What It Feels Like to Cook a Michelin-Star Meal

The Clover Hill kitchen is a little rowdy, but I like it that way. From 12:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m., every day, the four of us—my sous chef, chef de cuisine, line cook, and I—cook over a Japanese-style grill in an open kitchen that probably shouldn’t be a kitchen, wedged into the back of a Brooklyn brownstone. We’re precise and skilled, but it’s not intense or quiet. It’s never a scramble. It’s an elegant show.

Those in dining room—cozy, homey, and intimate—appreciate our showmanship. They hear us laugh and banter as we prepare ingredients like amaranth and chayotes and hominy for our Latin-inspired tasting menu.

It’s easy to combine ingredients that already meld well together. You can find that anywhere in New York. But Michelin stars are awarded for being thoughtful as to why you use those ingredients. When I put a dish together, it has to make sense. There has to be intent for what’s on the plate. It should evoke a memory—nostalgia from a flavor that you’ve forgotten—which comes from flavor and texture. We eat with our eyes first. But it’s only memorable if it tastes far better than it looks.

Working in the kitchen at Clover Hill.

That’s the point of Clover Hill. For guests to pause and think about what they put in their mouths. From the kitchen, I get a good view of their reactions. It’s like cooking at home for my family. I look for that moment when they eat something and think, Damn, that tasted good.

I grew up with food just being food. It was about sustenance and nutrition. I lived in many places, from Bolivia to Argentina to Brazil to Miami, so food became a bonding mechanism for my family. At the dinner table, we had serious conversations, laughter, arguments, everything. I was always drawn to activity in the kitchen. When I was young, I found myself spending more time in there with my grandmother than with my cousins of the same age. I would shape and fry the dough when she made buñuelos.

Plating a dish takes special care.

I originally went to college to study zoology. It was disappointing. I left the university after I was put on probation. I found myself spending more time cooking at my apartment than going to class, making sushi and copying recipes from a little Japanese cookbook. I was trying to make bread and understand stock. All very amateurish.

I moved home to Miami with my parents and took a job as a dishwasher at a restaurant that just opened. The first day I was working, I found a tremendous joy in what I was doing. I realized that this is what I wanted to do. So I enrolled in a six-month program at the International Culinary Center to fast-track myself to a job in New York. I made it my dream to be part of a Michelin-star restaurant.

I dedicated a lot of myself to the school, so afterward I found a job at Annisa with chef Anita Lo of Iron Chef and Top Chef fame. From there, I moved across across the fine-dining world, including time at Noma in Denmark and El Celler de Can Roca in Spain, two of the world’s best restaurants. During that time, I worked hard and learned a lot. After that, I came back to New York, where I worked for Per Se and then Momofuko Ko, where I stayed till the restaurant closed. That was my first taste of creating and developing a menu. That’s where I found the team I now work with at Clover Hill in Brooklyn.

When I became executive chef at Clover Hill, there was a bit of pressure. I wanted to succeed, to make something. To do something meaningful that would affect the New York restaurant community. Previous head chef Charlie Mitchell had done a lot for the restaurant. People were still confused as to whether it was his place or not. I took it upon myself to do something very different.

Having spent so much time cooking luxury food with luxury ingredients, I found it hard to keep doing—especially in the current state of things, where our environment is deteriorating quickly. Ingredients are changing. We’re very careful with our sourcing, using the best quality we can get, all in the scope of my palate, which is a mix of my time spent in Bolivia, Argentina, and Brazil.

A plate of Papa a la Huancaína. The Peruvian dish features the abundance potato and pairs it with peanut and ají amarillo sauce. It’s finished with Kristal caviar.

But part of the ethos of the restaurant is that it’s not just Latin food but American food, which is why we source indigenous, historically common ingredients that aren’t found in most households. When it comes to putting them together, it doesn’t always make sense. But they do have to tell a story.

I usually tell people, if you want to be a chef, don’t do it. The life is pretty hard. But I think the best part is that I don’t have to choose between a job, hobby, or passion. It all melds into one. And it’s the least egocentric thing you can do. It’s all about sharing. Giving your time, effort, work, and love to somebody else.

There’s never a day I don’t want to be in the kitchen.