‘It’s Mexican Because We Made It’ — Acamaya’s Ana and Lydia Castro Want to Own Their Food Story

Tinfoil Swans Podcast

Spotify

On this episode

2022 Food & Wine Best New Chef Ana Castro and her sister and business partner Lydia Castro are the powerhouse duo behind New Orleans’ beloved Acamaya. They’re not just redefining contemporary Mexican cuisine — they’re reshaping what it means to lead with vulnerability, resilience, and fierce sibling love. In this conversation they dive deep into their shared childhood in Mexico City, their parallel journeys through grief and healing, their epic roadside fight, and the unconventional path that led them to create one of the most emotionally resonant and culturally rooted restaurants in the country.

Meet our guests

Ana and Lydia Castro were raised by their grandmother in Mexico City. Ana built her skills at Le Cordon Bleu and worked in kitchens across India, Europe, and New York City, eventually opening Lengua Madre, a modern Mexican tasting menu restaurant, with Lydia. Ana was a finalist for the James Beard Foundation’s Best Chef: South Award in 2023. 

Lydia moved to New Orleans at the age of 20 and began her career in the restaurant industry, also becoming involved with reproductive healthcare access and rights, and driving for Uber. They left Lengua Madre in 2023 and in 2024, opened Acamaya, where Lydia leads the front-of-house team and Ana offers a contemporary take on coastal Mexican seafood. The restaurant focuses on creating a sustainable and equitable workplace culture reflecting their commitment to hospitality and community.

Meet our host

Kat Kinsman is the executive features editor at Food & Wine, author of Hi, Anxiety: Life With a Bad Case of Nerves, host of Food & Wine’s Gold Signal Award-winning podcast Tinfoil Swans, and founder of Chefs With Issues. Previously, she was the senior food & drinks editor at Extra Crispy, editor-in-chief and editor at large at Tasting Table, and the founding editor of CNN Eatocracy. She won a 2024 IACP Award for Narrative Food Writing With Recipes and a 2020 IACP Award for Personal Essay/Memoir, and has had work included in the 2020 and 2016 editions of The Best American Food Writing.

She was nominated for a James Beard Broadcast Award in 2013, won a 2011 EPPY Award for Best Food Website with 1 million unique monthly visitors, and was a finalist in 2012 and 2013. She is a sought-after international keynote speaker and moderator on food culture and mental health in the hospitality industry, and is the former vice chair of the James Beard Journalism Committee.

Highlights from the episode

On sibling solidarity

“I have always been really high-strung and anxious. At 10 years old, I wasn’t understanding my anxiety. It took me a little bit to realize that I just sometimes needed to take some breaths and relax. Thankfully I have my sister always by my side, and that made it easier.

When I was younger, I was on the swim team and that was my release of all my energy. Then at some point, I grew up and my hormones changed. I used to wear this blue swimsuit. My mom came to pick me up and asked, ‘Have you seen my kid?’ And a lady said, ‘The one that looks like a plum?’ My mom looked at me and she was like, ‘Yeah, I guess so.’ I didn’t want to put on a swimsuit anymore and I just started partying and being angry at everyone — and mean. I got kicked out of high school for fighting and then my parents sent me to anger management. They sent Ana for solidarity. My dad said, ‘So she wouldn’t feel like a freak.’” — Lydia Castro

On finding the bright side

“I was hanging out with my grandmother yesterday. She was in a terrible, pessimistic mood. I told her, ‘Grandma, the brain is the most powerful organ we have. If you convince yourself that you’re tired and that you’re in a bad mood and you don’t want to leave the house, that’s going to be your reality. She was rolling her eyes at me. I told her she should go to a therapist. She asked, ‘And talk about what?’ I said, ‘I don’t know, whatever you want. It’s just such a gorgeous day. Look at the sun, look at the jacarandas.” She said, ‘Hm.’ I was like, ‘Anyway, I’m leaving.’” — Ana Castro

On compartmentalizing

“The weekend of my first nomination for a James Beard Award, I was arriving in Chicago on a Saturday and my family was there on Friday. They got the call that my uncle was in a motorcycle accident and had passed away. They all had to fly back to Mexico on Saturday. It was a disaster. My dad forced me to go back to Chicago to go to the awards gala on Monday. I went, obviously didn’t win, and I didn’t really care at that point. I was scheduled to fly to Denmark the next night because I had gotten the Ment’or Grant. I think one of my greatest strengths and one of my greatest flaws at the same time is the ability to compartmentalize things. I put it on pause. I started working freaking [intense] hours at Relae, learning everything that I could in this restaurant. I didn’t really have time to just be like, ‘I can’t do this,’ because this one was not going to knock again.” — Ana Castro

On the power of walking away

“Another of my strengths is that I’m not scared to start over. I hold immense power because people are usually scared to throw away everything they’ve done or walk away from something that is extremely successful. I also get emboldened. I’m brave because I know that I have Lydia. After the pandemic we’d already lost so much that I thought, ‘I have nothing left to lose.’

