Back in December 2021, I said to Don Day’s Wife, “A pizza parlor with no pasta and no delivery. Not a snowball’s chance in hell it’ll survive. I give it one year, absolute max!”

The place I was talking about was called Bennu. They recently celebrated their third anniversary. When four of us went there for dinner last week, the place wasn’t just surviving it was thriving.

Arriving at Bennu for the first time is a bit of an adventure.

“OK, that’s the correct number. 20, right? And we’re definitely on Jesus, right?

To the left of the door it looks like it’s the entrance to a business called Roma Quince. But on the right are the words Daniela Busto Maya. I’ve wondered how many people have walked away without even sticking their head inside the door and spotting the easeled blackboard with the word Bennu on it.

The chef/owner of Bennu is a very likeable guy called Pablo Gil with a deep passion for and dedication to his business. I asked him about the lack of a sign out front. He told me:

“San Miguel centro is a UNESCO town, so therefore there are so many rules and permits you need. This is my first project and when I started, there where so many things that I needed to do to open the restaurant, the bureaucratic process for the sign was getting too much of my attention, so instead of focusing time and energy on the sign I spent it in getting the basics as right as I could, the kitchen, the menu and the food..sometimes you need to be flexible to achieve your goals, but still I hope to bring the Bennu sign to life some day in the future, for now it has become part of the charm.”

The interior of the restaurant occupies a small courtyard and a couple of side rooms. The distressed walls add an antique but fashionable look. The mismatched furniture gives it a frugal, but pleasant casual look. Some might think it’s crowded. Some may find it cozy.

Bennu’s menu starts with olives. If there are olives on a menu and Don Day’s Wife is there, that’s what we start with. And when a woman who grows and brines her own olives says they’re good, they’re very good.

We ordered a glass of white for Lorain and a bottle of Xtinto, a Tempranillo blend from the Valle de Guadalupe for the other three of us to share and moved down the menu.

On the next section are what I might call Appetizers. Bennu calls them Vegetales. When you read the choices below you understand why. There’s not a piece of meat or fish to be found on the list.

Despite the absence of proteins, all five starters were considered by we four carnivores. Knowing pizzas were to come, we decided to all share just one, the cauliflower.

I’m a big fan of cochinita pibil but I’d only ever had this legendary sauce from the Yucatan with pork. Chef Pablo’s recipe worked. It worked well and the serving of cauliflower was size XL, enough for a good portion for the four of us.

I asked Chef Pablo about Bennu’s slant towards vegetarian cuisine. He told me, “I think vegetables are amazing, there are so many different things you can explore around them. Besides, they go so well with pizza. I grew up in a time and place where meat had to be the main dish, it was a symbol of status. Today in Mexico, in general, we have a very meat focused diet, but I think we need to move to what Dan Barber, a chef that I admire, calls the third plate.”

“It’s a cuisine rooted in seasonal productivity, natural livestock rhythms, whole-grains, and small portions of free-range meat.”

By now, the first of many street musicians had entered the restaurant. There are a lot of San Miguel restaurants that don’t tolerate their presence. Bennu seems to welcome them. We more than do.

Pizzas were next on Bennu’s menu and, on three of the five offered, yes, there was meat. But not, I noticed, the holy grail of all pizza toppings.

I told the chef I have kids who might walk from Bennu if they saw no pepperoni on the menu. I asked, “Why is it absent?”

“Yes, we have countless people who sit down then leave Bennu because we don’t have pepperoni or Hawaiian pizza”, the chef told me, “but we have so many more come back for our unique pizzas.” 

“You have to offer people something they want, but you also have to be true to what you do. We have some people that don’t like the style of pizza we do, and that is ok, we cannot be liked by everyone, and we cannot please every palate, but there have been a good amount of people that have told us that this is the best pizza they’ve tried in their lives and that is amazing to hear.”

“So we are ok with accepting that some people will walk away. It’s like music, everyone has their own tastes and that is beautiful.”

Our tastes led us to the classic Neapolitan pizza, the margarita, plus the one that would fulfill our meat fix, the pizza del dia with prosciutto and arugula.

A good Neapolitan style pizza has a thin crust with a bit of crisp. The edges should be light and puffy with a hint of char. An A+ to Bennu’s.

The menu mentioned a specific Mexican salt was used. When I asked Pablo Gil what was special about it, he brought some out for me to try.

It was definitely different, mostly because it was less salty than what I was used to.

On the pizza menu, you will also see the word sourdough.

I asked the chef, “Is it about taste? Texture? Health?”

He replied, “Yes, our pizzas are made with sourdough and long fermentations. The taste is better but also, when you eat it you feel light, it is easier to digest.”

“I have a question I keep asking myself over many years, as the allergies to gluten have grown, and that question is: Have we become allergic to wheat, or with what we have done to it? The faster production, faster processing, pesticides, etc. I don’t have the exact answer, but I think it is what we have done to wheat. As humans we have eaten wheat for so many years, but the process has changed. Sourdough reminds me every day that sometimes we need to slow down to get great results.”

A good margarita pizza has lots of mozzarella. Bennu’s margarita did have lots of cheese but the taste of the basil was a little lost. A few more leaves, especially if they were the larger, Genovese style, would have helped.

Our second pizza was very well topped. Plaudits to Chef Pablo for investing in a very good prosciutto crudo and not using the dryer, chewier serrano that often finds its way on to San Miguel pizzas.

I had stopped into Bennu earlier in the day to make sure they had room for us. I asked the server if Pablo Gil was there. 

“Yes he is”, he said, “but the chef is eating and I’d hate to disturb him. Is it important?”

Respect. For the boss. And he for the employees. It’s very evident at Bennu. If you go to Bennu’s website, you will see individual photos of each of the people who contribute to the restaurant’s success. At other restaurants, they might be revising the site weekly just to keep up with the turnover.

“At Bennu, we seek to develop great human beings in order to do extraordinary things”, the almost ever-smiling chef told me.

“I believe that today, more than ever, people in the food industry, both chefs and restaurateurs, have a very important responsibility in which they must prioritize nurturing people, taking care of their employees and the environment.”

“Our projects and products are created to pamper you with each experience or bite, hoping you get closer to the extraordinary world behind the kitchen.”

We had one more desire to be pampered. We waivered as to whether we had room for one dessert between the four of us then, when we couldn’t decide which one of the two being offered, ordered them both. They were both a little different than what you might expect in a primarily pizza restaurant. They were both excellent.

I had one more question for Pablo Gil.

Walk past Domino’s and you usually see about ten motos. Walk past Pizza Hut and you may see five. Walk past Bennu and you won’t see a single delivery vehicle.

I said to Pablo, “Most pizza restaurants wouldn’t survive without delivery. Yet Bennu doesn’t even offer it. Tell me about that.”

“Doing delivery would take attention, and we want to give that attention to our guests, deliver the best experience for them”, said the chef.

“Yes, delivery can be a very good source of income if you are focused on doing delivery, but making a pizza that is made for delivery is completely different. Our pizzas are best enjoyed fresh, straight out of the oven.”

It was time to deliver ourselves into a taxi. 

As we walked down Calle Jesus, we talked about our traditional pizza habits, almost always ordering and eating our pizzas at home with our eyes more occupied on a television than pizza toppings. We talked about the atmosphere, the service and the thought that went into creating the cuisine at Bennu.

Our traditional pizza ways may soon be straying. To Bennu.

Bennu is located in the rear of Jesus 20 in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. The restaurant is open Wednesday to Saturday, 1:00 to 11:30 pm, Sundays, Noon to 8:30 pm.