As the daily glow of sunshine fades, we festoon the darkness with twinkling lights. Bold flavor can light things up, too, adding even more brightness to our year-end celebrations.

That’s why, for our final menu of 2025, we are featuring moles, those complex, flavor-packed, uniquely Mexican sauces that spell festivity whenever they’re offered.

Mexico leads the world in having mastered a brilliant fusion of flavors. Some moles—I’m thinking here mostly of Puebla’s mole poblano and Oaxaca’s mole negro—weave together nearly three dozen ingredients, each carefully toasted or roasted, blended to silkiness, then cooked together in a time-honored progression that yields a flavor that’s uniquely greater than the sum of its parts. Achieving this alchemy requires well learned skill and several days of preparation.

While most of those dark moles combine indigenous ingredients with ones that immigrated from Europe and Southeast Asia, yellow and green moles have been crafted for centuries from the purely native bounty. No less special, these inimitable sauces draw attention to even more ancient tradition.

We’re excited to share with you celebratory dishes we’ve created for the season, preparations that we hope delight and surprise you while offering the warm embrace of flavors Mexico’s cooks have perfected over centuries.