‘And my mum’s family went there after fleeing the Brazilian military regime.’ From the gardens, you can see the volcano Ixtaccíhuatl, after which her parents named her. ‘It was a home for political refugees, set up by my dad’s parents when they were forced out of America for being communists,’ she says. She recalls a beautiful house in Cuernavaca, just outside Mexico City, where her father’s family lived. This mix, Belfrage says, is the best way to describe not just her cooking, but herself: it is her childhood memories of Italy, her Brazilian heritage on her mum’s side, and the Mexican spirit inherited from her dad. The word mezcla (not to be confused with mezcal, which she also loves) means ‘to mix’ in Spanish. Celebrated for her prowess in layering flavours with textures that take your tastebuds on the joyride of their life, she will have you adding cumin to your béchamel sauce by the time you’ve finished reading her debut solo cookbook, Mezcla, released this summer. Having built up a following with her cooking lessons on social media during lockdown, she has all the on-screen seduction of Nigella, the skills of Margot Henderson and a chocolate and tahini tart that rivals anything on a dessert menu anywhere in the country. ‘It’s still a great way to end any meal… So much of my cooking was inspired by my time in Italy.’Īn Ottolenghi protégée who has cooked at Nopi, writes a food column for The Guardian and has over 100,000 people salivating over her rocket rigatoni on Instagram, Belfrage is one of the most exciting figures on the food scene right now. Her family had moved to the Tuscan hills for her dad’s job in wine imports, and Belfrage had befriended Giuditta, the daughter of a local chef who would serve the dish as an after-school snack. Ixta Belfrage at the age of four: stale bread dipped in tannin-rich red wine and sprinkled with sugar, a traditional dish in Tuscany, Italy.
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