F or the last two decades, the Ortega family has educated Houston diners about the depth and breadth of Mexican cuisine. Now they’re taking everyone back in time to the early 1500s, when Spanish colonists made their way to Baja California before heading north to colonize what was known for centuries as Alta California. At the family’s newest restaurant Zaranda, James Beard Award-winning chef Hugo Ortega and his brother, pastry chef Ruben Ortega, conjure up dishes inspired by the foodstuffs grown and raised on this swath of verdant land, from present-day Northern California to Cabo San Lucas.

The region is an agricultural bounty of foodstuffs, from produce such as fennel, artichokes, olives, eggplant, lettuces and nuts to rich wine-growing regions, livestock raised on rambling ranches and

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