Marea

Cocinamadre

Dawn breaking over the hills of Oaxaca; the sun’s warmth flooding the valley below.

Darkly aromatic smoke billows from a rack of prized chilhuacle chiles slowly roasting over hot coals, but Jorge “Moles” Léon doesn’t cough; he was practically raised on these pungent fumes. Léon earned the nickname “Moles” when Enrique Olvera (chef and owner of perennial “World’s Top 50” restaurant, Pujol, in Mexico City) decided his cooking needed to return to the roots of Mexican cuisine. Olvera turned to Oaxaca, to the incredibly labor-intensive dish, mole, to thousands of years of culinary knowledge humbly held in the hands of Jorge, master of moles, and our host for a remarkable tour of the Oaxacan region.

“Moles” was the one who picked us up from the Oaxaca bus station and, wasting no time, drove us out to his family’s home. Entering through a metal gate, we meandered down a grassy path and saw, in the distance, a man in a Pemex uniform flipping thin slices of meat on a hissing, spitting grill. We soon learned that the cook was none other than “Papa Moles.”

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Oaxaca, free and sovereign state of seven* moles (*the true number is well into the hundreds), has a cuisine whose backstory could make even Paris or Emilia-Romagna blush. Although lacking in an ur-text with the stature of an Escoffier or Artusi,

there is an incredibly rich oral history of recipes in the Oaxacan region that stretches back millennia, often passed down from mothers and grandmothers to daughters and granddaughters.

This matrilineal gastronomical tradition has given us hot chocolate, mole tamales, and many other delicacies still waiting to be “discovered” by most outside of Mexico, or perhaps even outside of Oaxaca.

Reina’s kitchen on the outskirts of town

We spent a few weeks traveling, learning, and eating through this bounteous Mexican state, starting in the capital city of Oaxaca de Juárez and then meandering outwards to less-visited villages nestled away in the rugged hills of the Central Valleys region.

More than a dozen indigenous peoples and cultures call this isolated land home, their minds and hands safeguarding culinary and craft traditions that cannot be replicated anywhere else in the world. This deep-rooted cultural heritage is at risk, however, threatened not as much by drug wars, climate change, or the pandemic as it is by supermarkets, smartphones, and the seductive shortcuts of modernity.

Night bloom

and chiles rellenos (poblano peppers stuffed with meat and cheese)

Barn. Blood. Brick. Cinnabar. And—por supuesto—chile. An array of reds shading ominously towards black at their darkest hue; an array of deliriously wrinkled peppers drying on rack after rack under the unerring Oaxacan sun. Chile peppers are practically their own food group throughout the entirety of Mexico, of course, but the chiles of Oaxaca are placed on an even higher pedestal. Pasilla chiles grow throughout the country but the Oaxacan pasilla, the pasilla Mixe, is particularly prized. Six to eight inches in length and difficult to obtain outside of the Central Valleys region,

the pasilla Mixe encompasses a complex, earthy and downright intoxicating range of flavors that can call to mind a good bottle of Left Bank Bordeaux.

Chiles, in fact, are more like wine than you might expect: their terroir is inextricably linked to their flavor.

A farmer and his cows

Chiles roasting on racks

The furrows of an old woman’s face and hands, turned nearly to leather by that same sun, creased with years of accumulated wisdom; hands that can turn a shapeless orb of nixtamalized corn into something approaching a religion.

Nixtamalization, an exotic term with more than a whiff of modernity, is actually a method for treating corn that has changed very little from when the Mayans invented it over three thousand years ago. Untreated, corn turns into an unappealing mush when ground and mixed with water but, through an almost magical chemical process, the addition of calcinated limestone or seashells allows corn to be transformed into tortillas, tamales, or empanadas. This is alchemy of the most delicious variety.

5am. Elvia Léon Hernandez in her home kitchen, preparing the first tortillas of the day.

In a land shaped by the seemingly conflicting forces of rich biodiversity yet widespread poverty, Oaxacans learned over time to utilize insects, tree bark, and obscure wild greens like chepíl, guias and huauzontles (herbs, vines, and “weeds”) in everyday cooking: all elements that you’d be unlikely to find on the dinner table somewhere richer in capital or poorer in natural reserves. A historical lack of large domesticated livestock in the region gave rise to an understanding of wild turkeys, iguanas, grasshoppers, and—in coastal regions—dried shrimp as key sources of protein.

This culinary ingenuity remains readily apparent today and forms a steady undercurrent in what has justifiably emerged as one of the world’s greatest regional cuisines.

