In short
Podcast Notes: This Is TASTE - Episode 703: Yara Herrera’s Hellbender Can’t Be Ignored
Episode Overview In this episode, TASTE editors Aliza Abarbanel and Matt Rodbard engage in lively conversations with chef Yara Herrera, a culinary artist behind Hellbender, a Mexican-American restaurant located in Ridgewood, Queens. The episode highlights Yara's culinary journey from Los Angeles to New York City, where she has created a distinctive approach to Mexican-American cuisine. Additionally, Rob Rubba, chef-owner of Oyster Oyster in Washington D.C. and a recent James Beard Award® winner, takes the Resy Questionnaire.
Key Guests
- Yara Herrera: Chef-partner at Hellbender
- Rob Rubba: Chef-owner of Oyster Oyster
Discussion Highlights
Rob Rubba's Segment
- Restaurant Focus: Rob shares his dedication to sustainability and plant-focused cooking at Oyster Oyster.
- Zero Waste Philosophy:
- The restaurant promotes local agriculture and regenerative farming.
- Uses a glass crusher to minimize waste, creating glass plates for the restaurant.
- Inspirations:
- Discusses personal memories tied to restaurants, emphasizing the importance of experiences that shaped his culinary perspective.
- Reflects on how prior experiences motivated him to focus on sustainability.
Yara Herrera's Journey
- Background:
- Originally from Los Angeles, she trained in fine dining restaurants like Wolfgang Puck’s Spago and Providence.
- Moved to New York in 2018 to work at Momofuku Ko, Xilonen, and Sobre Masa.
- Culinary Philosophy:
- Describes Hellbender as a Mexican-American restaurant that emphasizes traditional ingredients combined with American culture.
- Shares a memorable early food experience involving peeling tomatillos, which she initially disliked but now appreciates.
Hellbender Restaurant
- Food Concept:
- Specializes in Mexican-American cuisine with innovative dishes like fried Oaxacan cheese and crispy lamb tacos.
- Popular brunch dish includes masa pancakes, developed through collaboration with her business partner.
- Community Engagement:
- Emphasizes the importance of community support in Ridgewood.
- Engages in community events and initiatives, reinforcing the restaurant's communal ethos.
Future Aspirations
- Yara discusses plans for a small renovation at Hellbender to improve kitchen space and service efficiency.
Key Takeaways
- Culinary Evolution: Both chefs highlight the evolution of their respective culinary styles and the impact of community on their success.
- Sustainability Matters: Rob's focus on sustainability resonates throughout the episode, and Yara's dishes reflect a blend of tradition and innovation.
- Personal Growth: Both chefs reflect on how their journeys shaped their culinary philosophies and their approaches to running a restaurant.
Final Notes
- The episode encapsulates the vibrant culinary culture of New York, showcasing chefs like Yara and Rob who are making significant contributions to their communities through their food and philosophies. The discussions offer insights into the balance between personal passion and professional achievement in the food industry.
Additional Information
- Listen to the episode: [This Is TASTE](https://tastecooking.com)
- Hosts: Aliza Abarbanel and Matt Rodbard
- Production Note: This episode is sponsored by Resi and American Express.
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Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00This episode is brought to you by Resi and American Express. Resi is a digital platform that connects restaurants to restaurant lovers by elevating dining experiences, providing original industry content, and helping to fill some of the country's most exciting dining rooms. Because restaurants have always been more than just places to eat. The amazing world of restaurants is just a few taps away in the Resi app and at resi.com.
0:31Now that I have a team, I try to, you know, ask them questions, help them make decisions without feeling judged in that way. I think that really, really helps people kind of come to who they are in making food. This is Taste. I'm your host, Eliza Barbanel.
0:59Yara Herrera is the chef partner at Hellbender, a Mexican-American restaurant in Ridgewood, Queens. Born and raised in Los Angeles, she honed her skills in the city's fine dining restaurants like Wolfgang Puck's Spago and Providence before moving to New York in 2018 to work at Momofuku Co., Shilonen, and Sobre Masa. Today on the show, we talk about Yara's culinary journey, running Hellbender, and creating her distinctive approach to Mexican-American cuisine. And at the top of the show, Rob Ruba, chef and owner of Oyster Oyster in Washington, D.C., takes the resi questionnaire. In 2023, Rob won the James Beard Award for Outstanding Chef, and he continues to be a leader in plant-focused, sustainable cooking.
1:42I hope you enjoy these conversations. Rob Ruba, welcome. This is Taze. How are you? I'm great. How are you? We're here in Washington, D.C. And before we get to the Resi Top 5, tell me a little bit about Oyster Oyster. Yeah. Oyster Oyster is a restaurant that's focused on sustainability and being a responsible restaurant for the future. That's the whole reason why I even opened a restaurant. I kind of came across this existential crisis of I should even still work in restaurants about seven years ago. and I made a shift to go vegetarian and focus on sustainability. So we built this restaurant from ground up and our focus was zero waste, focus on local agriculture and rebuilding that.
