to keep the like uh the process. For example, we have I have a I create a mole for the tacos, uh it's a tamarind mole. This is part in a Oaxacan coloradito mole. The coloradito is uh the idea, the idea is to make the texture with fresh masa to build the sauce. Uh Ari made a tepache tamarine and they have a lot of waste of the solids of the tamarind though, and I get and I cooperate for the mole and we create the mole, no. Now they uh move the tepache, but we keep the mole. And when they return the tepache, we keep use the tamarind. So a lot of things is I think the 90% of the things is is true. We use, we reuse everything, but other 10% is more like ideas, no? Yeah, because uh that's important. For me, that's that part is more important for to show for other restaurants for other chefs. Because probably it's not uh always we're gonna have the tamarind waste, but if you follow that idea, probably in your place you can make some change.

How Chefs React To No Trash

Koen Van Seijen 11:32

Do you get a lot of chefs that wanna do like an internship here just to see how you're doing things? Because you're doing things fundamentally different than anybody else in the city.

Daniel Vidal 11:41

Yeah, now we have a lot of chefs interests to come.

Koen Van Seijen 11:44

What's the biggest shock when they walk into your kitchen?

Daniel Vidal 11:47

Because always we say we don't have the trash, plastic trash, and a lot of people think it's like boxes, yeah. Oh yeah, yeah.

Koen Van Seijen 11:58

Maybe you keep like the plastic foil and aluminium foil, which in every restaurant to cover things and to roll things, and obviously it's hard to do.

Daniel Vidal 12:05

Uh sometimes we need to, for any reasons, we have our plastic, whatever. But we think any what we can't have that plastic.

Koen Van Seijen 12:14

We probably have 95% 99 less.

Daniel Vidal 12:16

Yeah, that's the idea. Always that type of things happen. We keep in thinking what we remove, what we can remove, or we talk with the providers, we talk with everything, you know. And uh I think we say uh all the old restaurants do the 10% that we do, and the change was changed the world, yeah.

Koen Van Seijen 12:37

And do you see then chefs coming here working alongside you, seeing things? Do they take things home to their restaurant? Do you get you stay in touch or do you get updates of people changing things and their content?

Daniel Vidal 12:48

I have the experience with some people, they continue communicating on Instagram and show me, oh, we do see that here in my restaurant, we change that, and now we don't use the paper, or we don't use that, or we find to help resolve this problem, and yeah, that uh we have a program of uh stage from the Mexican schools, so usually they being here like a three or four months, and it's more like a complete uh program to show everything, and we have a lot of uh requests, uh but at the same time we have a lot of requests from the for the other countries, but usually they've been just in Baldega because it's just for one week or two weeks, but usually they want to come to see what we work, no? Yeah, so that I like because you feel like you show for the new people because that uh guy is just finished the school. And I've been in other restaurants, I know how it is, and I don't want to they have the same experience, no? So they don't have to unlearn, they just learn they learn the right way from the start. Yeah, yeah. And I like uh to be the first person to show how we can.

Koen Van Seijen 14:08

So this is normal. Yeah, they go somewhere else, and they're gonna ask like, why are you not doing this? This is normal in one resume.

Daniel Vidal 14:14

Yeah, probably I I I try to show really clear because I try to say, probably your next job is gonna not gonna be the same, but you decide what is better for you in the future because you need to decide. I can keep the same uh rules like I learned in the past, but I decide to find other ways to do and it's is yeah.

Koen Van Seijen 14:37

And on I understand people are shocked on the paper and the plastic or the non-use, let's say, of packaging and all of that. On the fermentation, which feels a bit more and not zero waste, but as like very consciously thinking about waste. Um, do you see a lot of shocks there from people and like how different it is from the normal into the compost bin if you're lucky, or into the bin in general?

Making Fermentation Feel Normal

Koen Van Seijen 15:00

Yeah, yeah, uh it's like a mindset shift, right?

Daniel Vidal 15:03

Yeah, because about the fermentation. I think now it's we have a lot of information to how we can make the recipes. The truth is really simple, it's really just uh be really careful with the not DXT, we clean everything, cleanness, yeah, but at the same at the end, it's just mix three or four things, yeah. But uh and you have a lot of information to how to do that, but the hard part is how you can use that. That's the hardest part. Making is one using is different, yeah. And uh if you search in the internet, you don't have really information how you can use them because the people you I remember when the first restaurants in Mexico start to do fermentation, they like to ferment a lot of vegetables and put in a plenty, and that's the first course. And I remember I I go with my mom for a restaurant, and we try it's like a super wild, super healthy, but yeah. If that's the first uh time for a person that never listened about fermentation, they don't gonna be a last time. Yeah, that's gonna be a last time. So now I think that 90% of our dishes have permits, but with the waiters, I tell I talk and I say you can uh sell all the dishes without say permit this. If someone uh knows or asks, yeah, they can explain.

