A cultural desert

Prickly pear wine, marigold vinaigrette and toasted Oaxacan grasshoppers are among the unusual ingredients that feature on the ‘pre-conquest’ tasting menu, which is inspired by the landscape and traditional cuisines of Marfa.

The small desert city is globally renowned as an arts and culture hub, but the surrounding desert landscape is unable to sustain many varieities of animal and plant life.

Barnette was inspired to develop the menu following a hike around the neighbourhood with Lebermann, where they found glyphs and arrowheads from ancient civilisations. ‘It came out of these conversations where he was evolving these ideas about where we were and what it was like thousands of years ago,’ Lebermann told The New York Times.