Volume 7: What Comes Next
After the closing. The announcement. And everything still becoming.
Sunday, March 15, 2026 ·
Welcome to the 8,069 souls at this table ·
(please share with friends)
A Letter from the Founder
Happy Sunday.
Last night, as I was writing my thoughts about the days leading up to the closing, I promised you a big announcement. So here it goes.
But before I get to that, let me go back for a moment. Back to 2020.
When we started República, we had one direction we wanted to go in — and that was to get the fundamentals right. I talk about fundamentals a lot. It’s something I tell my young team and young chefs all the time.
Figure out how to do the things right.
Before you start adding unnecessary flowers, radishes, pickled things, and all the little tricks people like to put on plates today — get the fundamentals right.
Get the corn right.
Nixtamalize your own corn. Even if it’s just to make a thick-ass tortilla, learn how to do it. Don’t rely on someone else. Understand that process.
Work within the seasons.
Work within the history.
Learn how to make beans the right way. And the right way might not be your mom’s way or your grandmother’s way — that’s just their way. The real work is understanding the history behind it: how those ingredients were broken down, processed, cooked, and carried forward over time.
Learn that.
Learn where this food belongs.
And just as important; who it belongs to.
That was always the idea. That’s how we started.
We started with quesadillas. Then we did tacotes. For a while, before we had any grand idea of what República would become, our evening menu was simple:
Botanas.
A quesadilla Oaxaqueña.
A taco Yucateco.
A memela Veracruzana.
A paste Hidalguense.
Tacotes Jaliscienses.
Simple things. But we wanted to do them the way they were done there. Because we knew that if the corn was right — if the corn was treated the way it should be — that would be everything.
And so that became the foundation for everything we did. It became the reason we cooked. We added a really great pozole to the rotation. And all of a sudden something beautiful started happening. People weren’t just coming in for lunch; they were coming in for nostalgia. Families came. Kids came. People told stories.
“This is what your grandma used to cook for me.”
“This reminds me of my childhood.”
There was nothing particularly complicated about the cuisine. Yet there was so much complexity in the intentionality behind it.
Even something like what we called a taco Yucateco; which was really just a cochinita pibil taco, because yes, I know there’s no such thing as a taco Yucateco — but even there, the idea was simple:
The corn.
The cochinita pibil cooked in sour oranges and achiote paste, wrapped in banana leaves.
Black refried beans.
Pickled onion in hibiscus.
Slices of avocado.
And habaneros, obviously.
That was it. We made sure those flavors were right before we did anything else. Those toppings were never perverted with sour cream or lettuce or anything goofy like a pickled jalapeño, or some cilantro based green sauce that didn’t belong. Everything had intention.
So why am I telling you all this?
Simple.
Because for the next few weeks, we’re bringing back the old daytime concept. You’ve been asking for it. And now you have it.
República Returns — Daytime
Thursday – Sunday · 11:00 a.m. – 2:30 p.m.
Quesadillas. Tacotes. Guisados. Pozole.
Maybe a surprise or two along the way.
No timeline. No promises. As long as you keep showing up, we’ll keep doing it right.
It’s our way of keeping the space alive. Keeping the idea alive. And keeping our hearts open.
It might be two weeks. It might be two months. It might be two years. But for as long as we do it, we’ll make sure we do it right.
And if you miss out — well, you miss out. Because that’s all we’re doing for now.
— The rest of the table —
Her Way — Vol. 2
Maya Dalla Valle
Legacy, land, and what it means to earn your own name.
You may already know the wine. Maya — black glass, black label, a single word in red — is one of the most coveted bottles in the world. Cult status. Perfect scores. Multi-year waiting lists.
What you may not know is the woman behind it. Maya Dalla Valle grew up on that hillside above Oakville as the daughter of two immigrants who came to Napa with a dream that had nothing to do with cult wine. She lost her father at eight years old. Watched her mother — alone, grieving, still learning English — quietly refuse to walk away. Then went out into the world — Cornell, Tuscany, Argentina, Bordeaux, Château Latour, Pétrus — and came back home ready to earn her place.
This is a story about stewardship, humility, and the particular kind of strength it takes to not change everything, when changing everything would have been so much easier. The full audio lives on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Before you listen, read Kelsey’s companion piece: When Napa Became Cult.
Sorbido
My Favorite Brew: A Women Producer-Grown Colombian Coffee
Jacob Abea on the coffee he loves making for guests at Cadejo.
A washed Caturra-Castillo blend from Huila, Colombia. Grown at 1,700–1,950 masl in clay and mineral-rich soil by a collective of 20 women producers. Dried in solar beds. Notes of blackberry, nugget, and honeycomb. Subtly complex in the way that the best things are.
Jacob Abea — barista at Cadejo PDX — found it the way most good things get found in this community: through an enthusiastic friend, shared with love. His point isn’t that this coffee is rare or exclusive. It’s that you don’t always need something exotic to find something worth slowing down for. Trends change constantly in coffee. The ones who keep tasting are the ones who keep finding.
TODOS Media — MEMORABLE
Episode 1: Foundation
Before you know what you are doing.
In early 2022, a team of five flew to Oaxaca with cameras they’d bought themselves, no distribution plan, no seasoned crew, no infrastructure. Just belief. Pre-production meetings around a kitchen table every morning. Then showing up and shooting. Learning everything on the fly.
The footage sat for over two years while restaurants were built, chaos was navigated, and a platform was built to hold it. Then Mauricio — a former bartender turned editor — opened the files and found the spine. When they finally submitted it to festivals, it won. Best Screenplay at Open World Toronto. Best Director, Best Feature Film, Best Cinematography at the Georgia Latino International Film Festival.
They weren’t that far off. They were just early. Episode One of Three is out now. If it resonates, become a paid subscriber and watch the full series.
Some weeks you close something. Some weeks you open something. This week, somehow, we did both.
The daytime concept starts soon. The writing keeps going. The work keeps going. If you believe what we’re building here matters — the stories, the series, the platform that makes all of it possible — become a paid subscriber.
Tell someone about this table. Show up when the doors open.
There’s no timeline. Just intention.
Thank you for being here. — Angel