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I left the professional kitchen 16 years ago.
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Recently, a friend asked if I could still make it in
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the kitchen. The truth is I don't know.
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I missed the chaotic slowdown of a busy service,
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but mostly the people by my side.
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With Staj, I wanted to prove that I was still a
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cook's cook, and honestly,
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the same question I had on the way out is the same
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question I have today if walking away from this industry was the
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right choice all along.
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Running has always been this mental thing of like we're preparing to
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go into service, get your blood flowing this was like my
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thing. As soon as I got on the run,
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get this jolt of energy and free thought,
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some of the best thinking you're gonna do,
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so I needed that to feel like ready to go.
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It's actually crazy that we're doing all this here in in Austin
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Austin was like the big city for me.
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Like when I was like a young chef,
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I wanted to work out here in Austin.
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Like this is where I was like,
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man, I'm gonna open up a restaurant in Austin one day
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Something's boiling. Something's cooking like,
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oh, they're definitely here.
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Like you could smell it.
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I'm excited to get to meet the team.
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I'm excited to like grind it out.
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Jose Emma. Elia Hugo chef Medijoque garalasiete and especially like a
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spot like this that they're doing mix tamal process that is something
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that I really am excited to like showcase and like for people
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to see a proper tortilla shows up to your plate.
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Oh. It was manos studio on the phones.
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He travajala for or no.
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Right now in the 1st 12 hours in a st process you're
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figuring out what the cadence is in the kitchen like you're just
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like how do people move,
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how do people communicate and it's your job when you're doing a
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sta to like. Pick that up.
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Lita prove Ionos. How are y'all?
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Thank you for coming.
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You're about to see the magic,
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baby. What sets Nta taqueria apart is Chef Edgar's devotion to
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the Nixtamal process, a ritual as much as a recipe.
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How did you get into the Nixtamal process?
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My uncle introduced me to a family member who was a corn
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doctor. He was teaching corn sciences at the Teta Monterrey,
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he was the one who put me on a path of like
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there's a world of corn.
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He like went religiously into it very much so.
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left to steep overnight,
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then brought to life on a century-old Nixamalmolini.
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Each tortilla pressed and shaped by unseen hands.
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And among the thousands of tortillas pressed each week.
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It's Judith and the ladies that came before her who crafted them
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tambienarla masa novata desciosamosa muyaguita nose puede la makina nola no la
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garaita como esta texture.
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This is like the most like hydrated masa I've ever like come
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across. Like you see all these like grains,
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like thick grains, small grains.
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It is awesome cuando la tortilla compadre porque calientita.
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So estavaara con los loss of those colors OK.
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You. Yeah. Presa poquito de masa que masome.
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That Rollitos de plastilina parados cores.
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The fresh aroma of the mixtamal tortilla versus like a freshly made
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like tortilla at home or like it's vastly different.
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Everyone, they do like two days over here on this station
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just so they can get an idea of like what it is
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we are making. Come on Yonu caviavizo tampoco una tortilla con
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tantos cores. So what we're trying to do is we're trying
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to get 8 separate colors 12345678.
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How long does this all take?
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We started this project about 3 years ago and we're kind of
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at where we're at now due to,
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you know, just a lot of incredible humans that kind of
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contribute to helping trimming this thing,
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plant new seeds, a kind of a good way for the
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team to also kind of do,
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do a little team bonding and then also too for them to
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appreciate and kind of know what's growing out here.
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This is some lemon basil.
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Definitely try some this plant.
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And this purple one were two seeds that we brought back with
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us from Iran. Have you had ojasanta before?
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Oh, OK, this is like,
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this is some ancestral shit.
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That's something you wanna use,
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this stuff thrives out here.
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A little bit of arugula if you want.
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They're like really peppery in your like,
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yeah, French lavender.
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We'll use this for like a lot of desserts.
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This is awesome, chef.
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just to plant a couple of ideas in your head for,
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for things you could use for later.
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Hugo, he's from Puerto Rico.
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I never got to work at a restaurant like this in my
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career, a Latino restaurant,
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let alone a Mexican restaurant,
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for a lot of like young chefs like me when I was
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coming up. This is the dream that you get to cook
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the food that you're familiar with that you grew up with Latino
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food wasn't like the platform that it has now,
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I envy like this era of like cooking right now.
