Bakers, specialists and consumers defend their traditions and recipes, after a British chef made remarks about the lack of a bread-making culture in the country

“I thought, ‘Wow, a Brit: let’s see what this guy is doing in Mexico.’ I tried one of his breads, a garibaldi. I won’t deny it; it was delicious.” However, the Green Rhino bakery, which went viral on social media after an extensive advertising campaign, is now at the center of controversy, due to its owner’s less-than-kind opinion of the bread production in the country he has ventured into. Even though Mexico has a heart made of corn and is dedicated to its tortillas, the nation is also capable of eating sweet bread for breakfast, lunch and dinner. “He didn’t think about what he said… and, unfortunately, Mexicans are very sensitive when people talk about our country,” Maldonado laments.

Hart’s prestige in the culinary world couldn’t save him from the flames of Mexican resentment. The iconic pastry chef — owner of the legendary Hart Bageri bakery in Copenhagen, which he founded with René Redzepi of Noma — forged a career that led him to open several locations in Denmark. He even made an appearance on The Bear, the popular Disney+ series. He opened his first establishment outside of Europe this past summer, choosing Mexico City to bring Green Rhino to life. It’s a gourmet bakery in the heart of Roma, one of the city’s most gentrified neighborhoods, which has a large foreign population.

A year earlier, in a podcast where he announced that he was going to open “the best bakery in the world,” he casually remarked that Mexicans “don’t really have much of a bread culture.”

“They make tortas (sandwiches) on these white ugly rolls that are pretty cheap and industrially made,” he continued, speaking into the microphone. During the interview, he also criticized Mexican flour for being of poor quality. These words were picked up by the online community… and, while the chef has apologized, the wound he inflicted was already raw in a country that makes no distinction between sweet and savory bread. In Mexico, everything falls under the category of bread, from a baguette to a chocolate croissant. Hart’s words were an insult to the hundreds of sweet Mexican varieties that have been sold in bakeries for generations.

Tonatiuh Cortés, the Mexican chef who won the World’s Best Panettone Baker award in 2024, is a great admirer of Hart’s work. However, he completely disagrees with the British celebrity’s statements. “Mexico’s bread-making tradition is very different from Europe’s… but being different doesn’t make it worse,” he emphasizes, during a phone call from Barcelona, where he’s the head baker at Sucal.

Every time he visits his homeland, the first thing he does after getting off the plane is find a taco stand and buy sweet bread from a local shop. And, when it’s time to return to Spain, he stocks up, taking as much as possible back with him. “I bring [many different breads] back to Spain: conchas, bizcocho, piedras, cuernitos…” he lists, revealing a nostalgia for his country’s cuisine. “In Mexico, we eat a lot of sweet bread, what we call ‘pastries’ in Spain. There’s a cultural difference, because Mexicans can eat sweet bread at any time of day. This is unlike the French, who only eat it in the morning. They have savory foods for the rest of the day,” he explains.

With the conquest of the Aztec Empire, the Spanish brought a religion and a language, but also new crops such as wheat, a food that has become a staple in the Mexican diet. Bread culture has evolved independently of Europe… something that’s quite evident when you notice the variations from region to region.

Cristina Barros, a researcher of Mexican gastronomy, points out that you need an open mind and a discerning palate to appreciate the richness of Mexican breadmaking traditions. You cannot, she warns, “be stuck with just one way of making bread… the one that has been imposed from abroad in recent years.” Barros has extended an invitation to Hart to explore the vast universe of breads in Mexico. There are Sonoran coyotas, filled with brown sugar, while the breads of Bustamante — found in the state of Nuevo León — are made with piloncillo (unrefined sugarcane) and walnuts. The bread from Tinguindín, in Michoacán, has beautiful decorations and robust flavor. And, in Chilapa, a town in the state of Guerrero, fresh buns are sold on market day. “I can’t imagine a good chef who’s closed off to new flavors, aromas, textures and tastes,” the expert concludes.

The enormous variety of bread in the country is explained by the fact that a single dough recipe can be used to create different types of bread. For instance, at La Ideal — a traditional bakery that has been supplying both individual customers and wholesalers since 1927 — they have 30 dough recipes, but more than 300 varieties of bread. In the labyrinth of shelves, filled with trays of breads of every conceivable shape, bakery manager José Piña Hernández oversees the kneading and fermentation. “We Mexicans aren’t pioneers; we’re following Europe’s lead. [But] it’s not true that we don’t have a bread culture,” he states emphatically. This shop can produce up to 80,000 loaves a day, with 70% of them being resold from carts on the street or at subway exits.

Paired with coffee, they serve as a breakfast that costs 30 pesos (about $1.50), which is affordable for the millions of workers who travel through the Mexican capital during endless workdays. And the bolillo — the bread that Hart criticized — is one of their best-selling products. “Consumers here are used to the bolillo, with its light crumb and thin crust that melts in water,” he asserts. The price of each loaf is just three pesos (17 cents). In some supermarkets, it can be purchased for even less.

Irving Quiróz studied to be a baker in France. He’s the author of several books on bread culture in Mexico. In an interview with EL PAÍS, he explains the impact of economics on how bread is consumed in the country. “The bolillo is a democratic bread; it’s as refined or as [low-quality] as we want it to be. If I fill it with brie cheese, Serrano ham, arugula and olive oil, [a sandwich that uses this bread] can cost 200 pesos. But you can also toast it with sugar at home, to make a very simple treat,” he points out. This bread, typical of Mexico City, is the staple of the working-class diet. Commuters buy it from carts or bodegas for 40 pesos ($2.00) to sustain themselves for five daily hours spent on public transportation, in addition to their more than eight hours at work. Its use explains its rapid, mass production; it’s a bread that can’t wait for the slow sourdough processes used by European bakers.

“It’s true that, in Mexico, we need to have more respect for artisanal bread, the kind that [requires longer] fermentation times, the [more careful] use of ingredients and [precise] temperatures. Here, it’s mass-produced, with lots of yeast to speed things up, which lowers the quality. But that doesn’t mean Mexican bread is bad,” Quiróz clarifies. He confesses that he has given his books to Hart.

Nevertheless, the Mexican market is taking note: artisanal bakeries that sell sourdough products with natural ingredients are becoming increasingly common. “What Richard says about there being no flour here without [additives] is changing. Small bakeries are using [higher-quality, natural flour], just like in Europe,” Cortés affirms. Quiróz agrees, emphasizing that there’s a growing variety of flour on the market. However, he cautions that natural flour doesn’t necessarily translate into better bread.

For his part, Hernández, from La Ideal, explains that a croissant — no matter how much you replace margarine with butter and powdered milk with whole milk, or use natural ingredients — “will still be the same thing.” Meanwhile, Araceli Maldonado uses the success of her London bakery, Sweet Nibble, to prove Hart wrong. “He criticized the telera and the bolillo, but we’re introducing them to the UK, because they’re selling really well in restaurants and fast food outlets, along with the Mexican torta. The British people have received them very well,” she proudly declares.

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