With fine dining, Milpa frees Mexican food from the grips of the taco

Japan Times

11-07-2025

Inside Milpa, a restaurant in Osaka's trendy Kitahorie neighborhood, the air feels deliciously cool after the intensity of the city's early summer heat. At the pass in the open kitchen, chef Willy Monroy, 40, commands an international staff in Spanish, and the brigade responds in the same language. Monroy cuts a towering, tattooed figure, albeit with a dimpled, smiling visage that gives him the appearance of a giant teddy bear.
A flickering candle illuminates a painting of Saint Jude Thaddeus — patron saint of impossible causes — that faces the restaurant's four tables, lending the intimate space an atmosphere that recalls a chapel.
"My mother gave me that painting before I left Mexico for Japan — it's my talisman,' Monroy explains.
Saint Jude has been his silent witness through a culinary journey across continents and cultures, a path that began not in fine dining kitchens but at 4 a.m. in a tortilla shop in Colima, Mexico.
A painting of Saint Jude Thaddeus, given to chef Willy Monroy by his mother, serves as a focal point in the restaurant. |
MILPA
For Monroy — his given name is Jose Juan Monroy Rangel, but his mother nicknamed him Willy after a character from the 1975 cartoon "Maya the Honey Bee' — his Mexican roots have anchored him through years marked by vicissitudes. Today, his perseverance has paid off: Along with Milpa, he has built a small but influential culinary empire in Osaka as the owner of Tachinomi Saboten, a standing bar serving tacos, mezcal and churros, and the newly opened Saboten Taqueria inside the Time Out Market Osaka .
In this year's Michelin Guide for Kyoto and Osaka, Milpa also became the first Mexican restaurant to earn a Michelin star in Japan, a recognition that seemed impossible to the 14-year-old boy who first learned to work masa (corn flour) in the pre-dawn darkness of his hometown.
Those early morning shifts at the tortilla shop taught him the value of hard work, but it wasn't until his next job — washing dishes and chopping vegetables at a casual eatery near his home — that he discovered his true calling.
"I would go home and cook for my parents what I had seen prepared that day," he recalls. "That's when I discovered that I love cooking for other people.'
That instinct would become his guiding principle, but first came years of searching.
"I was always looking for something else," he says. "I wanted a big change in my life."
At Milpa, Monroy (left) is open to collaborations with other chefs. In June, he hosted Jesus Duron (right), former executive chef of Mexico City's Pujol, for a two-day special event. |
MELINDA JOE
In 2008, he decided to move to Canada after a friend who was studying there invited him over. Soon the 19-year-old Monroy was sharing a cramped Toronto apartment with five other Mexicans and attending night school English classes while working at Indian banquet halls.
The work was familiar — washing dishes, serving guests, prepping for events — but Canada introduced him to his future Japanese wife, who would become his bridge to Japan. After three years, however, visa complications forced them both back to Mexico, where his father had purchased a small seafood restaurant.
Hoping his wandering son would finally settle down in his hometown, Monroy Sr.asked Willy to run the restaurant. What started as a modest five-table ceviche joint expanded to 10 locations under Willy's management, but the success felt hollow.
"I was not happy with small-town life in Colima," he admits.
Japan kept calling. After two visits in 2011 that revealed to him the country's sophisticated food culture and the dire state of Mexican cuisine there — "They served me crepes and called them tacos" — Monroy made his biggest gamble yet. In 2012, on his 26th birthday, he landed in Tokyo with an audacious plan: work in a restaurant, save money, learn the system, then open his own place.
Within two years, he was managing a six-restaurant Mexican chain in Osaka. But the owner's reluctance to elevate the food — preferring to deep-fry store-bought tortillas rather than make them fresh — left Monroy frustrated.
"It was delicious, but it was not Mexican food," he says.
When he announced his intention to quit and start over, a regular customer made an offer that would change everything, becoming an angel investor in Monroy's first restaurant, Saboten.