My stepmom’s mantra — el mundo es de quien se atreve (the world belongs to those who dare) — rang in my ears, so I jumped. To a tiger, what’s another stripe? Life keeps clawing, so I just add another mark and keep moving.” — Ana Castro

On faith in sisterhood

“Our lawyer is our third partner. He said this is our operating agreement, and I strongly, as a lawyer, recommended that you two get an operating agreement between the two of you. He told us, ‘I obviously can’t represent you, but I can point you in the direction of a very good lawyer that can help you.’ We said, ‘OK, cool, yeah, thank you.’

Then it resurfaced and I was just like, ‘You know what? I don’t want to do it, because if I ever come to a decision or a situation that Lydia and I cannot talk about or agree or compromise to the point that the relationship breaks, then I deserve to lose it all.’” — Ana Castro

On finding their place in Mexican culture

“I am not the sole proprietor or proponent of Mexican culture. I’m just a part of it.” — Ana Castro

“One of our favorite human beings, [2021 Food & Wine Best New Chef] Fermin Núñez said something that changed both our lives.” — Lydia Castro

“He said on his Taco Chronicles episode on Netflix, ‘It’s Mexican because I made it.’ With that, I gave myself permission to steer farther away from Mexicanity and really push what I thought was still Mexican or what was not Mexican. Hanging out with him really changed me because now with Acamaya, we have a glossary on the back of the menu with definitions of techniques and ingredients that are not very known to people. I have finally stopped approaching the subject of bridging cultures from a preachy ‘I’m going to tell you everything that you don’t know and put you in evidence for your lack of cultural chops or cultural credentials.’ It’s more of a generous offer to share knowledge.” — Ana Castro

On their epic road trip and sibling squabbles

“I was disenfranchised with everything — with the state of our country, everything about myself and my career. I told Lydia, ‘I want to see unrivaled, untamed natural beauty to remind me of some sense of place in this world for us as a human species, but I have a problem. I hate driving. so would you drive me to California?’ I had to do a residency in Healdsburg. Lydia said she’d done that drive before, we take the I-10, we’re there in two days in Los Angeles. I was like, no, I want to go to Utah.’ — Ana Castro

“We drove 11,000 miles. The first night, I drove 14 hours. My whole thing with Ana was I will drive 11,000 miles, but I need you to keep me entertained. I need you to talk to me. It was a moment that we knew we had to have because we were a little disconnected from each other and we needed time to reconnect. There is nothing to do but talk to each other. I was like, I don’t want to listen to podcasts; I just want to listen to you, and I want you to listen to me. For the first two or three days, it was great, but then she got bored. She started jumping on her phone — work calls and doing this and that and laughing. I was like, ‘What are you laughing at?’ And she was like, ‘Oh, this meme.’  At one point, I said, ‘Ana, just please pay attention to me.’ She fell asleep. I’m trying to wake her up and she wouldn’t, so I just pulled to the side of the road and said, ‘Get out of my car… I’m done.’” — Lydia Castro 

“I just wanted to be surrounded by nature, and Lydia was like, ‘OK, that’s enough nature now. Let’s go to Las Vegas.’” — Ana Castro

About the podcast

Food & Wine has led the conversation around food, drinks, and hospitality in America and around the world since 1978. Tinfoil Swans continues that legacy with a new series of intimate, informative, surprising, and uplifting interviews with the biggest names in the culinary industry and beyond, sharing never-before-heard stories about the successes, struggles, and fork-in-the-road moments that made these personalities who they are today.

This season, you’ll hear from icons and innovators like Roy Choi, Byron Gomez, Vikas Khanna, Romy Gill, Matthew Lillard, Ana and Lydia Castro, Laurie Woolever, Karen Akunowicz, Hawa Hassan, Dr. Arielle Johnson, Dr. Jessica B. Harris, Samin Nosrat, Curtis Stone, Kristen Kish, Padma Lakshmi, Ayesha Curry, Antoni Porowski, Run the Jewels, Chris Shepherd, Regina King, Tristen Epps, June Rodil, and other special guests going deep with host Kat Kinsman on their formative experiences; the dishes and meals that made them; their joys, doubts and dreams; and what’s on the menu in the future. Tune in for a feast that’ll feed your brain and soul — and plenty of wisdom and quotable morsels to savor.

New episodes drop every Tuesday. Listen and follow on: Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you listen.

These interview excerpts have been edited for clarity.

Editor’s Note: The transcript for download does not go through our standard editorial process and may contain inaccuracies and grammatical errors.