Overview
El chef migrante desvela la extraordinaria vida de Lalo García, un migrante que pasó
de los campos agrícolas al Olimpo de la gastronomía mundial.
Cuando era niño, Lalo tuvo que trabajar en condiciones «agotadoras, mugrientas y venenosas» en Estados Unidos… Sin formación académica ni grandes recursos, su innato talento y férrea ética de trabajo le empezaron a abrir paso en el mundo
que le apasionaba: el de los restaurantes… Pero todo se interrumpió cuando fue deportado a México, un país que debió redescubrir y donde tuvo que empezar de cero. De nuevo.
Lo hizo a lo grande. En ese proceso, se propuso redefinir la alta cocina y su propio destino.
Junto a su socia y esposa, Gaby López Cruz, Lalo fundó Máximo Bistrot Local en la Ciudad de México, un restaurante que ha sido nombrado uno de los cien mejores del mundo.
Desde ahí confrontó la desigualdad y cimbró el panorama culinario buscando hacer una cocina de autor, con ingredientes realmente sustentables, transformando la adversidad en un motor de cambio.
Laura Tillman, tras cinco años de reportaje inmersivo y cientos de horas en la cocina de Máximo, nos ofrece una mirada íntima al complejo mundo interior de Lalo, sus ansiedades, su inspiración y su constante búsqueda de propósito y plenitud.
He aquí la historia de un «simple cocinero» que, día a día,
nos invita a disfrutar un imperio de sabores.
ENGLISH DESCRIPTION
Winner of the 2024 James Beard Foundation's Award for Literary Writing
A New Yorker Best Book of 2023 • An NPR 2023 "Books We Love" Pick
A chef’s gripping quest to reconcile his childhood experiences as a migrant farmworker with the rarefied world of fine dining.
Born in rural Mexico, Eduardo “Lalo” García Guzmán and his family left for the United States when he was a child, picking fruits and vegetables on the migrant route from Florida to Michigan. He worked in Atlanta restaurants as a teenager before being convicted of a robbery, incarcerated, and eventually deported. Lalo landed in Mexico City as a new generation of chefs was questioning the hierarchies that had historically privileged European cuisine in elite spaces. At his acclaimed restaurant, Máximo Bistrot, he began to craft food that narrated his memories and hopes.
Mexico City–based journalist Laura Tillman spent five years immersively reporting on Lalo’s story: from Máximo’s kitchen to the onion fields of Vidalia, Georgia, to Dubai’s first high-end Mexican restaurant, to Lalo’s hometown of San José de las Pilas. What emerges is a moving portrait of Lalo’s struggle to find authenticity in an industry built on the very inequalities that drove his family to leave their home, and of the artistic process as Lalo calls on the experiences of his life to create transcendent cuisine. The Migrant Chef offers an unforgettable window into a family’s border-eclipsing dreams, Mexico’s culinary heritage, and the making of a chef.
de los campos agrícolas al Olimpo de la gastronomía mundial.
Cuando era niño, Lalo tuvo que trabajar en condiciones «agotadoras, mugrientas y venenosas» en Estados Unidos… Sin formación académica ni grandes recursos, su innato talento y férrea ética de trabajo le empezaron a abrir paso en el mundo
que le apasionaba: el de los restaurantes… Pero todo se interrumpió cuando fue deportado a México, un país que debió redescubrir y donde tuvo que empezar de cero. De nuevo.
Lo hizo a lo grande. En ese proceso, se propuso redefinir la alta cocina y su propio destino.
Junto a su socia y esposa, Gaby López Cruz, Lalo fundó Máximo Bistrot Local en la Ciudad de México, un restaurante que ha sido nombrado uno de los cien mejores del mundo.
Desde ahí confrontó la desigualdad y cimbró el panorama culinario buscando hacer una cocina de autor, con ingredientes realmente sustentables, transformando la adversidad en un motor de cambio.
Laura Tillman, tras cinco años de reportaje inmersivo y cientos de horas en la cocina de Máximo, nos ofrece una mirada íntima al complejo mundo interior de Lalo, sus ansiedades, su inspiración y su constante búsqueda de propósito y plenitud.
He aquí la historia de un «simple cocinero» que, día a día,
nos invita a disfrutar un imperio de sabores.
ENGLISH DESCRIPTION
Winner of the 2024 James Beard Foundation's Award for Literary Writing
A New Yorker Best Book of 2023 • An NPR 2023 "Books We Love" Pick
A chef’s gripping quest to reconcile his childhood experiences as a migrant farmworker with the rarefied world of fine dining.
Born in rural Mexico, Eduardo “Lalo” García Guzmán and his family left for the United States when he was a child, picking fruits and vegetables on the migrant route from Florida to Michigan. He worked in Atlanta restaurants as a teenager before being convicted of a robbery, incarcerated, and eventually deported. Lalo landed in Mexico City as a new generation of chefs was questioning the hierarchies that had historically privileged European cuisine in elite spaces. At his acclaimed restaurant, Máximo Bistrot, he began to craft food that narrated his memories and hopes.
Mexico City–based journalist Laura Tillman spent five years immersively reporting on Lalo’s story: from Máximo’s kitchen to the onion fields of Vidalia, Georgia, to Dubai’s first high-end Mexican restaurant, to Lalo’s hometown of San José de las Pilas. What emerges is a moving portrait of Lalo’s struggle to find authenticity in an industry built on the very inequalities that drove his family to leave their home, and of the artistic process as Lalo calls on the experiences of his life to create transcendent cuisine. The Migrant Chef offers an unforgettable window into a family’s border-eclipsing dreams, Mexico’s culinary heritage, and the making of a chef.
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