In February 2016, Monroy opened the original Saboten in the location that now houses Milpa. The early days were brutal — 19-hour shifts, months in the red and relentless pressure. But the restaurant gradually developed a reputation for authentic tacos de asada that are topped with grilled sirloin and wild boar smothered in mole negro, a rich sauce flavored with more than 20 spices and roasted chilis. Over the course of nine years, Saboten became a local institution, drawing Japanese chefs who would stop by for tacos and suggest collaborations.
The turning point came in 2023, when Monroy spent 10 weeks as an intern with the Noma team during their first Kyoto residency. At the end of the event, Noma's chef, Rene Redzepi, encouraged him to open a fine dining Mexican restaurant in the Kansai region.
"The experience (with the Noma team) was life-changing," he says. "I thought that if I'm going to do this, I have to do it now.'
Monroy had been fascinated by how Mexican chefs like Enrique Olvera of Pujol and Jorge Vallejo of Quintonil, both in Mexico City, were redefining the cuisine through an innovative lens. He spent months studying traditional recipes and experimenting with ways to reinterpret them.
Monroy stresses that while he wants he wants his innovative food to surprise guests, "each dish must speak clearly of Mexico." |
MELINDA JOE
When Milpa opened in September 2024, it represented something new in Japan's dining landscape. Rather than recreate Mexico in Osaka, Monroy embraced a philosophy that applied Mexican techniques to Japanese ingredients, drawing additional inspiration from Spain and Scandinavia.
For example, his ceviche steeped in citrus juice and coconut milk blends Peruvian cooking technique with Mexican chilies and seasonal Japanese seafood, offering a taste of three cultures in a spoonful. Cooked in a Japanese donabe claypot and inspired by a traditional Veracruz seafood rice, the arroz a la tumbada, a tomato-based dish simmered with the day's catch, leans into its Spanish roots with Bomba rice from Valencia. Its use of smoked butter and roast vinegar, a nod to Scandinavian kitchens, adds umami and depth.
'I want to surprise guests with new techniques or preparations, but at the same time each dish must speak clearly of Mexico — its flavors, traditions and spirit,' he says, noting that he's careful to exercise restraint. 'It's easy to add too many ideas to a dish and lose clarity. So I always ask myself: Does this innovation help to tell the story of Mexico or is it innovation for innovation's sake?'
The approach worked. Within six months, Milpa earned its Michelin star. The restaurant's name — referring to the ancient Mesoamerican agricultural system — reflects his mission: to show Japanese diners that Mexican cuisine extends far beyond their preconceptions of tacos and nachos.
Monroy has also become an informal ambassador for Mexican culinary talent, opening Milpa's doors to visiting chefs eager to explore Japan's culinary landscape. In March this year, he hosted Tomas Bermudez of La Docena in Mexico City; in June, he welcomed Jesus Duron, the former executive chef of Pujol, known for his creativity and modern approach.
Monroy's collaborative dinner with Duron produced several memorable dishes, such as a crispy taco stuffed with avocado, cured grouper and purple "shiso" (perilla) flowers. |
MILPA
The Duron collaboration showcased how two Mexican voices could harmonize in a foreign context. The meal opened with an intricate trio of bites: micro-zucchini topped with kelp paste and edible flowers amid an umami-dense, chilled tomato broth; a crispy taco stuffed with avocado, cured grouper and purple shiso (perilla) flowers; and fried zucchini blossoms filled with karasumi (cured mullet roe).
Monroy's signature tostada — avocado and scallop atop a housemade, fried blue-corn tortilla — was paired with delicate threads of raw squid bathed in clear squid broth, the dish's cooling effect balancing the heat from chiltepin chili concealed in the tostada.
Rather than dividing duties, both chefs contributed to most dishes. One standout featured an inventive tamal — creamy dough made with corn flour and mashed pinto beans, wrapped in a cabbage leaf and steamed — served with a verdant puree of green vegetables and spices. The kinki (channel rockfish), marinated in mirin and grilled, arrived with smoky chilpachole sauce made from dried chilies and tomatoes.
"Every time I collaborate with a chef I learn something that stays with me,' says Monroy, 'and I think they also take away something."
Duron agrees: "I learned so much about the amazing products in Japan, especially seafood. We went to the market together, and Willy showed me a lot of things I'd never seen before."
Monroy adds: "I want people to understand that Mexican culture is rich when it comes to food. We have so much more to offer than tacos.'
1-16-25 Kitahorie, Nishi Ward, Osaka 550-0014; 06-4394-8383; instagram.com/milpa.rest