Pedro
"I’m a cook born in Cuba, I’ve been cooking all kinds of restaurants throughout my career and have had the opportunity to work in several restaurants that serve Cuban food. This industry’s amazing because it gives cooks the opportunity and liberty to travel through food and learn an unimaginable amount about different cultures, but I can definitely say that even though being a professional in this industry allows you to explore just about any cuisine - there’s one thing we can’t ignore; the place where we’ve grown up eating family-cooked meals.
Those flavors and memories of our early days are almost impossible to understand by someone who’s an outsider, they’ve made you who you are from when you were first able to eat. No matter how much we travel, it’s hard to replicate those early stages of people’s food experience."
Ruben & Phyllis
"We've known each other since 2006, and the thing that brought us together at first was our love for food.
One day while in church, they asked if anyone would be interested in doing a cook-out to help raise funds, and we both raised our hand in excitement.
Since the first time we cooked together, we haven't been apart. Every Sunday we still serve ribs in the parking lot of the church where it all started for us."
Saile
"I started as a dishwasher in a sushi place and then quickly scale into the kitchen, falling in love with the craft, fish has always been my favorite type of food. Before getting into the kitchen, I studied journalism, but the kitchen offered me the first opportunity when I arrived in the States and it ended up paying more than being a journalist back in my country. I was really lucky to have started in a restaurant that treated me really well and that allowed me to grow; to the point that now I’m working in various places, but I still keep going back once a week just because of how much loyalty and respect I have from them.
The best thing about all this has been learning to cook and that this work actually teaches you something to take back home; the essential skills of knowing to cook - which to me was something really important because four years ago when I moved here alone, I didn’t know how to cook at all, so it’s helped me in my personal life as well."
Luis
"I’m 21 years old and I got involved with this restaurant pretty much from the beginning, but it wasn’t until recently that I began getting involved with the kitchen. At the start, I helped out with the deliveries for a few months. But once the pandemic hit, things got pretty bad in the country, worse than what they were before, it was already hard and expensive to find food so you can imagine. I took a break from doing deliveries to reconsider my future and finish up my studies. Once the owners were able to open the stand in September, I was able to jump back on and had to do a bit of everything, unexpectedly in that moment it's where I got connected with the kitchen, I still do a little of everything though but I found my way in what I do now.
It’s been a venture, there’s a lot of responsibility that you need to take on and many comforts that need to be left behind; compounded with the erratic and unusual situation - it’s been very difficult, and there have been a few times when we thought we would go under. But we’ve managed to stay afloat through discipline and faith; for anyone looking to start a new project were ever they are, I think that’s the key!
The desire to want to see things done well and seeing the business that you respect grow has made me fall in love with the industry and I want to see the outcome of our effort."
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Reporting from Venezuela @vill237
Roger
"I started when I was 16! I’ve been working day and night in everything from bakeries to fine dining over the last four years now, still trying to learn about all perspectives and angles of this industry.
One thing I’m super keen on is finding balance; I love cooking and I love my profession, but I want to have enough time during the day to do my own things, so right now I have one part-time job at night and one in the mornings, which gives me some afternoons off.
This is my time! I’m young and want to gain as much experience as possible, but I do want to have time to learn and focus on areas I want to improve so that one day I can open my own place and teach others everything I’ve been taught."
Daniele
"Our family has had this stand in the market for decades, my brother and I grew up here, in-between all the produce and porchetta!
We had a choice to make. We wanted to continue their legacy, but we also wanted to travel; we decided to be here doing what we know and love for half of the year, and the other half we rent out this space and go abroad to work- we’ve found the best of both worlds.
One thing’s for certain, We will never stop making porchetta."
Gabriel
"I have a company that creates culinary experiences around the world using open flame hearth and century-old cooking techniques. Our display of equipment and the different ways to cook with fire create an authentic atmosphere.
The aromas generated by the firewood, the texture of our grills (which we designed based on the Uruguayan BBQ tradition) and cooking with the most high-quality products make a magnificent meal.
Cooking like this is a ritual, a ceremony. It’s very ancestral. It’s different than in kitchens, there’s no gas or way to accurately regulate temperature. You have to respect the fire and understand the weather. They dominate and you adjust accordingly – everyday is a new challenge I have had to cook under the rain several times and be extremely creative to pull off a final meal.
It’s what I love most about this style of cooking, having to account for so many factors and adjust on your feet, and it’s a very physically demanding but at end it’s always rewarding."
Juan
"I’ve only been working in kitchens for the last 2 years; I actually began while I was working out the front as a server and bartender. I’ve always enjoyed the kitchen, So I decided to do the switch, now I’m here learning as much as I can to one day be at the top.
The kitchen is something that relaxes me because it’s such a natural thing to do in my country. It’s part of the culture and family traditions of Argentina. Today I look back and I don’t regret the experience I had in front of house; it allows me to understand how the opposite side of the pass works and the customer interaction itself – how the product is sold. It’s something that I think is missing in many kitchens, that interaction and communication between the front of house and the back of the house, I hope one day this small advantage leads me to success and encourage more people to give it a shot"
Jorge
"I’ve been cooking for the last 40 or so years. I come from a family of cooks, which meant I never had to go to cooking school. I learned through working alongside my dad because while I was growing up I spent a lot of time at his side, and my mother worked in an Armenian restaurant for a long time. The kitchen was essentially the place where we came together as a family.
I moved to Miami 13 years ago from Argentina and the greatest thing the kitchen has ever given me has been my skills to cook meat in any way I want. I love eating meat and having this skill perfectly compliments me. In the kitchen, there are different tricks to know when your meat is at a certain stage of cooking, but for me, the secret to knowing when it’s cooked just right is a combination of understanding the size of the fire or source of the heat with the size & type of the meat. Eventually, with some experience, you will be able to determine when it’s at its point just looking at it."
Eduardo
"I was born in Mexico and I moved to the USA when I was only 3. I was very fortunate to travel to Mexico very often growing up. It gave me a sense of pride to be able to try these off-beat ingredients. Mexico was where my curiosity and passion for cooking really began; I used to look forward to the holidays so I could go eat more. Eventually, I fell in love with tacos, they’re actually a major part of what I do because when I was growing up I could only eat them during the holidays as it was hard to find the authentic ones here- now I want to make sure people can enjoy a true taco all year round.
Having been raised here instead of Mexico is different and probably for some I could be the fake Mexican that cant play soccer or the odd white guy that talks different, but I have the same palate as an immigrant cook or chef.
I strongly believe that immigrants are the bones of our industry here, they’re our dishwashers, our line cooks; we could not do what we do here without them and I have a very beautiful relationship with a lot of the cooks I’ve worked with. I always hired people who were in terrible situations because they’re people who aren’t afraid to roll up their sleeves - and they weren’t all poor immigrants, some have been doctors and lawyers that just couldn’t practice in the US so they looked for an alternative income. They’re a very important part of our restaurant culture, they have that getting it done attitude. Sometimes, we take our American dream for granted.
I believe in investing in staff, in your humans. They are what make your restaurants - a chef is just one person, if you don’t have a team, you are nothing.
“It eventually is a leap of faith, and you have to take it.”"