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Something I didn't really see a lot of was always that why
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was it the people on the culinary team were people that were
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walking away with. Less money than the people who are in
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Every single person from the dishwasher to the porter to the tortilla
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maker to the line cooks,
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we want Nix to to be an equitable place for every single
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person that works here,
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so everyone here gets tipped out.
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One or two people are usually assigned a comida and basically you're
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making food for like the staff.
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We eat a lot of Mexican food here,
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so we always like kind of switch it up and have a
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little reprieve. I'll handle the coconut curry.
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Hell yeah. So today I'll have you make like a starch
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or some like rice or something for it.
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Alright, brother, thank you,
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chef. He's put me on starch.
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I'm gonna do probably like some jasmine rice with some.
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Lemon orange zest with some like lemongrass rosemary herbs from the garden
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You put just as much effort into comida as you do
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service because you wanna like make sure that your homies are taken
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care of and that they're eating right and we're ready to go
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for service, not having put in the reps in the energy
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not functioning right right now.
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You're about to cook for 12 people,
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so just. Get out of your head.
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It's like I wanna make sure that it's like good and like
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I'm on it. Tastes good.
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A lot of times when you're stodging you're either trying to get
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experience or you're trying to interview for a job,
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so this is kind of like my alright like what do you
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got? This fucking rice better be seasoned right I'll tell you
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that. And you let me know like what it's missing,
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what it needs, if it's off I think herbs.
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I Oh yeah. Underdone rice is like the worst it's what
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I'm trying not to do.
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That is my sole responsibility so that rice it's on me,
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but it's also requires a lot of patience to let it cook
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So A little bit more like acid.
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So it's good. That's great.
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Pistachios at the, I'm gonna top it off right now.
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Oh, that's gonna be perfect.
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Fuck yeah. First family meal back.
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Let's go for dinner.
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Basil, lemongrass, cucumber.
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And just blended a bunch of shit from the garden and
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just like went for it.
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He's gangster it's good it'll do that's cooked down nice chef real
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nice it's like warm comforting but then you saute in there like
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a bunch of ginger and garlic.
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Charlots, scallions. And just like let it cook now.
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It's been years since I've shared comida with the kitchen crew,
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let alone cook for them.
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It is these moments I miss the most where at times words
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are not spoken, but simultaneously laughter fills the space.
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We're a group of individuals that by choice or by chance chose
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this life that many perceive as chaos,
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yet to us it's a symphony that works,
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that makes perfect sense.
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I haven't done this in a minute like I cook for friends
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here and there, man,
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but like to be able to like.
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Feed people what I used to do for a long long time
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this is what I miss like this is like that little bit
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of camaraderie. I haven't found that type of like level of
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camaraderie in any other industry I've ever been in no,
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no, it doesn't like I don't know if it exists like
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that. This is an interview.
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Would you hire me for the amount of prep that we had
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today, the ladies were able to go home early.
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I mean, you were very helpful.
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We got what we were needing.
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Well, cheers to you,
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my friend. I can't thank you enough,
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man. This has been insane,
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man. Doors open in 15 chef 15 all right.
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Oh damn, you gotta do that,
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dude. I'm helping out except I said every position.
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Appreciate that. OK,
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that was it. Is somebody in the industry gonna look at
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a real one, like a real cook's cook,
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like a real industry guy that answered it,
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dude. That was like.
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The best compliment, the,
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the best. I thought it was really cool him covering the
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prep side of it because like that side of the restaurant industry
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was always kind of looked at as these people are dispensable low
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skilled labor jobs, which is bullshit as you saw really ecstatic
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about him covering those people in the industry.
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The misconception about cooking in a professional kitchen is that service on
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the line is the hard part.
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In reality, any cook knows service is the reward of the
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day. And that's why in this chapter of Stage I wanted
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to focus on the prep work to showcase the people at Nixta
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that labor long before the hot lamps are dropped for service.
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The people that we met here today were stellar man awesome people
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like a lot of times when you're in the back you don't
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get to see this part of it,
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right? Chef Edgar and his team are doing his creating art
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in a selfless manner,
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man, he's here all day for you to enjoy a one
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hour meal. That's what I want people to see.
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I want people to understand like what it takes to get the
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food from this garden.
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To that table Just like how a writer believes in literature or
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like a historian believes in history like I believe in this industry
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I believe in the people behind it they need to put
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a spotlight on them for sure,
Series