Welcome to Sobremesa. We're so glad you're here.
If we haven't met yet, The Infinite Table is an immersive dining experience that fuses 360° film, food, and story to bring people closer—across the table and across cultures. This fall, we launch in New York City with Oaxaca: Tierra y Tiempo, a meal that carries you into the fields, kitchens, and hands of the Oaxacan makers who inspired it.
Sobremesa is how we'll bring you along: dispatches from the road, the people behind every dish, and the countdown to opening night. Tickets go on sale soon, and you'll be the first to know, so share this with someone who'd love a seat at the table, and read on.
Greetings from Santa Catarina Minas, Oaxaca!
I’m at Alexis Canales Angeles’s mezcal distillery, Pasión Ancestral—it’s also his home.
I’m sitting on a plastic chair in the shade. Muchacho, the family’s black Labrador is lazily splayed out on the ground, observing as Alexis and his brother Adrián sweat and pound agave with 18-pound wooden mallets, periodically taking sips of mezcal “for energy.”
Sam, The Infinite Table’s cinematographer, silently trails them with his camera rig, gracefully sidestepping and ducking in and out to set up his shots.
I myself have an array of glasses and bottles on the table in front of me, the aftermath of an impromptu mezcal tasting. My belly is contentedly full. Upon our arrival, Alexis’s mom Perla had cheerfully asked us, “¿Quieren memelas?” (“Do you want memelas?”) In Oaxaca, if you enter someone’s home and they offer you memelas, there is only one proper response: “¡SI POR FAVOR!” What we hadn’t realized was that we were not getting just one or two memelas, but rather four memelas each.
Now, Perla and her grand-niece Azul work together in a steady rhythm to make tortillas. Azul hand-rolls each ball of masa and passes it to Perla, who presses it into a disc—ka-chunk—with a quick clank of a tortilla press. Then it goes onto the comal griddle, over a crackling wood fire. The smell of toasted masa perfumes the air.
Alexis and Adrián hammering agave (left) and Perla handing me memelas right off the comal (right).
As I sit here and take in the scene, I reflect on the arc of my relationship with this region and culture. My first visit to Oaxaca had been full of nervous energy. Understandably, our now-partners hadn't known what to make of me: a Korean American guy who shows up, says he created a food museum in NYC, and now wants to create some kind of 360 dining experience about Oaxaca?
The second visit was intense. Hours-long interviews going into the very fabric of their values and cultural identity. Filming sacred moments such as the larger-than-life spectacle of a mezcal agave roast, or the focused command of smoke, stone, and fire required to make mole. Tears shed, together, as we unpacked tender memories.
And now here I sit, on my third visit to Oaxaca. Against the hypnotic thump-thump-thump of the agave hammering, I'm at peace. I'm happy to be a seamless part of this family’s Sunday morning at home.
Alexis strolls over and picks up his twelve-string guitar (actually, at the moment, an eleven-string guitar). I croon “Canción Mixteca,” the unofficial anthem of Oaxaca, while he accompanies me. When we finish, we both have a laugh and reach for our mezcal glasses. Salud.
What an honor it is to connect across cultures. And what a joy it is to distill that feeling into an experience that we’ll bring to you this fall.
Con cariño,
Peter J. Kim
Founder,
The Infinite Table
PS: Follow us on Instagram @theinfinitetable! We’ll be sharing photos from our trips, launch previews, and plenty of Oaxaca tips (like where to find the best tlayudas).
