Apapaxoa 2026: Gastronomy, Territory, and New Ways of Creating

A career in gastronomy is not built around a kitchen alone. Behind every dish lies a territory, a community, a story, a way of communicating, and a series of decisions that shape what happens long before food reaches the table.

During Apapaxoa Festival GastroCultural Xcaret 2026, different voices explored precisely these connections. From food communication and pastry to non-alcoholic beverages, craftsmanship, food waste, well-being, and territorial cuisines, the conversations shared a common idea: creating also means taking responsibility for everything behind what we create.

Building a Career Also Means Building a Purpose

Joana Munné, a food communicator, gastronomy manager, and founder of Síbaris, presented a talk on the keys to building a sustainable career in gastronomy.

For Munné, a sustainable career is one that can evolve through different transformations while generating value both for the person building it and for those around them.

One of the fundamental elements of her work is communication, which begins with deeply understanding the territory. A project’s identity is connected to its origins, culture, and the people who build it, because “what makes us different is where we come from and who we are.”

During her talk, she presented several examples from her career. One began in 2021, when she was given the challenge of developing the profile and positioning of a gastronomic project. Through conferences, cultural exchanges, and culinary events, they managed to raise the profile of its owner until she was featured on the covers and in articles of major media outlets.

Another example was the positioning work carried out for Don Julio in Buenos Aires, where the goal was to reinforce the restaurant’s Argentine identity. To achieve this, a narrative was built around wine, the countryside, and the origin of its ingredients, creating a more authentic story connected to local culture.

These projects demonstrate how gastronomy can also grow through communication that understands its territory, discovers its identity, and turns it into a story capable of connecting with people.

Color Has Something to Say, Too

Antonio Bachour, Puerto Rican pastry chef and one of the recognized divs in contemporary pastry, shared a talk on the importance of color in pastry. His work combines technical precision, creativity, and a strong visual sensibility, where colors, textures, and shapes are an essential part of the experience.

For Bachour, color has always been a source of inspiration, particularly through flowers. Today, he observes how the use of color has become an important trend in pastry.

Color is one of the first stimuli consumers receive and can influence how they perceive a dessert. It can even alter the perception of flavor, the intensity of aromas, cultural identity, and the value we are willing to assign to a preparation.

During the talk, he also explained how colors can carry different meanings depending on the culture. For example, red and gold have a strong presence in China, while Japan often uses cleaner, more natural combinations. In France, colors such as black, white, gold, and different neutral tones are predominant.

As Bachour puts it, “we eat with our eyes.” The way food is presented can change our perception of its size, appeal, and artistic value. A dish communicates, too: the same dessert, presented on two different plates, can evoke two completely different emotions.

In contemporary pastry, then, color is not simply decoration. It is a tool for communicating, creating emotions, and transforming the way we experience a dessert.

The World Beyond Alcohol

New generations are transforming the way they consume beverages. More and more people are looking to reduce their alcohol intake and choose options that better fit their lifestyles. This trend has given rise to the concept of Zero beverages, which aim to offer new experiences without the need for alcohol.

Rather than replacing traditional drinks, this trend represents an opportunity to expand the range of options and cater to different tastes. Ultimately, beverages serve a purpose that goes beyond alcohol: they bring people together, whether through a glass of wine, a cocktail, or a cup of coffee.**

Within this landscape, tea has significant potential. It can be combined with other beverages or used as an ingredient, particularly in fine dining, where its sensory characteristics can help create new experiences.

To make the most of these possibilities, it is important to understand each beverage, study its characteristics, and learn how to serve it properly using the right tools.

The Zero movement reflects a shift in consumer priorities. While previous generations often associated beverages primarily with enjoyment and socializing, there is now a greater interest in well-being, balance, and options that adapt to individual needs.

A Global Perspective That Does Not Erase Differences

Stephanie Kim, International Director of La Liste, took the conversation toward another question: how do we recognize excellence in gastronomy and hospitality in a world where not every place understands luxury, taste, or hospitality in the same way?

In “Beyond La Liste: Recognizing the World's Gastronomic and Hotels Excellence,” Kim explained a methodology that brings together different sources, guides, and reviews from around the world to create a broader perspective on excellence.

The starting point is simple, but important: taste is also shaped by culture.

What one person considers exceptional may be connected to their history, references, and the place where they grew up. A global perspective, therefore, does not necessarily mean imposing a single standard.

