Gabriela Camara is whispering. The San Francisco restaurateur is somewhere, she says, where she “can’t speak in a regular voice.”
Normally, we’d assume the acclaimed chef was entering a school function for her 10-year-old son or a meeting with an exclusive fishmonger. But the way Camara’s life is going these days, she could very well be attending a de-briefing with the president of Mexico.
Camara, 44, is best known for Cala, the contemporary Mexican seafood restaurant she opened in San Francisco’s Civic Center as a follow-up to her beloved Mexico City restaurant, Contramar. The restaurants — and their vision of togetherness — are the subject of a new Netflix documentary, “A Tale of Two Kitchens.” This summer, Camara is moving back to Mexico for a different role in the spotlight — a political one.
The chef, who grew up outside Mexico City and has spent the last five years traveling back and forth from San Francisco, will assume the role of food policy advisor to president Andrés Manuel López Obrador, serving as a member of his newly created Council of Cultural Diplomacy.
It’s not a surprise. Camara has long been a proponent of food equality and criminal justice reform, providing health insurance to full-time employees and hiring staff with conviction histories, including men from San Quentin State Prison’s culinary program (70 percent of Cala’s staff are individuals with a conviction history). She also campaigned aggressively for Obrador, who won the 2018 election in a landslide.
“First of all, I just really wanted him to win because I believe in his message to turn the country around,” Camara says. The chef plans to focus on food justice and health issues, including food deserts — urban places with little access to affordable, good-quality fresh food — as well as agricultural production and the effects of increasing migration to the cities.
“From the health conditions of the population to the ecological disaster of the soil, there’s a lot to do,” she says frankly.
Camara’s life is evolving, but nothing will change at Cala. Business partner Emma Rosenbush will assume daily operations at the restaurant, as well as the two outposts of Tacos Cala. Camara will visit monthly, she says, especially as the summer opening of her next restaurant — Santa Monica’s Onda, which she’s opening with friend Jessica Koslow — draws closer.
That’s 12 restaurants Camara will have under her belt, not to mention a debut cookbook that’s “selling like hot tortillas,” according to Celia Sack, owner of San Francisco’s Omnivore Books, which recently hosted a standing-room-only event for “My Mexico City Kitchen: Recipes and Convictions” (Lorna Jones Books, 2019). In addition to 150 seafood-centric recipes, the book offers a window into Camara’s upbringing, philosophy and path to Contramar and Cala.
“I honestly don’t know how she does it all,” Sack says. “She has an incredible amount of energy and influence and all of this is just the tip of the iceberg for her.”
That influence is palpable in “A Tale of Two Kitchens,” which feels like a love letter to restaurant workers. Executive produced by actor Gael Garcia Bernal and directed by Trisha Ziff, the documentary shows how Camara has fostered a sense of dignity and family at her restaurants that makes people want to stay. Especially at Contramar, servers aren’t using it as a stepping stone to another job; rather, Contramar is the career.
“Frankly, that’s what restaurants need to do here in San Francisco if they want to survive,” Sacks says.
If you ask Camara, though, she says running a business this way is “just common sense.”
“I try to make sure that it’s an environment of respect and support,” she says. “We build these places (restaurants) where the people working have very complex lives. When we put them all together and help each other, it leads to successful restaurants.”
