“Puebla can be breathtaking. Slipping past the town’s industrial outskirts, perhaps past some of the congested downtown streets around the market, you easily arrive at the 17th century Capilla del Rosario, the richest expression of gold-leafed Mexican baroque—shimmering, vibrating, an indescribable visual symphony of thousands.

Why introduce a menu of Puebla inspirations with architecture? Because as that baroque chapel was being carved and gold-leafed, Mexico’s famous mole was being invented just blocks away at Santa Rosa Convent. While the blackish-brown sauce may look simple, a single taste reveals it to be as baroquely ornamented as the Capilla del Rosario: a host of dried chiles thickened with nuts and seeds (and bread and tortillas), sweetened with dried and fresh fruit, enriched with tomatoes and tomatillos, gilded with chocolate and a collection of spices from far-off lands. Puebla, one of Mexico’s most deeply rooted Spanish settlements, lives its baroque soul daily in the churches, in the ornamented sweets, in the Talavera pottery, in the moles.”