ABOUT
Tiara Darnell
I’m Tiara Darnell, an ancestrally-trained chef, writer, culinary tourism entrepreneur, and multimedia-creative. I cook contemporary Black American Soul Food inspired by the flavors of Afro Latin America and the Caribbean. Through my blog and freelance writing, I tell stories that reflect my lived experience and what’s inspiring me along my travels.
I learned to cook in kitchens shaped by the matriarchs in my family. Kitchens where food nourished family, as well as friends and neighbors. My relationship to Latin America began early. In high school, I became obsessed with Buena Vista Social Club’s timeless song, El Cuarto de Tula. It wasn’t just the song that stuck with me, but also what it opened up for me about Blackness, rhythm, migration, and shared histories across the Americas.
That curiosity deepened over time into lived experience: Over the last several years, I’ve traveled, lived, and cooked across Mexico, Brazil, and Colombia, hosting everything from small gatherings to pop-ups to opening Blaxicocina, my first restaurant, and a historic, culinary and cultural destination in Mexico City, Mexico.
Currently, I’m based in Cali, Colombia where my work centers on developing culinary tourism opportunities and cultural experiences that connect visitors to the city’s foodways, music, and neighborhoods from a unique Afro-diasporic perspective. You’re welcome at my table anytime!
blaxicocina
Blaxicocina (2023-2025) was Mexico City, Mexico’s very first brick and mortar Black American Soul Food restaurant. But more than that, it was a community space and cultural juggernaut, a place where Black Americans, Chilangos (Mexican locals) and anyone else with an appreciation of Black and Mexican cultures could gather, eat, and feel the cultures reflected in the food, the music, and the shared language of the space.
A testament to taking risks and refusing to let dreams remain dreams, Blaxicocina began as a pop-up in Tiara’s tiny apartment. It was a creative outlet after she was laid off from her corporate job in the wake of the Pandemic. Though the physical space has closed, Blaxicocina continues as a living project, one that has evolved to include offerings that reflect a broader appreciation for the culinary heritage of Latin America and the Caribbean.
CONTEXT & CARE
Tourism is not neutral. It reshapes neighborhoods, raises prices, strains infrastructure and a warming planet, and can displace the very communities that make a place worth visiting.
Foreign-owned and foreign-facing businesses have historically contributed to these harms—sometimes unintentionally, sometimes willfully.
Blaxicocina exists with this reality top of mind. That said, the goal is to operate with cultural humility, and deep respect and understanding for the places we impact. We recognize that we are guests, moving within living histories, not consumers entitled to them.
In practice, this means prioritizing local collaborations and partnerships, sourcing ingredients and products from within the local economy, paying more than fair rates to local contractors, and designing experiences that circulate money within the community rather than siphoning it out. It’s about being in conversation with place, not trying to control it.