It was 2019 when an artsy logo lured me to the back of an art gallery on a San Miguel Street. The restaurant’s name was Chikatana. The owner’s name was Aleyshita. I liked the restaurant and its Asian influences. I liked the owner and her charming nuances.

As good as Chikatana was though, it was difficult to persuade people to venture to the back of another business to eat. Aleyshita Serrato Garfias and Chikatana were soon on the move.

I remember how excited Aleyshita was about the restaurant’s new location. Mercados were the rage and she was going to have a prime spot in Mercado Carmen. Alas, the “mercado concept” didn’t work in San Miguel de Allende or virtually anywhere else in the world.

There was a big plus to the restaurant’s location though. It was there that Aleyshita teamed up with chef Satoru Takeda. The menu became a little less Mexican, a little more Japanese, a little more Korean, and a lot more flavorful.

Chikatana’s next home was in San Miguel’s Colonia Guadalupe. It’s one of San Miguel’s most popular neighborhoods and residents have a devout dedication to eating local. Attracting people from other hoods though has always been a struggle. A few weeks ago, I heard the doors were locked. I thought that the town’s best ramen and one of the town’s best restauranteurs might be gone.

Then, a message flashed up on my iPad. It was from Aleyshita Serrato Garfias. She had a new restaurant. It had a new name. We had a date on our calendar.

The new place is called Kokumi. I’ve always had a problem exactly understanding the word umami; kokumi gets even more complicated. After getting home and a few too many minutes of Googling that led me to things like glutamyl peptides, I gave up. “Enhanced flavor” were the two words that were the easiest to understand.

Kokumi’s location is inside the Tres Fuentes Dickinson Hotel just a block from what is, more and more, being labeled Restaurant Row. There was no formal sign but a blackboard beckoned us through a classy entrance and into an enormous courtyard.

“To the right”, said Don Day’s Wife. “That must be it.”

We ordered some wine, toasted the perseverance of Aleyshita, and checked out the menu.

Now way back in that back-behind-the-gallery first location, Aleyshita introduced me to a dish that I flipped over. It was called Papas Chikamikaze.

In Kokumi’s much more extensive menu, there is a new and improved version. French fries are still the prime ingredient but the cheesy sauce has now been curried up and deep-fried, pankoed pork strips are now the icing on top. You have to accept soggy not crunchy french fries but, when you do, what is now called Kitsune Potato is scrumptious.

One of my favorite family chores is market shopping. Don Day’s Wife will say something like, “…and pick up a green to go with the main”. In the last decade, or maybe it’s two, I’ve never once come back with green beans. After I tried Kokumi’s “spicy green beans”, Don Day’s Wife told Aleyshita that, if she did what Chef Satoru did to them, I might actually come back from the market with some.

There’s garlic and sesame and, if Kokumi was one of those restaurants that graphically showed the heat levels on their menu, there’d be three chiles next to the item. So buyer beware.

OK, time to cut to the chase. The main reason I’ve been frequenting Aleyshita Serrato Garfias’ restaurants for the last few years. The ramen. That wonderful ramen.

I spotted and waved down Satoru Takeda and he was anxious to proudly show me the kitchen.

It’s big, far bigger than any of his previous places. I counted twelve burners on the stoves.

He showed me the soon-to-be dining room “for when the nights get chilled”.

I asked him which of the six ramens he was most proud of and, as usual, he tossed his head back and forth and smiled then repeated the motions, non-committal as always.

I chose my traditional favorite, the tonkotsu. The broth, the noodles, the greens, the egg, the pork belly were as good as they’d ever been.

We paid the check and, as we left, I looked back at Kokumi. In the light of the evening, it looked even better. I think Aleyshita may have finally found her home.

Kokumi is located in Tres Fuentes Dickinson Hotel at Stirling Dickinson 2 in San Miguel de Allende, Mexico. The restaurant is open from 11:00 am to 8:00 pm on Tuesday through Saturday; 11:00 am to 7:00 pm on Sunday and Monday.