Maribel Aldaco

The Path

Pastry starts here as a technical discipline, not decoration. As an intern at Merotoro in Mexico City, Mexico, Maribel Aldaco entered a service environment where consistency and timing are part of the job from the first day. The move to Martín Berasategui in Spain as a Pastry Chef trainee added another layer of rigor, with training in a house associated with exacting standards. In both settings, the work would have centered on the same fundamentals: control, repetition, attention to detail, and the ability to finish a plate cleanly. A sequence of Pastry Chef roles then extended that foundation across different kitchens. Maribel Aldaco worked as Pastry Chef at The Nomad in New York, USA, then Pastry Chef at Blue Hill at Stone Barns in New York, USA, and later Pastry Chef at Quince in San Francisco, USA. The progression maps a career built through movement, but the throughline stays clear: pastry handled with restraint, structure, and close attention to ingredients. At Fauna (since 2017), Maribel Aldaco works as executive Pastry Chef and co-owner. Ownership changes the scope of the role, but not the craft at its center: pastry folded into a broader kitchen conversation, with both creative and operational responsibility attached to the same standard.

The Work Today

At Fauna in Baja California, Mexico, Maribel Aldaco’s specialty is pastry and desserts. The work is grounded in the relationship between ingredient, place, environment, and texture, with childhood flavors held as a recurring point of reference. That balance keeps the pastry from becoming purely formal; it stays connected to memory while remaining exact in execution. The method is responsive rather than mechanical. Ingredients, surroundings, and texture are treated as part of the same decision-making process, and the dessert is built from that set of priorities. The result is a practice that stays contemporary in form while remaining anchored to personal memory and to the specifics of place.

In Their Words “Pastry was something I always liked; the recipes caught my attention, playing with ingredients, making different things, and the magic of putting something in the oven and seeing how it transformed was incredible.” “I am always inspired by the ingredient, the place, the environment, and the textures I can create and combine in a dish, but I also focus on flavors, especially the flavors of my childhood.”

Acclaim

Maribel's honors include Latin America's Best Pastry Chef (2023).