June 7, 2016 – An exciting new Carmel restaurant project just got even more exciting with the addition of a new partner, chef John Cox.
Cox and Sarah Kabat-Marcy, the original mastermind behind Cultura – bebida y comida, are expected to open the new Latin-influenced restaurant and mezcal bar in on Dolores between 5th and 6th Ave. in late July or early August. The pair is also planning a new farm in San Juan Bautista that will eventually provide the restaurant with heirloom Mexican and other produce, and agave varieties that they select for use in their ambitious and eclectic food and drink menus.
“I am beyond elated and thrilled,” says Kabat-Marcy, who brought Cox on to consult and collaborate with her and Cultura executive chef Michelle Estigoy. “I’ve respected chef Cox for so many years, his talent and his management style,” Kabat-Marcy added, noting that they both want they want to create a culture in their new venture that will cultivate, educate and inspire creative young talent and the community at large.
Until earlier this year, the two worked together at Post Ranch Inn’s Sierra Mar restaurant, where Kabat-Marcy was most recently a sommelier and the cellar manager, second in command to wine director Dominique DaCruz, and Cox was the acclaimed executive chef who created Sierra Mar’s iconic Taste of Big Sur tasting menu, overhauled the restaurant’s lunch menu, and oversaw the expansion of its gardens and foraging programs. (See Deborah Luhrman’s profile of Cox from EMB’s Spring 2016 issue here.)
Also at Sierra Mar, Kabat-Marcy and Cox worked together with Cultura chef Estigoy, who as executive sous chef at Sierra Mar was instrumental in helping develop new dishes for the restaurant’s menus. Cox in fact has worked with Estigoy since his days at Casanova and La Bicyclette, prior to taking over the kitchen at Sierra Mar. Cox hired the Central Valley native out of a culinary program at the Institute of Technology in Clovis. Initially, she worked as a stocker, but was elevated to a cook before she followed him to Sierra Mar, where Cox eventually named her executive sous chef.
“The thing I love about Michelle is she has such a good energy, she’s so positive and it comes out in her food,” says Cox, adding that’s she’s extremely hard-working and “has a unique ability to be respected by everyone in the kitchen…I’ve never met another employee who doesn’t respect her or get along with her.”
With this being her first opportunity to serve as an executive chef, Estigoy is also excited to be able to continue to collaborate with Cox.
“He’s a great person to work with,” Estigoy says. “He’s very encouraging to work with, very supportive and creative and happy to hear what your thoughts are.”
Kabat-Marcy, Cox and Estigoy became friends and among other culinary adventures together, traveled in January with a group of chefs and wine industry professionals to Cuba (see Cox’s story here). Cox also has traveled to Oaxaca with both women, most recently with Kabat-Marcy in May, to research the small-batch, single wild origin mezcal producers that Kabat-Marcy plans to be the centerpiece of the restaurant’s cocktail program.
Kabat-Marcy’s and Cox’s decision to become partners in Cultura, says Kabat-Marcy, came about organically as they discovered their shared passions for the kind of Latin-influenced food and creative and supportive business culture that they wanted to create.
The Cultura menu is still in development, but the collaborators’ overall aim is to create fresh interpretations of Mexican and other Latin cuisines. In this, Estigoy is excited to draw on the recipes of her Mexican grandmother and Cox, the chilies and other staples of Latin food that he grew up with in New Mexico.
Among the dishes that they are especially taken with is Estigoy’s Oaxacan-influenced smoked, braised local pork shoulder served with fresh-pressed squash blossom-safflower tortillas and sour oranges.
“While we can’t say it is a traditional Oaxacan recipe, it is certainly heavily influenced by the Oaxacan culture, and the flavor combination, alongside our own local ingredients, was phenomenal.”
Kabat-Marcy is also extremely excited about the single wild origin mezcal distillations. While mezcal bars have become trendy in some large American cities, Cultura will take agave a step further, eventually serving fresh pulque, a lightly fermented agave drink somewhat similar in taste to kombucha, Kabat-Marcy says. Highly perishable, she plans to introduce it by making it from agaves grown on the restaurant’s own farm in San Juan Bautista. Cultura’s wine list, at least initially, will be “tiny,” she says, but she expects it to be an attraction for local wine professionals, as it will include natural wines selected from near and far that are not often seen on local wine menus.
The farm, which will be tended by a local farmer with a Oaxcan background, will be organic, and the ingredients in both the cocktails and food will be organic and local when possible.
In fact, the intent is not only to support and nurture the employees of Cultura, but to do the same for other creative and talented local businesspeople and artists, says Kabat-Marcy, a lifelong Monterey Peninsula resident who was deeply influenced by the several years she worked for community-minded Passionfish restaurant owners Ted and Cindy Walter.
Kabat-Marcy is especially pleased to be bringing attention to Beau Bernier Frank, who has designed the restaurant’s logo and is painting for the restaurant’s interior a series of portraits of agaves personifying the plants’ characteristics.
“Our hope is that the restaurant provides an opportunity for a new generation of chefs, artists, farmers, mixologists and other artisans to highlight their own skills and innovations,” Cox says.
About the author
SARAH WOOD—founding editor and publisher of Edible Monterey Bay—has had a life-long passion for food, cooking, people and our planet.
She planted her first organic garden and cared for her first chicken when she was in elementary school in a farming region of Upstate New York.
Wood spent the early part of her career based in Ottawa, Canada, working in international development and international education. After considering culinary school, she opted to pursue her loves for writing, learning about the world and helping make it a better place by obtaining a fellowship and an MA in Journalism from New York University.
While working for a daily newspaper in New Jersey, she wrote stories that helped farmers fend off development and won a state-wide public service award from the New Jersey Press Association for an investigative series of articles about a slumlord who had hoodwinked ratings agencies and investment banks into propping him up with some early commercial mortgage securitizations. The series led Wood to spend several years in financial journalism, most recently, as editor-in-chief of the leading magazine covering the U.S. hedge-fund industry.
Wood now lives with her family in Washington, DC, where she is a freelance writer and manages communications for Samaritan Ministry, an antipoverty and antiracist nonprofit that provides struggling Greater Washington residents with highly personalized and compassionate life counseling and coaching.
