An ancient farm system, built by hand on top of water, hidden inside one of the largest cities on earth and almost nobody knows it exists.
The chinampas of Xochimilco are human-made islands, constructed over centuries in the lakes that Mexico City was built on. At their peak they fed an entire civilisation. Today, more than 60% are abandoned, the city is slowly swallowing the edges, and once a chinampero stops farming, another one rarely takes their place. Pablo Usobiaga from Arca Tierra is trying to reverse that not by fighting the city, but by bringing it in through a dining experience.
This is part one of three episodes series recorded around Arca Tierra: Pablo Usobiaga built a restaurant — Baldío — around one idea: source everything from peasant farmers, waste nothing, and use fermentation to turn what would have been bin bags into the best things on the menu. It just became the first restaurant in Mexico City to earn a Green Michelin star. This conversation is where it starts: on the chinampas, where the food comes from. Parts two and three go deeper into the fermentation lab with Chris, and into the kitchen with Daniel (episodes coming out in the next weeks).
ONCE A CHINAMPERO DIES, ANOTHER ONE IS NOT BORN
Farming the chinampas is hard, poorly paid, and carries almost no social status. So people stop. And when they stop, nobody replaces them — the city moves in, buildings go up, football fields take over canals. Pablo Usobiaga’s argument is that this is not just a land use problem. Farmers are the guardians of soil, water, culture, identity, and language. Losing them is losing all of that. Arca Tierra’s goal is not to fight the city but to change what it means to be a chinampero, to make it visible, respected, and financially worth choosing.
“Peasant farmers are by far the most important people in society because they’re the ones that are the guardians of the soil, the water, the plants, the ecosystem as a whole, and they’re also guardians of culture, of identity, of languages. Our mission is trying to show that there’s a way of giving value to the chinampas through agriculture, and that way we can bring more people back, more younger generations back, to work in the chinampas by growing food. Showing that it’s profitable, that it’s well seen, well paid.” — Pablo Usobiaga
THE RESTAURANT BUILT FROM A FARMER’S MIND
To make chinampa farming financially viable, Arca Tierra needed somewhere to sell the food. That logic, combined with a chance meeting with Doug McMaster — the chef behind Silo, a pioneering zero waste restaurant in London — led to Baldío, a restaurant in Mexico City that sources exclusively from peasant farmers and throws away less than 5% of everything that enters the kitchen. The average restaurant throws away 30%. That gap is the business model: food cost at Baldío runs at 18–19% against an industry standard of 30%, and the savings go into labour and creativity rather than the bin.
“The values of Baldío are the same values that we’ve always seen in farmers — curiosity, respect for nature, collaboration instead of competition, no waste. A farmer would not throw food in the bin. So in Doug’s perspective it was nature’s favourite restaurant. In our perspective, Arca Tierra’s, it’s a restaurant that comes from a farmer’s mind. Once you start creating everything around it, the rules are different, the sourcing is different, and it even tastes different. Everything starts to change.” — Pablo Usobiaga
WHY THE WORLD NEEDS A TACO, NOT JUST A TASTING MENU
Baldío is not a fine dining restaurant, and that was a deliberate decision from the start. Pablo wanted a place where anyone could walk in and have a taco, a tamal, and a beer — not just the people who can afford a tasting menu. He is direct about why: he is middle upper class in Mexico City and cannot afford one himself. Baldío earned the only Green Michelin star ever awarded in Mexico City — a recognition given to restaurants leading on sustainability — while keeping the door open to anyone who wants to come in for a simple meal.
“I’m middle upper class in Mexico City and I cannot afford a tasting menu. Imagine who can. It’s only the 5%. Why does this amazing, delicious food, technique, and creativity need to be only for the 5%?” — Pablo Usobiaga
Koen and Pablo also talked about:
- Why every Baldío staff member, waiter, chef, bartender, visits the chinampas before their first shift and knows the name of the farmer behind every ingredient on the menu
- Why Baldío stopped calling itself a zero waste restaurant and what happened when they ditched Noma-style cooking for Mexican food built from Mexican ingredients
- The case for a future cantina: tacos, empanadas, and mezcal for $20, making regenerative food accessible to people who can’t afford Baldío Retail as the next frontier: corn vinegar, koji-based sauces, and fermented byproducts that supermarkets are already asking for
- Pablo’s one policy change: make the hidden costs of industrial food visible and make local food cheaper than imported food in the country that grows it
- What Pablo would do with a billion dollars and what he wants investors to remember about returns beyond money
LINKS:
RELATED INTERVIEWS
- Matt Orlando – From Noma to building the world’s most circular restaurant and disrupting the chocolate industry
- REGENERATIVE MIND – Emma Chow and Lucio Usobiaga – Agriculture as an act of working with the magic of life
- Dan Barber, great flavour, health benefits and healthy ecosystems can only come from healthy soils not a lab
- Nicola Giuggioli – Building a regenerative brand: from soil health to living wages
More about our guest:
Pablo Usobiaga grew up in Mexico City, studied law, and worked in M&A before the chinampas changed the direction of his life entirely. He joined his brother Lucio at Arca Tierra six years ago and co-founded Baldío in 2024 alongside his brother Lucio Usobiaga and Doug McMaster, the British chef behind Silo in London. His background is not in food or farming — it is in understanding people, markets, and why systems fail.
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The above references an opinion and is for information and educational purposes only. It is not intended to be investment advice. Seek a duly licensed professional for investment advice.