At Hartwood, the restaurant we run in Tulum, Mexico, our cooking isn’t complicated. That’s because our kitchen—humid, smoky, crowded, exposed to the elements—can’t pull off anything that calls for extreme precision or control.

‍But the food we produce is complex because we use what’s around us to build flavor. Every dish has a balance of sweet and spicy, fresh and dried, oil and acid. Some of our flavoring elements are very simple: honeys, salts, fresh and dried herbs, fresh and dried chiles. Some take more work. The pickles need time to sit, and the three oils we use—roasted chile oil, roasted garlic oil, and roasted onion oil—take some effort to prepare, but they’re essential to our cooking.

Here are some of the ingredients you’ll see filling our kitchen crates, lining our pantry shelves, and hanging from the rafters to dry. Our advice for finding the less familiar ones: almost every town now has a Mexican grocery store. Also, many of the fruits that grow in Mexico also grow in Asia, so if you can’t find them at a Whole Foods or Mexican market, check out your local Chinatown. Before you start ordering online, get to know your community.

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