Mateo's Cocina Latina
Mateo Granados
Mateo’s Cocina Latina
There’s Mexican food, and then there’s Yucatecan food. Mateo Granados’ mission is to educate food lovers on the difference between the two.
The chef and owner of Mateo’s Cocina Latina in downtown Healdsburg hails from the Yucatán, specializes in cooking food from his home region, and is adamant that American diners understand and appreciate the breadth and depth of cuisine from his home region.
To hear him tell it, Yucatecan food comprises influences from Lebanese, French, Spanish, Jewish, and Mayan cuisine. In other words, it’s unlike anything you’ll find in a traditional Mexican taco joint.
“The idea of ‘Mexican’ can mean so many different things,” he says. “It’s time people knew what.”
Mateo certainly has the chops to help people learn this lesson. He grew up in the Yucatecan town of Oxkutzcab. After attending college, he went to work teaching physical education at two different schools. By the time he was 23, he needed a change. So he came to San Francisco.
Even though Mateo didn’t speak English at the time, he got connected with the right people quickly and moved up the ranks. Perhaps his biggest advocate: Chef Julián Serrano, who hired him at (the now-closed) Masa’s and sent him to Barcelona to train with Chef Ferran Adrià.
Over the next few years Mateo bounced around San Francisco and Wine Country, trying his hand at winemaking with Williams Selyem and working as executive chef at Charlie Palmer’s Dry Creek Kitchen. Finally, around 2007, he went out on his own, making Yucatecan tamales and selling them at farmer’s markets around the county. Four years later, in 2011, he opened Mateo’s Cocina Latina and never looked back.
Today Mateo prides himself on delivering an authentic Yucatecan experience at every meal. His tacones, tiny tortilla cones with scoops of avocado or beef inside, are just like the ones you’ll find on the street in the Yucatan. His tortillas are made with GMO-free organic corn masa, which gives them a grainy texture.
Mateo also makes and sells his own hot sauce, using recipes from his late mother. This, too, is Yucatecan.
“Everything I do is about keeping this culture alive,” he says. “I’m glad I get to do it in Healdsburg.”