Andrea Contreras, local healer

A people whose remarkable resourcefulness has been enforced by their natural environment; a place that’s home to a surprising spectrum of edible ingredients, none of them overlooked; a history that honors traditions and techniques dating back to the Mayans: this is Oaxaca.

A spiderweb of valleys slicing through three intersecting mountain ranges;

fog-choked villages tucked away in the folds of the hills, hidden from all but the most curious gaze; clouds of steam rising from clay ovens like some shaman’s rite; wood fires tended by women whose wizened membranes could tell a thousand tales.

A land of stories, of history emanating through the crevasses of ancient stone foundations, of scents, wafting odors of foods you can’t find anywhere else or, even if you do, they’ll never taste quite the same.

Zimatlán de Álvarez 16°51’58”N 96°47’06”O

Over dinner, I ask Jorge about his favorite restaurants and market stands in Oaxaca. He struggles to answer for a moment, then explains:

“For a Oaxacan, his favorite food is his mother’s. It's what you grow up with, what you are used to. Little hot tortillas when you wake up, quesadillas with yellow [mole], her moles.”

It’s a familiar trope: the home cooking of a mother or grandmother as superior to the finest restaurant but, the following morning at 5am, Papa Leon takes nixtamalized corn to the local mill and, when we finally wake (at dawn), we’re greeted by small, piping hot tortillas fresh off the comal. How is it possible to eat the best tortilla of your life immediately after you’ve just eaten the best tortilla of your life? When you hold that warm, toasted round of cornmeal—somehow soft and crisp at the same time—over your nose and mouth, inhaling and practically suffocating in its earthy sublimity, there are no other tortillas. There is only this tortilla, right now, the most delicious tortilla you have ever tasted. It was at that moment that I realized Jorge’s mother's cooking was also my favorite food.

Corn: the cornerstone of Mexican cuisine.

Cocinamadre

Conception by Micah Fredman
Creative Direction by Daniel Lober
Produced by Marea
Shot and Directed by Filipe Zapelini
Video editing by Filipe Zapelini
Photography by Daniel Lober
Words by Alex Masulis and Micah Fredman
Art Direction and Graphic Design by Paul Gacon

All photography and video content by marea unless otherwise noted.

No images, video or written content on this site may be reproduced without prior permission of the author. © marea world LLC 2023

NOEMA MYK - Beneath the surface

"Lurking below that surface — the one that glimmers, chops, sleeps, and swells across the planet — is a muffled commotion. Underwater forests and rolling meadows. Unknown depths and the darkest of dark."

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The Aegean is home to hundreds of islands and islets whose combined coastlines make up a remarkable ten-thousand-mile-long undulating filament, the idyllic jumping-off point for countless journeys, for reasons as simple as a meal and as meaningful as existence itself.

George and Theoharis Kousathanas are part of a line of fishermen who have scoured these waters for generations, attuned to the shifting tides, shifting emotions of the depths. Mykonos may be their hometown but, apart from time in their small seafood market in Chora, they spend the greater part of their lives on the sea.

Theoharis Kousathanas

Fishing hooks ready for use

For them, the Aegean is a recurring character in almost every story told: at times playing both hero and villain with equal skill, wise sage and court jester. In the end, though, the sea might more accurately be described as the story itself: never far away, unfurling new chapters to be told and retold again.

Cycladic waters

A local church by the harbor

Following the rhythms of the moon, the sea decides whose feet stay dry and whose fishing nets stay full. Ultimately it's the lapping tongues of the tides who always bring them home, to a family kitchen redolent of garlic & herbs, children playing in the courtyard, and the crackling skin of fresh seafood blackening on the grill or in the heat of the oven.

"The sea is not our purview. Beyond the surface is beyond our control. We must wait for the invitation, listening to the wind, learning from afar. And when the time is right, we dip our nets and cast our lines, asking for its gifts."

NOEMA MYK - Beneath the surface

client Noema MYK

creative direction by Noema Inhouse
produced by Noema Inhouse
shot and directed by Filipe Zapelini (marea)
video editing by Filipe Zapelini (marea)

music Ulises
photography by Daniel Lober (marea)
voice by Alex Warner

words by Noema Inhouse & Alex Masulis (marea)

All photography and video content by marea unless otherwise noted.

No images, video or written content on this site may be reproduced without prior permission of the author. © marea world LLC 2023

Chef Mylo Levin

"For me, gastronomy and culinary excellence today, is to eat an authentic local product that is simply very well prepared."

