It was a little over a year ago that two stars of London’s bar world announced their move to Mexico City. Now MWA, the hospitality supergroup formed by Maura Lawrence Milia, Walter Meyenberg and Alex Lawrence Milia, has launched its second venue and most personal venture to date.
Café Arixi is an Italian-inspired bar and restaurant in Mexico City’s Roma Norte neighbourhood. It takes its name from the tiny south Sardinian village where Maura grew up, which also happens to be the place where she and Alex married and where the pair first spoke with Walter about going into business.
“It was important for me to highlight where I come from, because I don’t think I ever celebrated or appreciated it when I was young,” says Maura. “When I met Alex, we went to Sardinia. I showed him around and I saw Sardinia through his eyes. It was a moment to celebrate and to share. So, it’s about sharing my roots, but also what we shared together in that specific time and place.
“The idea [for Café Arixi] started at the wedding party. My parents cooked and it was a very humble meal, but we wanted to elevate that experience, but still not forgetting why we decided to do it that way.”
Bartenders are often nomadic – a trait that tends to become truer the further up the ladder they climb. Now in the city they’ve called home for the last year and a half, the Lawrence Milias are creating a new life and their venues are as much an expression of their present as their histories.
“I think it’s different for Maura than it is for me, it’s deeply personal to take source material from the place where you grew up,” says Alex. “I don’t really have a sense of place or home. Experiencing that in Arixi was obviously beautiful but I wanted to approach it almost coldly. The three of us wanted to do something together, where did that occur? It came from a feeling of love, hospitality and conviviality that occurred in a garden party in Arixi.
“For me we’re capturing an emotion as a source of inspiration and then you must have something to communicate. But are you authentic Sardinian? No, why would you move to Mexico to open an Italian bar? But it gives us a frame to work within. Walter sees Italy in a different way again and again that fed into the way he designed the venue, and I think that’s really interesting and beautiful.”
Part of the concept of Café Arixi is to explore Mexico, a culture that the duo is adjusting to, through a more familiar perspective. “The whole ethos of the product is to explore Mexico through a different lens,” says Alex. “Personally, I want to push technique, really explore the ingredients and see what the chef can do with this entire experience. Maura wants a more traditional representation of Italy and Walter wants mortadella, good wine and his version of Italy. It’s great to have those three different perspectives that tug on each other, it makes for something really constructive.”
Despite the three versions of Arixi that exist in the minds of its owners, the venue itself has remarkable clarity in its identity for such a fledgling project. While the courtyard architecture, the kitchen’s beautifully plated dishes and the ingredient-led drinks list may not be Sardinian, or even Mexican, they are already beginning to speak with a Café Arixian accent.
“We’ve been extremely lucky because it was clear what we wanted to achieve,” explains Maura. “When you’re new to a new place, you have to trust people and as we had a clear concept, it was easier to recruit and to translate the message. My idea is to give Café Arixi our own identity – it’s Maura and Alex in 2025 in a new city with a different mindset, but I will always bring something from my past because it’s made me who I am today.”