2:24And what that means is responsible agriculture too, whether it be organics, regenerative farming, folks that really care about the soil and rebuilding our communities and having that closed loop system. So with that, we minimize all packaging, single-use plastics at the restaurant and just find creative ways to go beyond waste. In D.C., they stopped recycling glass about a few years ago, so we bought a glass crusher. We started crushing that glass and then worked with our local potter material things studio to create glass plates for the restaurant to kind of combat that and start that conversation.
2:59I think a big part of the restaurant is just starting conversations of how we can all be better in this industry and minimize our waste and just be better stewards and better ancestors for the future. And so oyster, oyster has a deep meaning about the menu construct and the way you present. Tell us a little about it because it's very clever and cool. Yeah. So our logo is an oyster shell and an oyster mushroom. And they kind of represent where our ethos stand there as the restaurant. So the oyster mushroom represents like a healthy soil, the mycelium underneath. And the fruit of that would be an oyster, oyster mushroom or any kind of mushroom.
3:35And then we have, we're in the Chesapeake. oysters were the largest consumed protein of this region forever until they were over overfished over consumed so if we're going to build a restaurant about sustainability and not talk about the chesapeake and the oyster bay and how beneficial this oyster reef is we'd be hypocritical i think it'd just be yeah we'd fall short there so uh yeah we have the oysters and they're amazing we need to rebuild these reefs for clean water i mean one oyster filters up to 50 gallons of water a day. So you imagine how pristine the water was like way back in the days, like, and now people are scared to dip their toes in the Potomac, but times have changed.
4:14I mean, I've been able to go out to some oyster farms outside Richmond and just see the aquaculture here. First, they're delicious oysters, a little less represented in our country. You're not seeing Chesapeake oysters around the country, but tell us a little bit about these oysters. I've been in outside Richmond at a farm. They're a little less represented in the countries, you know, on the menus in like LA and Seattle, but I love them. I love your thoughts on Chesapeake oysters. Yeah, I think the Chesapeake oyster is great. It is a little unrepresented. I think people shy away from it. They don't think it's as good.
4:50Like you don't get that Northwest cucumber flavor. You don't get that extreme brine of like a Northeast oyster, but there's something really special about them where like the marouir really takes place. So you can really taste the parts of the Chesapeake or the different rivers and bays and they all are unique and, you know, shape, size, cupping methods. There's a lot of unique things happening with the oysters in this region. And I think it's just like underrepresented given it was like the capital of oysters to begin with. Yeah, it was. It really was. No, I love that sentiment. You seek out Chesapeake oysters on menus around the country.
5:24They're delicious. So Rob, are you ready to take the Resi top five? These are the top five restaurants that have inspired your career. Yeah, let's do it. Where do you want to start? It was a really good challenge to think of these top five. And I'll start with kind of outside of my hometown. There's a restaurant called The Crab Trap. It's a big tourist thing in Summers Point, New Jersey. I worked there as a bus boy right before college. And it's a restaurant that I would go to all the time for a special occasion. Like my family and I, we never really went out to eat much, but like if somebody was celebrating something, we would go there.
6:03So it was like this magical place and it's all like hardwood and kind of tavern-like. And, you know, we'd go in there and people would get stuffed flounder and crab cake. And it just really had that magic of a restaurant because I wasn't familiar with that world. We ate at home. We ate well, but we only ate at home. And then I was a, uh, I was a server there, a bus boy. And that was like my first idea of what restaurants are and what it was like to work in a restaurant. And it was hard, you know, this was like summer vacation. So it's packed. It's like thousands of people a day. And you know, you're carrying trays like stacked to the ceiling.
6:36If you break anything, you're going to get fired and just hustling around. And it was like, work hard, play hard. It was a good introduction to that. And you'd get to do like, you'd get to kind of be a server if you work like the early, early bird shift, you know, and you'd clear bread pudding and find like a denture in it or something like that. That's a great memory. I mean, Rob, tell me about like being introduced to back of the house culture. You're a chef now, you're leading back of houses, but probably back then it was maybe a little different than the vibe at Oyster Oyster, but there must have been something slightly intoxicating about that, about that dynamic.
7:13Yeah. I mean, there's so much energy back there it's kind of that motley crew kind of thing that was going on back there the chef at the time was this woman june and it was like pirates back there they all had like bandanas and stuff and i was terrified of them to be honest yeah i remember i had to get like some extra bar towels and i went back there i'm like excuse me can i get some bar down there like what do you want so it was like don't ask don't get is something i learned but it was just like that energy in so many plates coming out like it's like a real turn and burn kind of place and it's just like wow, this is crazy.
7:44And I don't think I knew I wanted to be a chef yet, but I was getting the itch. Like I was really interested in restaurants from there. So you were working front, but did you get to dabble in the back at all outside of that towel exchange? No, no, no. We were allowed to get just eating. I think that was it. If you worked a double, they were like, you can pick these three items off the menu and eat it. And I'd always get this chicken parm and I would like swallow it in like two minutes to get back to my shift. But yeah, I didn't really touch anything. Maybe like pipe some butter into a ramekin or something like that.
