ABOUT

Chef,

Tiara Darnell

. . .is a Washington, DC-born, ancestrally-trained chef, culinary griot, and founder of Blaxicocina—the first Black American soul food concept in Mexico City (2023–2025).

After a global media career that included a role at Spotify, Tiara took a leap of faith and pivoted toward her passions: food, travel, and creating nourishing spaces where people feel at home and loved on through her cooking.

She speaks English, Spanish, and Portuguese, has traveled to over 35 countries, and has lived in Mexico, Brazil, Colombia, Morocco, and Oregon’s Willamette Valley—where she deepened her appreciation for wine, craft cider, and cooking with seasonal, locally grown ingredients.

Her culinary journey began in high school selling homemade cookies to fund a trip to East Africa, followed by a homemade goat milk ice cream venture in farmers markets in Western New York, and later, Soul Food Sunday pop-ups hosted out of her tiny apartment in CDMX, a precursor to what would later become Blaxicocina.

At the heart of her work is a commitment to creating delicious, soulful experiences that connect cultures and celebrate the legacy of the African diaspora, particularly in the Americas.

Soul food chingona

The concept, “Soul Food Chingona,” defines Tiara’s culinary point of view at the intersection of Black American and Mexican culinary traditions. This vision centers the little-known history between escaped and formerly enslaved Black Americans from the Southern U.S. who resiliently settled and culturally integrated in areas along the northern Mexican border while still preserving elements of their culture, including culinary traditions from the U.S. and the Caribbean by way of Africa. As the concept has evolved, it has expanded and made room at the table for influences that celebrate the culinary heritage of Afro descendent peoples from across the Americas, particularly in Brazil and Colombia.

Blaxicocina

From 2023-2025 Tiara was the chef-owner behind Blaxicocina, Mexico City, Mexico’s very first Black American soul food restaurant.

The restaurant’s menu offered a modern interpretation of that cooking, offering dishes rooted in the Southern African American culinary tradition with Mexican ingredients and toquecitos of Mexican street food influences to honor the shared history between both peoples. While fried dishes like chicken were among our most popular offerings—comforting and familiar to many—we also relied heavily on techniques like roasting, pickling, smoking, and braising to showcase depth, tradition, and the adaptability of Black American Soul Food.