Popular Mexican Restaurant Chefs

I’m sure you’ve been to some of the top Mexican Restaurants in your area. You’ve browsed through our listings and have personally visited some of those restaurants yourselves. Maybe you’ve even tried all of their specialties, from the appetizers to the desserts.

What we have not provided you so far, are the names of the most popular Mexican Restaurant Chefs. There aren’t that much actually, maybe because Mexican food is difficult to master? Or maybe because the most popular Mexican chefs are in Mexico? Who knows. What we can give you right now are those who have become popular in America as well.

Enrique Olvera is considered as the most famous chef in Mexico. He completed a course of study at the Culinary Institute of America in New York and then proceeded to Chicago where he began working in one of the most exclusive restaurants in the city – the Everest. Olvera was only 24 years old  when he started Pujol, which has been in business for 14 years now. The restaurant is well-known for combining traditional and modern cooking methods, as well as the wide variety of ingredients and aromas. It didn’t end in Meixco, however. Later on he also started Cosme, which is Olvera’s New York debut and his first restaurant outside Mexico. The restaurant also boasts Mexican flavors and traditions, while also celebrating local and seasonal ingredients from the Hudson Valley and surrounding region.

 

Rick Bayless is an American chef who specializes in traditional Mexican cuisine with modern interpretations. Most people know him best for winning the title of Bravo’s Top Chef Masters, beating others with his authentic Mexican cuisine. He dedicated over six years studying in Mexico the art of its cuisine and eventually published the Authentic Mexican: Regional Cooking from the Heart of Mexico. His restaurant, Frontera Grill was founded in 1987 and received the James Beard Foundation’s highest award, Outstanding Restaurant, in 2007.

Aaron Sanchez is a chef and television personality, also the owner of the restaurant Centrico. Aaron Sanchez is known to have been cooking traditional Mexican foods nearly his entire life and he has been working in a professional kitchen since age 16. Sanchez studied culinary arts at Johnson and Wales University before beginning his career as a chef at Patria in New York.  Sanchez opened gourmet Latin restaurant Paloma in Stamford, Connecticut in 2014.

Zarela Martinez is a New York chef and cookbook author. She began cooking professionally during the 1970s. The Mexican-born chef learned cooking and food preparation from her mother at an early age. Actually, it is known that Zarela herself was raised on a cattle ranch in the Mexican state of Sonora where she first learned how to cook. She was later on mentored by Paul Prudhomme went on to open her own restaurant, Zarela, in 1987.