Baja Chefs

Baja Chefs: Diego Hernandez, Ismene Venegas, Guillermo Barreto

October 27-28, 2010

Honoring Mexico’s Bicentennial. Curated by Bricia Lopez(Pal Cabron, Guelaguetza, Mitla)
Six course menu $50 per person/ bar bites/wine pairing , wine by the glass or $20 corkage/cocktails $12

Bar Bites:

Pork Belly w black mole
Steak tar tar tostada w asian mignonette
Wood fire grilled octopus

5 course Menu

Crudo of scallops with green onion and almond pesto / pickled red onion/ radish/ habanero
Heirloom tomato salad / arugula/ cured hamachi
Clam soup / chicharrón/ agave worms / basil
Rib Eye / emulsion of corn / black bean esquite / queso cotija/ salsa macha
Valle de Guadalupe cheese platter / Valle de Guadalupe walnuts/ seasonal fruit / Honey

All guest checks include a service charge of 18%.  While additional gratuities are appreciated, they are neither required nor expected.  Substitutions politely declined.  Vegetarian options are not available during this chef’s brief tenure.

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Baja California is perhaps the greatest place for contemporary Mexican dining in all of Mexico. Its unique products from land and sea are abundant, and in many cases, not found in any other part of Mexico. As a result, Baja has lured and cultivated a group of maverick chefs that are redefining Mexican cuisine and expanding its rich vocabulary.

Chef Diego Hernandez

Chef Diego worked in the best kitchens in Baja, and spent many years under Benito Molina, whose Manzanilla restaurant in Ensenada is often considered one of the ten best Mexican restaurants in Mexico.

Chef Diego Hernandez opened Restaurante Uno in Tijuana in 2008 with a partner and recently closed it to strike out on his own. He is set to open his new restaurant, Estado 29, in January of 2011.

It was visits to a Tolucan market at a young age that set his course towards becoming a chef. Chef Diego started working under Benito Molina at the age of 18, then at Pangea in Monterrey with Guillermo Gonzalez, and finally off to Mexico City where he experienced the vanguard of Mexican gastronomy under Enrique Olvera. Chef  Hernandez worked in the best kitchens in modern Mexican cuisine, received a degree from the Culinary Art School in Tijuana, and in 2007 earned the honor of being named best young chef of Baja California.

Chef Guillermo Barreto

Chef Guillermo Barreto just took over the picturesque El Sauzal restaurant formerly occupied by a Oaxacan restaurant at the Viento wine shop, just minutes before you hit Ensenada. His new restaurant is called El Sarmiento.

The passionate and easy going Chef Guillermo Barreto owns La Piazza, a successful  Italian restaurant in Mexicali, and now wants to be where the action is, in Ensenada.  Like many chefs in Baja, he sources the finest ingredients, and deftly marries the Mediterranean and Mexican flavors in his restaurant. You might even call his style of cooking Mex-Italian.

Chef Ismene Venegas

Only in Baja can you find a pizza of quelites, the prized wild greens of Mexican gastronomy, cooked in a wood fired oven of adobe, a contemporary presentation of a Sinaloan aguachile(raw seafood cooked in lime and chili), and panzanella.

Chef Ismene has cooked at Restaurante La Contra del Parque in Ensenada for the past two years, right in the same facility that has one of the best wine shops in all of Mexico, La Contra. She also worked under the batons of Benito Molina and Chef Jair Tellez while he ran La Contra before opening his new restaurant in Mexico City, Mero y Toro.

Bricia Lopez and Josh Gil, of Mitla, are excited to share this amazing team of young chefs representing some of the top restaurants in Baja California with Test Kitchen.