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From top: The new Mayahuel serves refined, modern Mexican cuisine. Aguachile. T he late great Michel Richard, the famed French-born chef and restaurateur, believed that the best chefs are pastry chefs. It's hard to argue with the man whose flair for tasteful and astonishingly creative fare blurred the boundaries between sweet and savory in his storied kitchens from New York to Los Angeles. Chef Luis Robledo Richards, executive chef of the new modern Mexican haunt Mayahuel, shares more with him than a similar surname. Standing behind his Jade range at Mayahuel in Autry Park, Robledo Richards has partnered with Culinary Khancepts owner Omar Khan (Leo's River Oaks, The Audrey Restaurant & Bar, River Oaks Theatre, State Fare Kitchen & Bar, Liberty Kitchen & Oysterette, Epicure Café) to create this sophisticated concept, where traditional Mexican flavors and By Laurann Claridge. Photography Brian Kennedy. The Discipline and Artistry Mayahuel Restaurant ingredients blend with refined, innovative techniques. "At Mayahuel, we're not just preparing food — we're honoring time, place, and process," says Robledo Richards. "Our ingredients are chosen only when they're at their best. We don't force nature to fit our schedule — we follow its lead." The chef, a native of Mexico, has spent more than 25 years in the culinary world, many of them on the sweets side. He was schooled in pastry arts at the French Culinary Institute in Manhattan, then further refined his craft at École Lenôtre outside Paris, the school founded by French pastry legend Gaston Lenôtre. Stateside, he has worked in and led the pastry kitchens of New York City's Restaurant Daniel, Sirio Maccioni's Le Cirque, and the Four Seasons Hotel New York. And that was all before he conjured Tout Chocolat, his artisan pastry shop in Mexico City; served as a judge on Netflix's food competition show Sugar Rush: The Baking Point; authored a cookbook; and received beaucoup awards too numerous to count. But, back to Mayahuel. Enter through copper-clad doors, their artful custom handles shaped like branches of the maguey tree. Inside, scalloped breeze blocks divide the back of the bar area from a series of curved banquettes that open to the gleaming stainless- steel open kitchen set in the center of the dining room. The intimate space is awash in earthy neutral hues with hand-carved woods, natural stone, sculptural lighting, and a mural by local artist Olga Saldivar, commissioned by interior designer Laura Loreman, who designed Mayahaul. The sweeping painted mural is made with formed plaster elements from the maguey tree to add dimensionality and spans two stories. We enjoyed dinner à la carte, but there's also a chef tasting menu ($145 per person; with wine pairing, $265) composed of nine courses (if you count the amuse bouche and shaved- ice palate cleanser) that let the kitchen flex its muscle. Come for dinner and start with pan y tortillas — a freshly baked boule of sourdough bread made in-house from a sourdough starter lovingly fed for 40 years, along with miso and salsa macha-laced butters and warm handmade blue corn tortillas de Nixtamal crafted with heirloom corn ($14). The elegant oysters and caviar starter sandwiches the delicately fried mollusk between diminutive toasted brioche slices napped with serrano-spiked beurre blanc and capped with a dollop of of BETHANY OCHS 104