Koen Van Seijen 16:40

Pablo was explaining before, like it's the familiar familiarity of the dishes. Like I think you removed a lot of words from the menu and not even put like the specific name but explained it, like it's seeds of this, etc. etc. Because to make it as accessible and easy for people to lean in and order, and you're not gonna put insects on it. It's in the tasting menu, you're not gonna hide, but to make people more comfortable, yeah. Whoever comes in here on a Saturday to actually order stuff and try, oh, this has more flavor, more complex flavor because of ferments. But you didn't take it because of that.

Daniel Vidal 17:13

And the way that we find to do that is now we have the tasting menu. You have more uh attention for the waiters and more explanation, and now we have experience in Airbnb about the ferments. At the beginning is a taste menu, but at the beginning uh we start with explain how is the fermentation. Usually they know a little bit, performing. That's why they booked it, probably. But we show and we explain and we try to they have a tasting of a lot of type of ferments that we use in the kitchen. Uh but that that that's the idea, no, Waldo. We need to be good for everybody, not just for for the industry, or just for cooks, or just for Michelin, but it's a big choice to make.

Koen Van Seijen 18:00

You're not saying we're sitting at a table, it's not fine, it's fine dining, but not tablecloth, super chic, not super expensive as well, not super cheap, because of course you're paying uh good wages and ingredients, but it's a choice to be as open, try to be as as accessible as possible, and not go to the super experimental 10 tables only and really fermentate it insects, etc.

Daniel Vidal 18:24

Yeah, yeah. And I think we talk about this with Pablo. Do you want to explain everything? The truth hard to understand. You can spend three hours here at the table. And if the people don't have any idea, you don't want to waste your time. No, you need to, it's more easy if you have a that the first your first time in Ballio, you have a really good meal and return three more times, and probably that three more times you can learn more about what we want to do.

Koen Van Seijen 18:56

So it's a strategy to make come back time after time. So you every time there's more time or there's more space to learn if you want to.

Daniel Vidal 19:04

And if you don't, that's also fine.

Koen Van Seijen 19:08

Let your mother come here and enjoy it. Does your mother come here?

Daniel Vidal 19:11

No, no, no, but it comes here, but I think that she's gonna she's gonna enjoy it. Uh yeah, but that that's now that our idea of we start to do a lot of things with the products, with Chris, with English, something less. They're gonna need a class the next week, I think. Uh we play into a book, we play into more things, no? Then the media the bargain start to distillery things. So that I think if you keep this uh good, we can do a lot of more things. Yeah,

Smoother Operations And Better Training

Daniel Vidal 19:46

yeah.

Koen Van Seijen 19:46

About the do you feel that this is running now, the restaurant? Is it starting to become a machine is not the right word, but let's say more smooth because the first months I think were hell. Yeah, the first year is not to be recommended. In general, opening a restaurant is interesting, let's say, not for the faint of hearted. And now it's run starting to run smoothly, more smooth, not smooth.

Daniel Vidal 20:06

Yeah, and so you start to think about different products, different things, different yeah, but I I feel like now it's more because in the past uh we see all that things like a problem. We don't know why we made it this way. We're gonna uh know uh about how we permit this, or now it's like a common. Start to thinking in how we can gonna make the program for the stage. We don't want the same our experience. We Carla miss anything, we don't want the same. We need to make a program, but how we're gonna do and but now we are we understand how we we do, and it's more easy. Everything I think is more easy in that way. That problem is no more a problem, but we find more problems, and we don't finish never.

Koji Beef And Mole From Waste

Koen Van Seijen 20:56

And what's the most exciting now in the kitchen? Like a dish or a ferment or something, or some kind of preparation where you're maybe it's not on the menu already, or you're playing with it. Like, what's the what are you working on?

Daniel Vidal 21:09

The last dish that we create was a beef in New York. Uh, because at the beginning of Aldeo we don't have beef, and we find a really good uh farm ranch, ranch.

Koen Van Seijen 21:24

I think here in North America we need to say wrench or farm. I don't really understand life, so anyway, a farm. A farm with beef, with with life, with cows.

Daniel Vidal 21:32

And we start with day, and the hard part is uh we are always we in Mexico we export import beef from the US, and it's our type of of texture or flavor.

Koen Van Seijen 21:49

You're used to a certain kind of corn fat beef, yeah.

Daniel Vidal 21:52

And when you have a beef like this, like a is a free grass, grass fat, yes, yeah, grass fat, uh sustained. So we find if you we curate the Namasake, the basake is a preparation with Koi, you change the texture of the Because you want to make it accessible.

Koen Van Seijen 22:14

You might give it a texture that's similar to what people are used to, otherwise you're gonna get weird faces. Yeah. How long did it take you to one one night?

Daniel Vidal 22:22

Development list. I have the idea, like in four months ago. Okay, oh wow. And now it's not the main.