Mylo Levin

Visual identity applied

Chef Mylo Levin

Creative Direction, Visual Identity, Photography and Web Design for Mylo Levin, the Executive Chef of La Villa Calvi, a 5-star Relais & Châteaux resort on the island of Corsica.

Rhubarb pie

Homepage desktop version and social media feed

Web homepage

"My only concern is serving an outstanding product, perfectly cooked, at the right temperature and correctly seasoned. I don't try to astonish, I try to delight while doing things that make sense. From a creative point of view, I'm inspired by what is beautiful and what is good but, in food at least, those often go hand in hand...simple, no?"

Mobile web version

Chef Mylo Levin

creative direction DANIEL LOBER

art direction and graphic design MAIWENN SAUGET

web design & coding CHARLY DEROUAULT

copywriting ALEX MASULIS

photography DANIEL LOBER

All photography and video content by marea world LLC unless otherwise noted. No images, video or written content on this site may be reproduced without prior permission of the author. © marea world LLC 2023

VENEZIA FC: TEMPO

Tempo, a Marea film (presented by Venezia FC and produced alongside Xiaomi Italia) is a trio of short films that unveil personal stories of life in Venice, Italy, with music representing a common thread as a rich, textured, yet rarely seen layer of modern Venetian culture is revealed behind the facade of tired tropes of a decaying picture-book tourist mecca. The films’ purpose is to challenge preconceived notions and make a contribution to the narrative of Venice as a living city without ignoring its challenging physical environment. The three stories embody the spirit of an often-unseen broader community in Venice, marked by collective thinking over the individual and a desire to preserve and pass on a unique way of life to future generations.

VENEZIA FC: TEMPO

Client VENEZIA FC

Directed by FILIPE ZAPELINI

Starring Marco "Furio" Forieri, Samall Ali, Opificio

Production & Studio MAREA

Creative Directors marea Camilla Glorioso & Daniel Lober

Creative Director Venezia FC TED PHILIPAKOS

Executive Producer Alex Masulis

Producer Deborah Salbego

Production Assistant Matilde Dellacasa

DOP Filipe Zapelini

1st AC Pedro Carvalho

2nd AC Daniel Graf Brohawn

Grip/Gaffer Cristiano Verardo

Sound Operator Giovanni Dinello

Editor Gabriel Honzik & Victor Cohen

Color Grading Felipe Tolotti

Original Music David Bessler

Sound Design & Mixing Vinicius Villani

Music Executive Producer Thereza Helena

Graphic Design Paul Gacon

All photography and video content by marea unless otherwise noted.

No images, video or written content on this site may be reproduced without prior permission of the author. © marea world LLC 2023

Taste and place: The Design Hotels Book

Taste and Place: The Design Hotels™ Book

Terroir

The Cambrian, Switzerland

Will gordon, Head Chef at Bryn Williams, The Cambrian

Alpine terrior

Mushroom season in the Swiss Alps typically kicks off in early September, and that's when the kitchen team at The Cambrian hotel's Bryn Williams restaurant, led by Chef Will gordon, embarks on biweekly fungi-foraging expeditions in the mountains to create a special dish for their menu that celebrates the local environs.

Following a 6:00 a.m. wake-up call, they head to a location kept secret from the public, hot coffee in hand, and spend the morning breathing in the fresh forest air and hunting for treasures including chanterelles, porcini and oletes. "Normally, we set out before the sun rises and arrive just as it does - a sight that is definitely worth getting up early for", explains Will.

Early morning foraging in the Alpine forest

First finds

After they return to the restaurant with a hopefully bountiful haul, they sit down to a staff lunch made with some of the wild mushrooms before prepping an elaborate umami-rich dish that is an autumnal favorite among guests.

It features the mushrooms prepared in a variety of ways, as a stock and ragu with a smoked-oak emulsion, soy sauce, ponzu, onion, and rice vinegar accents.

The foraged fungi are used to make an umami-rich dish. It features mountain mushrooms prepared in a veriety of ways, as a stock and ragu, with a smoked-oak emulsion and onion, topped with a transparent ponzu and dashi jelly

Will and his colleagues also bring back pinesprings from these mountain excursions, which they dry and use in a rub for fresh whole salmon that hails from the nearby Lake Blausee, or Lake Zurich, some two hours away by train. Fresh pine is incorporated into the dish as well, as in a coconut cream velouté with yuzu and sunchokes grown in the garden of a long-serving member of the kitchen crew who resides by another nearby lake, Thun.

