2019 - Nuevo Gastropub: Chef Spotlight

Every year our international guest chefs bring excitement, creativity, talent and unique flavor profiles to the Fest. This year is no different.

The Nuevo Gastropub will host an international rotation of chefs; all giving their take on modern “parrillada”(Latin BBQ), from Food Fest vet Dante Ferrero (Mexico City’s famed Dante Brasa y Fuego)’s primal cuts coal-grilled on-site, to eats as diverse as organic vegan tacos and grilled plantain sandwiches, from the likes of Olivier Deboise (Aperi), Rafael Covarrubias (Hexagon) and newcomer Eduardo Morali (Pangea), as well as French pastry phenom Emmanuelle Deboise (La Casa Caramel). The Gastropub will also feature extensive top shelf tequila tastings, along with Mexican beers like Border X, Cabotella and CALIDAD.

Executive Chef Sergio Meza’s Villanos en Bermudos is currently the #15 on Latin America’s 50 Best Restaurants of 2019, Together, Meza’s Mexican Heritage and European cooking experience with partner Nicolás López’s Argentinian flavor, the two create an imaginative, daily-changing seven course dinner menu in a converted three story villa in Bogotá, Colombia. The goal of Villanos en Bermudos is to change the perception that the best food is always the most expensive. Meza will be serving a Charbroiled Beet with mascarpone cheese, pistachios and black lemon dust at the 10th annual Fest.

Rafael Covarrubias was born in Querétaro, Mexico, but has moved north to claim Executive Chef at 7enoteca and the new modern French restaurant, Hexagon in Ontario, Canada. See his Spanish cooking style shine in his charbroiled shrimp tostada with peanuts salsa macha, mushrooms and grilled onions duxelle, and a score of dill aioli.

Emmanuelle Deboise of La Casa Caramel will make your sweet tooth smile with Grilled Plantain, avocado mousse, goat cheese and wild honey.

She lives in San Miguel de Allende, Guanajuato with her husband, LA Food Fest veteran, Chef Olivier Deboise of the Dos Casas Hotel’s restaurant, Áperi. He'll bring out his “gypsy chef” flavors with a grilled cauliflower vegan taco.

Eduardo Morali for the Pangea Group in Monterrey, Nuevo Leon. Smoky grilled street corn with black garlic and huitlacoche.

Ciudad de Mexico’s very own Dante Ferrero, the whole animal master and Executive Chef of Dante Brasa y Fuego is barbecuing local, carrot-fed, tomahawk steaks from So Cal's Santa Carota beef ranch. Santa Carota’s cuts of Angus beef are local from the foothills of the Breckenridge Mountains. The Pettit Family has been feeding their free-range cattle a plant based diet of mostly carrots since 1989, finding that this lifestyle and diet create the juiciest infusions of sweet nutrients within the muscles. The best tasting beef and the cleanest food available. These cows are "never ever" – gluten free, non-GMO, antibiotic-free, hormone-free, and naturally low in saturated fats and high in zinc, B vitamins and betacarotine. Be sure to try Santa Carota's unique beef at the Fest.