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Photos by Elena Kosharny
Chef Tyler Henry’s journey to his restaurant CHOZA, located in Mexico City, has been shaped by years of culinary exploration. CHOZA blends bold flavors with an intuitive approach to cooking as an expressionistic art form. Music is integral to the dining experience, with Henry DJing and curating playlists that mirror the cuisine’s multi-sensory ethos.
TYLER HENRY FOR CORRIDOR | TYLER HENRY FOR CORRIDOR | TYLER HENRY FOR CORRIDOR | TYLER HENRY FOR CORRIDOR
How did the concept for your restaurant CHOZA develop and come to be?
Conceptually — the root of CHOZA is a project of many years of exploring the question ¨WHAT IS DELICIOUSNESS?!?!?¨
It's a question, passion, and way of life that began with my cofounder Hank O´Donnell and me in New Orleans many years back, and continued through our time exploring life together in NYC… and into my career as a cook diving into the food and culture in places like Lima, Istanbul, Oaxaca, Chiang Mai, and of course many years here in Mexico City.
The restaurant experience is the essence of our answers to that question, with zero attention to conforming to how things are currently being done in the restaurant world, and often with the goal of questioning the standard in the search for a more compelling way of sharing deliciousness.
Deliciousness covers a wide spectrum of things in our perspective — eating with your hands, unabashedly spiced food, the smell of a wood fire with rosemary smoke, a gorgeous Nils Frahm solo, diving deep into the layers of a Murakami novel, etc etc … deliciousness is broad, and something deep in the senses of human identity and soul.
I started with pop-up events in Mexico City, then began more formally in the pandemic as curry kits I made by hand and sold out of my apartment. That then became a once-a-week pop-up at a fixed restaurant location, which soon landed itself in the chaotic multi-floor experience we have now.
Music is very integrated into the experience at CHOZA. How does music influence your experience in the kitchen?
Inseparable! That's a good question. Music encompasses a level of intuition, flow, mastery, spontaneity, and artistic expression that is precisely what we strive for in the way we shape and present flavors. Going back to deliciousness, a beautiful song and the feeling it invokes listening to it shares a whole lot with a beautiful dish and the feeling it invokes eating it.
On a deeper level, in the CHOZA kitchen, we cook in a way that channels synesthesia — with all of the senses wide open, and with an open mind to having them overlap in a more psychedelic way. I want to hear the way a curry paste tastes, and imagine the energy of a 19th-century spice caravan with Persian rugs and opium when I am grinding it for hours in the molcajete…spices can be warm or cold, and each spice occupies a distinct color in the mind and in the palette. Aromatics have personalities, much like the personality of an instrument in a jazz band. Having music that encourages and contributes to an open-minded cooking style is essential.
Lastly, what can we expect in the playlist you curated for Corridor and what is the concept?
It's a fun journey through surreal sounds that have been getting a lot of playtime on the turntables both at my house and in CHOZA over the last couple of months… nearly all of these tracks are from my record collection and represent the type of selection I´d play on a November Sunday afternoon as the sun begins to set into candlelight dinner with a packed house… ambient textures, leftfield dub, psych folk sounds, shimmering jazz and ethereal gems from all corners of the world.
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Find out more about CHOZA here.
