A curated monthly dose of lifestyle, culture, and rhythm from San Miguel de Allende.
Can mushrooms save the world? Arif Towns Alonso thinks so. From a small boutique lab in San Miguel de Allende, he’s building Simbiosis, a living network that fuses art, science, and fungi to rethink the future.
In the hills beyond San Miguel de Allende, where high desert gives way to forest, a quiet revolution is growing. It is soft, earthy, and alive. Its architect, Arif Towns Alonso, calls it Simbiosis, a project that began as a handful of oyster mushrooms and has evolved into a movement that connects art, science, and ecology under one roof.
Arif’s story with mushrooms began in childhood, long before Simbiosis became a San Miguel landmark. He grew up between Mexico City and the forests of the State of Mexico, where his Otomí neighbors taught him to recognize the coral-shaped mushrooms they called chicken legs. The experience planted a question that would follow him for life: why do some mushrooms appear overnight, perfectly formed, as if conjured by rain and mist?
By the time his sister began studying biology, Arif was already collecting and cataloging specimens on his own. “I learned how to take spore prints, how to identify species,” he recalls. “They were beautiful, mysterious, food, medicine, all in one.”
That curiosity became a lifelong calling. After workshops with Mexican mycologists and years of travel between Oaxaca and Mexico City, Arif moved to San Miguel in 2014. There, he founded Simbiosis, a name that captured his belief that mushrooms and humans thrive through connection.
In its earliest form, Simbiosis was just Arif, a casita and two hundred bags of oyster mushrooms. He harvested, packaged, and sold them by hand on the streets. “I’d walk on the Salida a Celaya, selling each packet for fifty pesos,” he says. Soon, local chefs noticed. Fran from Paprika introduced him to Mateo Salas of Aperi, whose endorsement catapulted Simbiosis into San Miguel’s fine dining scene. Within months, Arif’s mushrooms appeared on the menus of the city’s best restaurants.
From there, he joined the Tosma Market, later opening a small shop in Mercado Sano, his first permanent space. It became a gathering point for locals, chefs, and travelers who wanted more than just mushrooms. They wanted to understand them.
Today, Simbiosis is much more than a mushroom business. It is a cultural hub and educational platform connecting more than twenty-eight collaborators across Mexico: artists, scientists, chefs, and farmers who work together through the same organic philosophy that defines fungi themselves, mutual benefit.
In Arif’s words, “Simbiosis is a living network. Each person adds something, art, fermentation, design, cultivation, and we all grow together.”
From Oaxaca to Monterrey, his collaborators transform fungi into textiles, biomaterials, and fermented foods. His own workshops lead people into the mountains to forage wild species, teaching respect and ecological balance along the way. “When people see mushrooms for the first time in the wild, they are amazed,” he says. “It is like discovering a secret world that was always there.”
One of the most captivating experiences that Simbiosis offers is its mushroom foraging tours in the forests of Guanajuato, held only during the rainy season. We sent one of our editors to experience the magic firsthand. It began with a 7 a.m. wake-up call, and by just after nine, the group gathered for a short introduction from Arif before setting out with baskets in hand. The trail wound through misty forest paths and small streams, alive with the scent of wet earth and pine. Along the way, participants hunted for an astonishing range of mushrooms, some deadly, some culinary, all beautiful.
After a few hours, the group returned to the meeting point, where the air was filled with the aroma of a mushroom feast being prepared by a local chef. Lobster mushrooms went into a creamy chowder, while chanterelles made their way into a delicate dessert. Everyone placed their finds on a long table where Arif and his team carefully sorted them, separating the toxic from the edible. The result was a living mosaic of blues, purples, oranges, and shapes so strange and striking that only an expert could tell them apart.
As Arif reminds guests, “The most important thing when foraging is respect. The forest gives, but it also teaches. If you are not sure, leave it. When in doubt, throw it out.”
Arif speaks about mushrooms the way some people speak about philosophy. He sees them as models for how to live, cooperative, regenerative, and endlessly adaptive. “Mushrooms teach us how to connect,” he says. “They remind us that everything is linked, the forest, the soil, the animals, us.”
This philosophy has tangible impact. Through collaborations with indigenous communities in Guanajuato, Puebla, and Michoacán, Simbiosis supports sustainable harvesting that helps locals earn income without cutting trees. For Arif, it is proof that environmental preservation and economic opportunity can coexist when guided by fungi’s natural logic.
Mushrooms, Arif believes, can change the world. He is not exaggerating. From eating plastic to filtering polluted water, fungi are being studied for their potential to solve some of humanity’s biggest ecological challenges. “They can clean oil spills, absorb heavy metals, even digest radiation,” he says. “And socially, they can fight hunger. You do not need much land or water to grow them.”
He dreams of expanding Simbiosis into Querétaro and Mexico City, creating a network of stores and research spaces. “The idea is to connect more people and to keep spreading this force of knowledge,” he says. “Like mycelium, the more we connect, the stronger we become.”
San Miguel de Allende, with its mix of global curiosity and local tradition, turned out to be the perfect home for Simbiosis. “People come to the shop and tell me they picked mushrooms with their grandparents when they were kids,” Arif says. “It is nostalgic. It reconnects them.”
That blend of memory and innovation is what makes Simbiosis feel so at home in San Miguel. It is local and cosmic at once, rooted in the soil and reaching for the future.
When asked what he has learned from decades of working with fungi, Arif smiles. “That I know nothing,” he says. “The more I study mushrooms, the more they surprise me. They are the beginning and the end of life. We just have to listen.”
We're Savant, San Miguel de Allende’s new online lifestyle and culture magazine. Created for curious travelers, locals, and design and food lovers alike, Savant offers curated stories and an authentic look into the people, places, and passions that shape this iconic town. More than a publication, it’s a cultural community, and your invitation to experience San Miguel like never before.
A curated monthly dose of lifestyle, culture, and rhythm from San Miguel.