Koen Van Seijen 22:33

Are you happy about it?

Daniel Vidal 22:34

Yeah, it really happened. And we serve it with different uh with a mole that is uh really special because it's a mole that with more with more ingredients that we create in Baldillo. 60, 60, 60, 60, 60 in one. Wow. And it's really complex, made with a lot of the waste, with a lot of things that we don't use more in Baldillo. And insects, we have the worms, uh grasshoppers, and the eggs of the ants. Exactly. The scamoles.

Koen Van Seijen 23:07

So you have uh a few different kinds of protein, let's say. And how has been uh how's been the response?

Daniel Vidal 23:13

Really good, really good, yeah, really good. Um the farmer that dogs to eat to ah, that's interesting, and uh yeah, he loves he or she, he probably never had beef like that, his beef like that. Yeah, so how was that? Uh were you nervous? No, she is really friendly, yeah. But he has an impact for the ambassador because he never listened about that, always at our restaurant say the same. Uh we can cook this because it's too and he feels out hey now I have an answer. So if we can probably not easy, no? No, no, other results are not gonna do, but this is a start, no? Yeah to do something. Uh in general, I think all the ferments are really important to use in the kitchen. Um, I love the to create moles. I love it, it's my favorite dish, my favorite uh food. And I start to make mole when I was a child with my grandma, those is really important for me. And here Balio for is what for me is like an old tool to don't use waste, to use waste because it's a sauce. At the end, it's a sauce. And I and the and usually I might think on that to the for example, the tomatoes. Usually my grandmother takes out the parts that the white. Exactly. And now here, why we can take out, just click wood and put in the sauce, no? Or the onion, we can eat the food, the onion, yeah, no problem. And then we start, for example, the molar for the beef is really interesting because we use the waste of the English sauce, and we use the waist of the banana tart with the banana tart, the part that we can use, like the uh peel. The borders. No, the borders. Oh wow. No, for the tart, we use the peel. The peel, and then the borders of the tool. We cook in a square, yeah, but we need to cut and then we have a waist. So we Chris have taken this, I made a miso with this, and I used to multify the mole. So it is really interesting.

Koen Van Seijen 25:33

Okay, that's a total circle.

Why Familiarity Brings People Back

Koen Van Seijen 25:35

I I know you have to go back to the kitchen. So thank you so much for this brief intro and sharing a bit more about the kitchen and the aggressive circles. Thank you so much.

Daniel Vidal 25:44

No, thank you for your time soon.

Koen Van Seijen 25:50

And then the last stop in our third-part train ride, the kitchen. So, of course, there's gonna be some noise. Thank you for listening all the way to the end. We only had 30 minutes, which I think even became 28 or 29. But I really wanted to sit down with Danny uh to talk about familiarity. Like, how do you make this kind of food accessible? Not only accessible money-wise, obviously, but also accessible from a cultural perspective. Like you're adding fermentation, which is not a it's a traditional way of preparing a lot of things, but not these kind of flavors. And the koji is not a normal flavor Mexican cuisine or la tam. And so, how do you do that? How do you not scare people away with and eggs and things like that? So I think the combo of a tasting menu and a la carte is super powerful, and yeah, it's a dance, it's a dance to be zero waste, super tasty and accessible and familiar. And I think they do that really well. I'm super biased because I had the chance to eat there, and it was amazing. So if you got the chance, please go and enjoy and explore and let us know. Please get in touch, let us know what you think of this sort of three-way format, a bit more freestyling with on location, with some noise left and right. Um, but it seems to be working, and uh, I think I'm very curious if this inspires you in other places. Like there is such a big role for hospitality and culinary hospitality to play in translating what happens on the farm and making it accessible, both the nutrients accessible, maybe through fermentation, but also through menus, through costs and prices, through language to make way more people explore and realize the power of food in their culture, obviously, but also the power of quality of food and the power of quality of farming can get farmers the attention and fame and hopefully have some more money that they absolutely deserve.

Feedback Requests And Final Thanks

Koen Van Seijen 27:37

So if you have any feedback, let us know. For now, thank you for listening. If you haven't listened to the other two, please do. Pablo walking the land on the Ginampas. And of course, Chris in the I called it I think Fermentation Temple in the prep kitchen of Baldillo, where a lot of the pre-work is done and also a lot of the food is prepared for a lot of families in Mexico City and a lot of other chefs. So if you have any feedback, if you if this is the last stop of your three-part train ride, thank you for being here all the way. And if this is the first one, which is absolutely fine, go and listen to the others and let us know what you think. Thank you. Thank you for listening all the way to the end. For show notes and links discussed, check out our website, investinginregenerativeagriculture.com slash posts. If you like this episode, why not share it with a friend? And get in touch with us on social media, our website, or via the Spotify app. And tell us what you like most. And give us a rating on Apple Podcasts or Spotify or your podcast player. That really, really helps us. Thanks again and see you next time.