It was a cold day in Doha, Qatar’s capital — an extraordinary weather pattern for this small country. And just as extraordinary was my encounter with Mexican Chef Lupita Vidal, who was also in Doha as a guest chef for the Qatar International Food Festival (QIFF) on behalf of the 2026 Qatar Mexico and Canada Years of Culture (YoC) program.
I met up with her and her husband, photographer Jesús David, in Saasna for lunch, a Qatari restaurant in the chic Msheireb district in Downtown Doha. They both arrived carrying shopping bags of purchases they had made that morning at Souq Waqif, the city’s traditional market.
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Over a date salad and a chicken, prawn and lamb majboos, she told me this was her first time in Doha.
“My work has taken me to many parts in Mexico and the United States, but this is the farthest we’ve ever been,” she said, smiling while exchanging glances with her husband.
Vidal’s journey as a chef started in Tabasco, a state in southern Mexico typically not associated with Mexican cuisine, which makes Vidal’s success even more remarkable.
“I’m here representing Mexico. But most of all, I’m here representing Tabasco,” she said, highlighting the arduous journey she undertook to bring visibility to the state’s cuisine. “I think Mexico is a mega-ultra-diverse country, and within that diversity — as someone from Tabasco — you don’t feel Mexican because nobody pays attention to your cuisine.”
An unexpected success story in Villahermosa
Vidal’s success with her first restaurant was completely unexpected. After graduating from culinary school and working two years in the kitchens of Yucatán, Vidal went back to Tabasco and opened La Cevichería Tabasco with David in the city of Villahermosa.
“We opened this little cevichería as a way to capitalize ourselves and leave Tabasco, because we both thought that we wouldn’t be successful there,” Vidal said.
Their “tiny” restaurant, as Vidal described it, was a family-run enterprise: Vidal’s mother was the cashier, David was a waiter and she was the chef. The menu was inspired by the cuisine of Mexico’s south, and featured six dishes.
But over time, the restaurant began to attract more clients and to expand its offerings.
“Suddenly, we had to get more chairs and tables, and, without planning it, we realized we couldn’t leave anymore because the restaurant was doing really well,” Vidal said.
Amidst this growth, Vidal began to feel the responsibility of having a team and “feeling the need to teach them something more,” she said.
Into the heart of Tabasco
Unlike other renowned chefs who have traveled the world, learning about foreign cuisines, Vidal didn’t have that opportunity. But instead of feeling limited by this, her lack of international exposure motivated her to explore the culinary world near her. So she and David took to the road and traveled throughout Tabasco.
During this time, the pair traveled to all corners of the state, exploring different cooking techniques, flavors and ingredients, realizing just how rich the state’s culinary heritage was. People welcomed them into their homes, introduced them to local ingredients and taught Vidal firsthand how they cooked their meals. The couple also began working with local producers, fishermen and artisans, featuring their products in their restaurant.
“Traveling through Tabasco made me realize just how little we knew about our own state, how little pride we Tabascans have in our state and how badly we speak about ourselves,” Vidal shared with raw honesty.
A Tabasco cookbook
Recognizing the value of their discoveries, the couple felt compelled to document them all in a book. A decade after their journey through Tabasco began, they published Agua y Humo: Cocinas de Tabasco (Water and Smoke: Kitchens of Tabasco) in 2024, a book that covers the cuisine of all seven of Tabasco’s regions.
Offering a deep exploration of Tabasco’s culinary heritage, the book was nominated in the Women category and the Independent Publishing category at the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards.
“We weren’t expecting it,” David told me.
“I thought it was a joke! And we never imagined it would take us all this way,” Vidal said and opened her arms, acknowledging the fact that she was in Qatar for a live cooking demonstration at QIFF’s closure ceremony.
When I asked her what she would cook at the event the following evening, on a stage before hundreds of guests, she smiled.
“The pejelagarto, of course!” she said, referring to the prehistoric fish found in the rivers of Tabasco. “I will season it with spices I brought from home, including momo (hoja santa), chipilín and criollo parsley.”
At the actual event, Vidal also prepared pozol, an ancestral drink made of nixtamalized corn and cacao.
A Tabasco culinary ambassador
Vidal’s success in the culinary world has shone an unlikely spotlight on Tabasco.
“I’ve felt so much responsibility for being a pioneer,” she said. “Of doing what no one had ever done. Just as I wanted to leave at some point, many Tabasqueños want to leave their state. They don’t stay because it’s hard to work there. But we have stayed, and we will continue to work there,” Vidal said.
Vidal’s career has been on a rising trajectory for the last several years. In 2020, she was an invited judge on the TV show “Master Chef México,” and the recognition has not stopped since. Most recently, she won Culinaria Mexicana magazine’s 2025 award for Best Mexican Chef and was acknowledged by the National Chamber of the Restaurant and Seasoned Food Industry (CANIRAC) as an Ambassador for Tabasco’s Cuisine.
A sense of pride in place
But she is not one to rest on her laurels: She and David opened a second restaurant in Tabasco in 2022 — Salón Caimito — and, most recently, a third in Valladolid, Yucatán — Caimito Refresquería at the end of 2025.
Vidal’s hope is that her work makes Tabasqueños feel proud of their home state and their food.
“Tabasco has so much to offer, and we need to feel proud of who we are and the food we eat. And if we eat pejelagarto, well — let’s eat it proudly,” she said.
Before we said goodbye, I asked Vidal what it meant to be Mexican in today’s world. Two ideas stood out — pride and potential.
“I think we are a great country and a culture loved by everyone. And I think that if we really worked together, as a team, we could achieve anything,” she said. She noted that her teamwork with David is precisely what has propelled their success.
“I believe that one of our greatest achievements is that we have done something that no one had expected, within our own state and our own country,” she said.
Gabriela Solis is a Mexican lawyer turned full-time writer. She was born and raised in Guadalajara and covers business, culture, lifestyle and travel for Mexico News Daily. You can follow her lifestyle blog Dunas y Palmeras.