The Oeschinen Lake, UNESCO World Heritage site and home to a large variety of fish, including Arctic chars lake trouts and rainbow trouts

Chef Will plating

Fine dining or not, foraging means being creative with what you find.

These autumnal wild blueberries made their way into the evening's Swiss cheesecake dessert alongside freeze-dried wild strawberries foraged earlier in the year

For the chefs at The Cambrian, creating a menu based around the fruits of the local landscape is key to continual learning about the bounty and balance of the region. It is also a way in which they can share this knowledge, developed out of a close relationship with the land, with their guests.

For desser at the Bryn Williams, a Swiss cheesecake, made with Swiss brie by local cheesemaker Ueli Moser, foraged wild berries, and wood sorrel

Adelboden's rich Alpine forest

Taste and place: The Design Hotels Book

client DESIGN HOTELS™

editorial concept by STUDIO LOVELL
produced by DESIGN HOTELS™
photography (chapter 1 "Terroir") by DANIEL LOBER (MAREA)
words by DESIGN HOTELS™

All photography and video content by marea unless otherwise noted.

Cordusio - L'aperitivo di Milano nel mondo

For a moment, the city becomes a blurry backdrop as people emerge from their working enclaves, briskly making their way to the nearest Metro stop, rushing to final meetings, or gathering at a favourite bar. Familiar sounds: secure steps on the stone pavement, the murmur of yet one last phone call. Sì sì, ciao, grazie, a domani, ciao. The day is done, the sun is setting. The light casts a golden glow that reflects on the shiny skyscrapers of Piazza gae Aulenti, coats the cobblestones of Brera, and tinges the snowy alpine ring in the distance.

Cordusio launch at Torre Prada, Milano

Milano bathes in a suspended atmosphere as it prepares for its most-awaited performance: the ritual of aperitivo. Then, as if by a snap of fingers, it comes into full focus with the noise of people scratching elbows at the bar, summoning drinks. There’s an eagerness to be a part, to seduce and be seduced. There is thirst: for communal cheering, for lingering a while, for letting one’s hair down.

Shift at The Maine Mayfair, London

The art of aperitivo

Twilight. Serving as a stage, the bar welcomes a blend of fashion enthusiasts, creative minds, and sophisticated fun-seekers. Chatter interweaves with the rhythm of clinking glasses, enveloping the space with electric energy. On the other side of the marbled counter, bartenders move with self-assured, swift gestures, stirring and shaking red-hued drinks, pouring them into iced glasses that people can’t wait to grasp.

It’s a dance, a sensorial spectacle.

Alluring, vibrant

Torigata, guest shift at the Experimental Cocktail Club, Venezia

In this setting, Cordusio finds itself at home. Not just as a uniquely vibrant, all-natural milanese spirit that bridges the gap between sharp and sweet, rough and gentle, serving as the perfect partner to a series of classic and creative cocktails. But more so as

a symbol of Italian culture that transcends the boundaries of mere libation, creating a narrative where flavour, design, and lifestyle are all part of the picture. The bottle, a beautiful homage to Neoclassical architecture and contemporary design, catches the eye as it towers behind the bar, casting crimson-coloured glares all around.

Create with Cordusio

People have been wondering: what is it? Can I taste it? “It’s Cordusio. It’s made with alpine ingredients, has a slight acidity from the red berries and a touch of amaricante from the botanicals. It’s refreshing, it’s complex, it’s great with tonic. Would you rather have it in a Negroni? Of course.” As the evening progresses, the place pulsates with unapologetic charm. It’s dark outside by now, and inside, a celebration of life's aesthetics generously unfurls.

Cordusio - L'aperitivo di Milano nel mondo

client CORDUSIO SPIRITS

scope CREATIVE DIRECTION, PHOTOGRAPHY, FILMMAKING AND WRITTEN WORD

creative direction EUGENIO ORMAS (CORDUSIO) & DANIEL LOBER

art direction CAMILLA GLORIOSO
produced by MAREA

photography CAMILLA GLORIOSO & DANIEL LOBER

photography contributor PAOLO PRENDIN

set design GIULIA TAGLIALATELA

assistant ANTHONY BROWER

filmmaking LORENZO BASILI & GIULIA FASSINA

words by VALERIA NECCHIO

digital communication CELINE DESCAMPS

All photography and video content by marea unless otherwise noted.

No images, video or written content on this site may be reproduced without prior permission of the author. © marea world LLC 2023