Chefs Transport Pre-Columbian Cooking Traditions to Modern Menus

“When I think about pre-Columbian cooking, I want to know what it’s like to sit at a royal table of Aztec times,” says Andrés Padilla, chef de cuisine at Chicago’s Topolobampo. “Like, what would be on that table?”

It’s a question on which he’s well poised to speculate, having frequently drawn inspiration from indigenous Mexican cuisine over his near-decade at Topolobampo—the pièce de...