In Mexico, this perspective is particularly relevant. Local identity does not have to be diluted in order to gain international recognition. It can be precisely what makes a project distinctive.

From this perspective, excellence is not about making every place look the same. It is also about discovering what makes a place something that could only exist there.

Art Born from the Land

In “Stories of Alebrijes,” Jacobo Ángeles and María del Carmen Mendoza shared a story that began in 1994, when they decided to commit to Zapotec art in San Martín Tilcajete, Oaxaca, amid an economic crisis and widespread migration.

More than three decades later, their work has helped position craftsmanship as an artistic expression worthy of recognition for the depth of knowledge it embodies.

Their conversation offered a glimpse into the world of tonas and nahuales, codices, and the symbolism of the Zapotec worldview, as well as the way this knowledge is transformed into shapes, colors, and iconography.

But the story does not end with the pieces themselves.

Through the “Palo que Habla” project, the workshop also participates in the conservation of copal, a tree that is fundamental to their community and the cultural practices connected to it. The project involves planting thousands of trees each year as a way of giving back to the land some of what makes their work possible.

This is where one of the most important concepts of the conversation emerges: Guelaguetza understood as a way of life based on sharing, teaching, and giving back.

Knowledge is not inherited solely to preserve it. It is also inherited to pass it on.

Waste Is Also a Design Decision

Pablo Usobiaga’s conversation began with a provocation: perhaps the problem with the contemporary food system is not a lack of production, but the way we have designed that system.

From this perspective, waste cannot be understood simply as what is left on a plate or ends up in a bin. It is part of a broader chain involving production, distribution, and consumption, as well as the environmental and social costs that often remain outside the final price of food.

Usobiaga highlighted the need to move away from a definition of efficiency based exclusively on economic profit toward a notion of abundance that also considers access to nutritious food, the dignity of producers, and the ability of landscapes to regenerate.

From this perspective, sustainability should not be a luxury.

Restaurants can also participate in this transformation. Chefs and hospitality projects have the ability to connect producers, communities, and consumers, while also generating demand for different models of production.

Change does not necessarily begin with a major global transformation. It can begin with the decisions made around a kitchen.

Well-Being as Your Own Recipe

Adriana Azuara brought the conversation into the individual realm with “The 7 Ingredients of Well-Being.”

Her proposal starts with a simple idea: well-being should not become another list of obligations. Instead of chasing increasingly complex formulas, Azuara proposes creating a personal recipe from seven elements: breathe, recover, move, nourish, feel, connect, and enjoy.

Breathe to regulate yourself. Recover to learn how to rest. Move with the body’s functionality in mind. Nourish yourself with greater awareness of what you consume. Feel to bring your attention back to the senses. Connect to restore human relationships. And finally, enjoy.

This last ingredient serves a particular purpose: remembering that well-being loses its meaning when it becomes another source of pressure.

The proposal also establishes a natural connection with gastronomy. Just as a dish requires balance among its ingredients, life also requires finding a combination that makes sense for the person living it.

There is no universal recipe. There is only the possibility of creating your own.

Looking Again at Where Food Begins

In “Apapacho de Territorios Vivos,” Juan Emilio Villaseñor, Alex Atala, and Alex Ruiz returned to one of gastronomy’s fundamental questions: what does it mean to cook a territory?

The answer lies not only in using local ingredients. A territorial cuisine means recognizing seasonality, techniques, traceability, ecosystems, and, above all, the people who make it possible for each product to reach the table.

From this perspective, the cook occupies a place within a much larger chain. Their work begins with recognizing those who produce, cultivate, fish, transform, and preserve food. It also means looking back.

Pre-Hispanic knowledge and ancestral practices contain a deep relationship with the land that can offer new perspectives for the future. Authenticity, then, is not about nostalgia for the past, but about finding a way to build from a place of one’s own.

The chefs agreed that cooking can be a way of celebrating time, biodiversity, and human memory.

Creating Also Means Caring

The conversations at Apapaxoa 2026 broadened the idea of what gastronomy can be.

It can be communication. It can be color. It can be a non-alcoholic beverage. It can be a piece of craftsmanship. It can be a decision about what to buy, what to produce, and what to waste. It can be a wellness practice or a way of recognizing the people who inhabit a territory.

But all of these perspectives share the same premise: nothing we create exists in isolation.