Editor’s Note: el Restaurante Publisher Ed Avis and his son Benjamin traveled to Germany this fall. They enjoyed a margarita at Santa Maria Mexican Restaurant in Berlin, and later interviewed the owner, Julian Boyce, who is from Australia:
When did you open the restaurant, and what prompted you to do so?
I was offered the space after running two other Mexican restaurants, Maria Bonita and Maria Peligro. The location is good and the space was great and the other restaurants were quite popular. The restaurant required a lot of work, however, and I parted ways with the other restaurants. Maria Bonita is still running and Peligro has since then closed down. We initially saw a lot more potential in the location of Santa Maria and after a few years, it paid off.
What was your background before opening the restaurant?
I left Australia shortly after completing a Bachelor of Media; work-wise I have a background in hospitality, from working in McDonalds as a fifteen year old to picking up glasses in my first bar job as an eighteen year old. From that point I worked my way up in the bar, eventually becoming a cocktail bartender. Shortly after arriving in Berlin, I started work in a restaurant as a plate runner and worked my way up through the ranks as a cook.
Before Santa Maria, as previously mentioned, I ran Maria Bonita and Maria Peligro. Due to complications with a business partner, who was head chef and subsequently left, I became head chef of two restaurants at the same time, and within months was running three at once - Santa Maria as head chef and restaurant manager. I had to learn on my feet and gained a great deal of knowledge in a very short amount of time. I have no formal training in this regard, and luckily am a fast learner, and despite a tumultuous year or so, got through it and have become vastly more experienced as a consequence.
I ended up in Berlin simply because I had such a good time travelling here on my first long European trip. I had always planned on moving to Europe, and there was something about Berlin in 2006 which captured the heart and mind. Perhaps it is losing some of the mystique, having become one of the biggest tourist destinations in Europe, but it was perfect in providing an opportunity without requiring too much capital. This has certainly changed since then, so I guess I got in at the right time.
Why Mexican?
Since visiting Mexico in 2003, I was hugely surprised at the food compared to what I knew in Australia. For us, Mexican back then was hard taco shells and burritos, and I couldn't believe
how much it differed from my expectations. I was introduced to a new range of flavours, a new way of eating, a new cuisine. From that point on, I became something of a snob when it came to Mexican food, and basically refused to dine at any Mexican restaurant that didn't seem authentic. I missed the food so much and longed for a way to eat it again. When a Texan colleague in a kitchen in Berlin suggested opening an authentic Mexican eatery in Berlin, with handmade tortillas and salsas, I couldn't say no.
How did you develop the menu? What inspired the cuisine?
Most of the original menu was devised by my old business partners, a Texan and a Mexican.
Basically we all just chipped in with ideas of our favourite foods from Mexico. Since then, the menus have evolved by themselves, we have created entirely new dishes and new techniques for cooking classic Mexican dishes. I spend a lot of time researching methods used in the traditional Mexican kitchen, and adapt them to a modern professional kitchen. I regularly take on input from my chefs to come up with new dishes, which we also base on the quality of the product we can get our hands on. We take inspiration from outside of the Mexican kitchen, as I believe restricting oneself to the “typical” dishes there is the risk of stagnating. Besides, Mexican cuisine is massively diverse and they will put almost anything in a taco. Every city or town has different foods so as long as the flavour profile remains true, there is no reason why one can’t experiment with different ingredients.
I noticed that the food is not the typical burrito/taco type of cuisine. Has it proven worthwhile to serve better quality cuisine?
We are aiming to break free of the shackles of “typical” burrito/taco cuisine. I would love to not even serve burritos (it’s very hard to find a burrito outside of northern Mexico), but people do have expectations and sometimes you have to compromise a little. Before we opened Maria Bonita, Mexican cuisine in Berlin was limited to chilli con carne, or tacos with cheap meat and
corn kernels covered in sour cream, and of course, nachos. It still takes some explaining to customers that nachos aren’t Mexican, and what they generally expect from a Mexican restaurant isn’t real Mexican cuisine.
I think it has certainly proven worthwhile to serve better quality cuisine. We certainly have our critics, especially since we took on a larger space, but we created a lot of noise in the beginning when we opened Maria Bonita, especially amongst the American community who were extremely excited at the prospect of real Mexican food in Berlin. The excitement was far-reaching, the New York Times even wrote an article on Mexican food in Berlin, with the focus being on our three restaurants.
The aim now is to try and take it to another level. Whilst there is only a certain degree we can push that to in Santa Maria, I feel that the people are becoming more educated on food in general, and we need to continue to innovate to remain one of the better Mexican restaurants in Berlin.
What are the most popular items on the menu? Are customers generally familiar with Mexican cuisine, or do the servers need to explain a lot?
The most popular item is the Puerco Epecial burrito, which is something I came up with. It is not a typical burrito in that there are no beans, instead it is stuffed with guacamole, salsa roja,
chipotle cream and crispy pork belly carnitas. Needless to say, it’s pretty delicious. We have gone from selling mostly burritos and quesadillas to probably selling more of our more classic Mexican options such as tacos.
The German public are becoming slowly more familiar with the cuisine, and have come a long way since 2010. Initially we had to spend a great deal describing the difference between burritos, quesadillas and tacos, to the point that we had a blackboard with drawings of said items; this is not quite as painful as it used to be. When we tried to have tortas, which are Mexican sandwiches, we had a very tough time as most people ordered a torta and expected a burrito.
What is the future for Mexican cuisine in Germany?
With more and more authentic Mexican restaurants opening up in Berlin, I think it won’t be long before we start seeing some more innovative Mexican restaurants. At this point, I think a lot of places are scared of doing anything different but I think in the evolving food landscape it will become necessary sooner rather than later. Other Mexican restaurants throughout Europe are pushing the boundaries and Germany will become left behind if no one starts to try and push forward. Generally places that have tried have failed, but this is more due to not getting the basics right in the first place. At Santa Maria we are in a position to try and evolve into something more special and are working towards that. I don’t think it will be too long before we start seeing some really high end Mexican food – it is already happening in parts of Europe as well as the United States and Mexico. I would love to eventually have a project going towards fine dining, but there is a bit more work to do first.