Imagine this. You move to a new country, open a business, and immediately start trashing the local staples while hawking your overpriced version of what real food should be. This isn’t a rejected Borat subplot. It’s the bewildering saga of Richard Hart, the British baker making headlines after dismissing Mexico’s vibrant bread culture as basically nonexistent. On a podcast last spring, Hart took shots at Mexican wheat quality, called beloved torta rolls ugly, and declared the entire nation’s relationship with bread sorely lacking, which, for the record, is like saying Italy needs to figure out this pasta thing. The comments, predictably, exploded across Mexican social media like a piñata stuffed with indignation. And honey, I don’t blame them.

Hart’s now viral takedown is more than just a foot-in-mouth moment. It’s the latest case of Western culinary gatekeeping stomping through cultures with the subtlety of a Netflix reality show contestant. The outrage isn’t because he dislikes bolillo rolls. It’s how comfortably he slots into a long tradition of Europeans reducing non-Western food traditions to uncivilized curiosities needing their enlightened intervention. Never mind that Mexico boasts over 600 distinct bread varieties, from the sugar dusted conchas that turn breakfast into art to the reverence of pan de muerto baked to honor ancestors. Calling this rich tapestry shallow is like saying the Louvre has a few doodles worth glancing at.

Here’s the kicker. This man opened his bakery, Green Rhino, right in Mexico City, catering to wealthier locals and expats while positioning himself as the arbiter of proper bread. The economic irony here is chef’s kiss levels of thick. Like a tourist complaining the wifi’s too slow while hiking Machu Picchu, Hart lectures on quality while benefiting from the very market he maligns. One TikToking pastry chef nailed it, comparing him to Christopher Columbus discovering bread. Again. Which feels fitting since colonialism’s playbook always included dismissing indigenous practices while extracting value.

Let’s get personal for a sec, because bread memories hit different. When I first visited Oaxaca years ago, jetlagged and wide eyed, I stumbled into a panadería at dawn. The air was flour and caramelized sugar. Vendors laid out trays of orejas so flaky they could double as lace, and there was this glorious specimen called a cemita piled with avocado, meat, and cheese, sandwiched in a sesame seeded bun that laughed in the face of sandwich mediocrity. That cemita wasn’t just fuel. It was a handshake from generations past saying Welcome, eat, be full. To dismiss that lineage as not real bread culture? Baby, that’s not just wrong. It’s spiritually malnourished.

The funniest part of this whole mess is Hart positioning himself as Mexico’s carb savior when the country birthed nixtamalization, the ancient process that transforms corn into nourishing masa, literally revolutionizing agriculture millennia before Europeans stopped eating turnip gruel. But sure, tell us more about your sourdough starter, colonizer. As historian Rachel Laudan notes in Cuisine and Empire, Europe spent centuries dismissing Mexican staples like maize as peasant food unfit for polite society, despite it sustaining civilizations more advanced than their own. Some biases, it seems, rise better than yeast.

Let’s address the gentrification flamingo in the room. Mexico City has become a hotspot for digital nomads and foreign entrepreneurs. Rents in trendy colonias like Roma and Condesa have doubled, pricing out families who’ve lived there generations. Against that backdrop, Hart rolling up to sell artisanal loaves costing ten times a bolillo feels like a metaphor wearing neon signage. When Rodrigo Sierra, the blogger whose takedown vid went mega viral, points out Hart shaming affordable everyday bread reveals elitist myopia, he’s not wrong. Fancy bakeries are lovely luxuries. But dismissing the bolillo that feeds millions daily as ugly because it prioritizes function over $15 Instagram aesthetics? That’s not just tone deaf. It’s crustier than a day old baguette.

Can we also unpack how male European chefs keep pulling this nonsense? Jamie Oliver gatecrashing paella with chorizo. Gordon ‘The Volcano’ Ramsay turning pho into a shouting match. The Great Carbonara Cream Debacle of 2023 literally causing Italian parliamentarians to clutch their pearls. Look. Fusion and innovation can be brilliant. But there’s a chasmic difference between creative riffing and dismissing foundational dishes because they don’t align with your narrow Eurocentric rubric. The unspoken hierarchy here says Western techniques are universally correct while other culinary traditions must justify their legitimacy. At this point, we need a banned ingredient list for visiting chefs. Chorizo, cream, and unsolicited lectures on authenticity.

There’s a scene in Pixar’s Coco where little Miguel sneaks pan de muerto from an altar. His abuela catches him, scolding that the dead’s food isn’t for playing. But she smiles secretly, watching him savor it. That simple exchange gets why this matters. Bread isn’t calories here. It’s threaded through rituals celebrating life and loss, ancestors and anniversaries. When Hart bemoans a so called absence of bread culture, he’s revealing he never saw it at all. Or worse, deemed it illegible.

Hart’s apology tour involved requisite Instagram remorse about being a respectful guest while slightly blaming passion for his outburst. Sigh. Here’s a hot take. The fact he’s using Mexican labor and ingredients while mocking their traditions accidentally shows the appeal he’s desperate to dismiss. Want proof? Pop into any of CDMX’s thriving panaderías where conchas and cuernos fly off trays faster than the cronut ever did. Unlike one sad croissant in his East London days. Allegedly. IYKYK.

Where does this leave us? I hope humbled. Hopeful. Maybe hungry for reconciliation tacos. But mostly, with renewed respect for culinary guardians fighting erasure one gorgeous, imperfect, soul feeding bolillo at a time. Because the thing about ugly bread? It’s never tasted so deliciously defiant.