Chef Santiago Gomez
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By Natalia Otero
Palo Santo, the new Mexican restaurant in Atlanta, is not limited to traditional gastronomy. The menu offers flavors from Asia, South America, Europe, and all parts of the world, fused with modern and ancient techniques. In addition, almost everything is cooked on charcoal and firewood.
Santiago Gómez, the chef of Palo Santo, is a genius of culinary creativity. He draws inspiration from other restaurants, from the journeys he has taken in his life, from books like The Bible of Flavors, and from the ingredients that grow in the Georgia region.
Gómez began his career studying gastronomy in Mexico. He then studied at the Hoffman School in Barcelona. He returned to America and worked at the Nobu Japanese restaurant in Miami and then at the same restaurant, but in Mexico. After setting up two taco shops over eight years in Miami, he moved to Atlanta to start the Palo Santo project, along with his two partners.
Palo Santo’s menu includes dishes with Japanese flavors, but also dishes such as calasparra, which is Spanish, with local mushrooms and mayonnaise with morita chili from Mexico. And you can find a carnaroli risotto that calls for Mexican poblano peppers, but uses Italian rice.
“I say that my kitchen is inspired by Mexican products and any other product in the world. Of the Mexican products, the majority come from small producing families in Mexico: the beans, cocoa, corn, chili peppers, chocolate, come from Oaxaca, Michoacán, the State of Mexico, and Chiapas,” Gómez says.
Apart from Mexican products and Asian and European ingredients, Gómez buys peaches from Georgia, plus onions, eggplants, and other local products. They get bread at Star Provisions, five minutes from the restaurant. And mushrooms from Southern Cap Mushrooms, an urban farm in Atlanta.
According to the chef, that is the evolution of cooking: merging cuisines from around the world.
Modern, Fun, Varied
Since they opened in October 2022, the restaurant has attracted attention in Atlanta, as there are not many places where combinations of natural ingredients are fused with modern techniques and gastronomic traditions from all over the world.
Although Palo Santo opened six months ago, it has never had a fixed menu. They don't necessarily change the entire menu, but they do keep the creativity going, so the whole experience feels seamless and fun.
The menu offers combinations from all over the world: Italian, Spanish, French, Japanese, Korean, Chinese, Colombian, all with a Mexican touch.
“This has been done in other states, but here in Atlanta, there was still room to innovate with that traditional Mexican cuisine, combined with modern techniques and flavors from all over the world,” says Gómez.
Breaking Traditions
The variety at Palo Santo goes beyond the ingredients – techniques, from making sauces by hand with the molcajete to creating foams with a siphon – also help make the cuisine more elaborate, fun and tasty.
“The other day I prepared duck and I had leftovers. I had a kimchi that I had made a couple of days ago. So, I made a tlacoyo with corn dough stuffed with duck. People loved that dish, which came out of a unique circumstance, and I created a Korean-Mexican dish,” Gómez says.
One of the most popular Palo Santo dishes is cauliflower cooked over a wood fire all morning, with a jalapeño sauce and goat cheese and miso caramel. It is in combinations like these that you can see the play of flavors and the reason why Palo Santo has been so popular.
Another of the star dishes are Spanish papas bravas, with chile de árbol mayonnaise and Oaxaca cheese with truffle.
“The French truffle, the Mexican cheese, the foam that is a modern technique, the Mexican chile de árbol and the Spanish potatoes. It is this mix of cuisines, techniques and flavors that characterizes us,” Gómez says.
Natalia Otero is a freelance writer based in Bogota, Colombia.