BEATRIZ GONZALEZ’S SPECIAL TOUCH IN HAUTE CUISINE

Born in Mexico City and brought up around her parents’ two restaurants, on the island of Cozumel in Mexico, Chef Beatriz Gonzalez has always nurtured a great passion for food which, under the guidance of her father, led to her move to Lyon to learn the techniques of haute cuisine. At the age of 18, she joined the prestigious Institut Paul Bocuse and fell in love with French gastronomy. After two years of study and experience in the Michelin-starred Carlton restaurant in Cannes, she decided to move to Florence for a brief period of six months to learn Italian. 

At the young age of 21, her career took off rapidly when, upon returning to France she was taken on at Lucas Carton Paris (with three Michelin stars), a renowned Parisian restaurant that has been making French nouvelle cuisine history since 1839. Here, the young chef dedicated her body and soul to the kitchen for five years. Later, at 26 she became sous-chef of La Grande Cascade, a restaurant where the business clientele come to savor a taste of Paris from the past and the fresh “country” air of the Bois de Boulogne combined with the modern cuisine of Chef Frédéric Robert and his team. Here, she met the pastry chef Yannick Tranchant , with whom she left the prestigious Parisian restaurant so they could embark on a new gastronomic adventure together. In 2011, Beatriz Gonzalez opened her first restaurant, Neva Cuisine, along with her husband, Matthieu Marcant, and the pastry chef Yannick Tranchant.

Neva Cuisine is a modern and convivial Parisian bistro where you can enjoy light, delicate dishes.  In Beatriz’s cuisine, pleasures and flavors are the order of the day, and every detail is treated with the utmost care and attention. Making it stand out against the classic bistro, however, is the element of the sea that brings flavor to fresh seafood yet focuses on acidity without being afraid of sweetness. 

Encouraged by the success of her colourful, modern cuisine, three years after opening Neva Cuisine, Chef Gonzalez decided to repeat the experience, opening her second restaurant, the neo-bistro Coretta.

In 2023, once again in Paris, Chef Gonzalez opened Taco Mesa, a round-trip voyage to Mexico without ever leaving the capital. In this beautiful space full of warm colors, the chef reconnects with the flavors of her childhood in Mexico, transforming Mexican street food classics into dishes to enjoy at the mesa (table). 

Beatriz Gonzalez had long dreamed of opening a Mexican restaurant in France. In 2021, the pandemic drove her to take the first step, opening Taco Mesa for takeaway. Two years later, the chef’s extraordinary tacos finally had a place where they could be enjoyed: at 40 Rue du Faubourg Poissonnière, Paris. On the menu is a real guacamole with avocado, onion, and lime, served with tortilla chips; the unmissable cochinita tacos, a typical Mexican dish made with pork shoulder and a mix of spices, including achiote, served with black beans, epazote, and pickled onions; or the “Gringa al Pastor,” a quesadilla with marinated pork on the spit, cow’s milk Toma cheese, pineapple, onion, and coriander.

At Taco Mesa, Chef Gonzalez also offers vegetarian options and “especiales,” more elaborate recipes served only in the evening. For incomparably fresh tortillas, the chef wanted the nixtamalization of the corn, an ancestral Meso-American maize preparation technique, to be done on site just like in Mexico.  The terms “nixtamal” or “hominy” mean corn kernels, boiled and left to sit in a highly alkaline solution of calcium hydroxide, a principal ingredient in Central-American cuisine, before being used in many dishes such as Mexican tortillas and tamales.