Our logo began with a tile, a tortilla and a handful of ingredients.
I designed it when we opened our first kitchen and were delivering heat-and-eat taco kits across Sydney, before Flavours of Mexico grew into catering. At the time, I was deeply in love with Hector and with the life we were building together. The design represented Puebla, the food he had grown up with, and my own growing connection to Mexico through him.
It was also designed to look different on purpose.
Our logo began with a tile, a tortilla and a handful of ingredients.
The Story Behind the Flavours of Mexico Logo
I designed it when we opened our first kitchen and were delivering heat-and-eat taco kits, long before catering became part of Flavours of Mexico. At the time, I was deeply in love with Hector and with the life we were building together. I wanted the design to hold some of that: Puebla, the food he grew up with, and my own growing connection to Mexico through him.
It was also designed to look different on purpose.
Look at the imagery commonly used for Mexican restaurants and you will often see the same shortcuts: a sombrero, an oversized moustache, or a cactus in the desert. They are familiar, but they tell us very little about Mexican food, its regional traditions or the places it comes from.
I wanted our logo to begin somewhere more meaningful. Its visual language comes from Puebla’s Talavera tiles, while its pattern is built from ingredients that form the foundation of Mexican cooking.
Talavera and Puebla
The blue pattern in the logo is inspired by Talavera, the hand-painted ceramic tradition closely associated with Puebla, Hector’s home city.
Talavera is part of Puebla’s character. You see it on the façades of old buildings, in churches, around doorways, on street signs and in homes. The blue-and-white patterns are detailed and distinctive, but they are also part of everyday life. They belong to the city.
Puebla is one of Mexico’s great food cities, known for dishes such as mole poblano, chiles en nogada and tacos árabes, as well as its markets, sweets and home cooking. Using Talavera as the starting point for the logo connected the business to a real place: Hector’s home city, and a city that has become part of our family story.
The ingredients in the design
The logo is not simply a Talavera-inspired pattern. It is made up of ingredients that appear again and again in Mexican kitchens.
The large yellow circle represents the tortilla. A proper corn tortilla is soft, warm and central to everyday eating in Mexico. It becomes a taco, wraps around a filling, sits alongside beans or stew, and is often used to scoop up the last of a sauce. It is one of the simplest foods on the table, but it carries an enormous amount of history.
The green leaves are coriander. Fresh coriander is scattered over tacos, stirred through salsas, added to soups and served with grilled meat. It brings freshness and a little sharpness to dishes rich with slow-cooked meat, beans or chile.
The small brown seeds are cumin. Cumin has a warm, earthy flavour and is used in marinades, beans, adobos and meat dishes. It often works quietly in the background, adding depth without taking over the plate.
The tiny orange seeds around the border are annatto seeds. Annatto is used to make achiote paste, which gives food its warm orange-red colour and mild, earthy flavour. Achiote paste is used in dishes such as cochinita pibil from the Yucatán, where pork is marinated, wrapped in banana leaves and slowly cooked until tender.
The pink bulbs represent Spanish onions, often called red onions in Australia. They are used raw in salsas and garnishes, pickled for tacos, and cooked into sauces and stews. Their sweetness and bite are part of the everyday rhythm of Mexican food.
The red chiles represent the extraordinary range of chiles used across Mexico. They are not simply there to make food hot. Fresh and dried chiles bring fruitiness, smoke, heat, bitterness and depth. A jalapeño, poblano, guajillo and chipotle each do very different jobs in the kitchen.
The white bulbs are garlic. It may be the least showy ingredient in the design, but it is one of the most dependable. Garlic begins countless salsas, marinades, soups, moles and braises.
Finally, the two-toned green circles are limes. A squeeze of lime can change a taco, a bowl of pozole or a plate of seafood in seconds. It adds freshness and acidity, and it is one of those small finishing touches that makes a dish feel complete.
Why this became the Flavours of Mexico logo
The logo is a small introduction to what Flavours of Mexico is about.
For first-time travellers making the journey to Mexico from further afield, a trip like this begins long before departure day. It takes time, planning and, for many people, at least one connecting flight. That is part of why food becomes such an important part of the anticipation.
You begin wondering what you will eat beyond the Mexican food you know at home. You start seeing the names of dishes you have not tried yet. You picture markets, taquerías, long lunches and the meals that will stay with you long after the journey home.
Then you return home, and the food becomes part of what you miss.
You might look for proper corn tortillas, try to recreate a salsa you ate in Puebla, or remember the lime, coriander and chile on a taco you ate standing at a street stall. Cooking those dishes at home cannot replace the trip, but it can bring back a small part of it.
That is why these ingredients sit inside the logo. They represent the food we cook, the places it comes from, and the memories people bring home with them.
The next time you see the Flavours of Mexico logo, have another look. You will find Puebla in the Talavera blue, a tortilla at its centre, and the ingredients that make Mexican cooking what it is.
Explore the recipes before your trip, or when you are home and already missing the food.