8:19First experiences, a little prep work like that. What is your second restaurant? Second restaurant, well, flash forward like six years from there. I'd been cooking for a while at some good places. I worked at a casino and things like that. But then I really wanted to step it up. And I went to work at Gordon Ramsay's at the London Hotel in New York City. as a call me, like the lowest level you could be. It was extremely humbling and intense. It opened my eyes up to the restaurant world as a whole, like what really existed beyond the little bubble I was cooking in in Connecticut at the time. And just the amount of talent that you're surrounded by in restaurants like that, when you're really high achieving, like focused on excellence, the type of people that are around you is just like crazy.
9:07Like, Like, oh, I used to work at Charlie Trotter's as a sous chef. Oh, I was working with Kobe DeWolf. And I was at El Bui. And you're just like, whoa. And, you know, you're finding out about the restaurant world that exists beyond the United States there. And the standards were like so high and crazy. And just every day just like pushing and trying to figure out if I belonged or didn't belong. But it really, that's when I got like the bug. Like I was like, I want to do this for the rest of my life. This is amazing. and I don't know, the companionship and like friends you meet there or just people I still talk to today and how successful just that roster of people I was with at that restaurant have gone on to do just blows my mind like that you're on that.
9:48As a comie at the lowest level at this restaurant, what are some of your tasks? What are you doing? So I was in the canapé section where you would do all that. So in the morning, I was in charge of like making little foie gras pates and then little toast points. We had to fry these tiny little crab beignets to go on another dish. You were in charge of cutting herbs for everyone. And that meant they had to be sharp knife and cut well where you get screened at. And you had all these little canapes you had to pick up for lunch services where I started. And that was, you know, you had to get organized.
10:28you had that do things right they were the opening bites for everything so that was a little stressful yeah and then like mediocre like cut shallots for everybody it was like all those little things of mise en place that you had to do yeah okay so we got to get the gordon story because you know gordon's rep you know many many in the interest say sweet guy really nice he's not how he is on tv you know that's like now in 2025 we're talking early 2000s gordon ramsay here for you what's it like working at a Gordon Ramsay restaurant? I think it's just very demanding and hard. Like, obviously, that's a persona for television, right?
11:04And also, at that time, it wasn't the same person, right? Yeah, it was very crazy. Like, he was there pretty often, but not as much as you'd expect because the empire was pretty big. But I mean, every time he'd come in, like, when I'd moved to Entremet, he remembered me. He was like, oh, you were on Canapé last time I was here. I So you moved up. That's great. And like, I remember the first time he came in, I had to put up all the canapes for him. And I was like a ghost. I was like, oh. Like for like a tasting? Yeah. And he gave me the thumbs up and I was like, okay, this is good. Rob's got skills at that point.
11:37Yeah. Maybe. I don't know. Yeah. They're developing. And yeah, just, it was stressful. You know, it was, it was definitely a hard restaurant. I don't, you know, I can't say it was like amazing. I want to stay humble there and be like, I probably was the worst person cooking there at the time, but I was very driven. But overall, I think everyone that worked under him that were like in leadership or the same way, if something wasn't right, like they're going to find everything else that is wrong. And then like you really learn how to cover your tracks and be like on top of your mise en place and work.
12:10So like they'll find one thing wrong and then that just like opens the floodgates for like investigation. Oh, yeah. Everything. Like every drawer is getting pulled out. and like the same exact chives you cut the night before that were good are now not good enough. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's just like, oh. So you're always trying to achieve that like perfection in a way, you know? It's like even the brioche toasted for the foie was like if there was a crumb on the plate, it was like sent back, like refire a new piece, not even clean the plate. It was just like start over again. Wild. Yeah. But still important to recognize that 20-8.
12:43Yeah, I think it built like a really good foundation for me and where I wanted to go with my career and what kind of chefs and restaurants I wanted to go to beyond that. Have you reconnected with Gordon since winning the big award and opening your own restaurant? No. So if you're listening, Gordon, come say hi. Let's get Gordon down to Oyster Oyster. I'm sure he would be into that. It's cool. Yeah, he likes vegans now, right? Yeah, he's into it. Yeah, plant-based cooking is cool for Gordon. Let's move on to your third restaurant. Where are we going, Rob? So we're going to go to Japan. And I didn't work here, but it's a restaurant I ate at.
13:19And like 2011, I spent a couple weeks going around. And in Tokyo, there's a restaurant, Daisen Harumi. Chef Nagiyama is the chef there. When I ate there, he was probably in his 60s. You know, he'd been like being a sushi chef for like 40 some odd years. And it's a restaurant that just, I think, really laid down what I wanted, a restaurant that I was going to have to be in the future. um this is so much care taken in that restaurant like he was making all the pottery like every plate you ate off he made um and he's like oh i designed this soy sauce dispenser so it doesn't drip all the other ones are crap you know and he had kintsugi plates and um you know he hand hand writes the menu every day and hangs it up and as a guest you get a copy of it but that meal he gave me the actual menu which i thought was like so cool so cool um you have it still yes yeah Something I cherish.
14:13And just like all these little details, you know, like they had like a napkin and the napkins were like hand sewn. And if you were a woman dining, you got to keep it. I don't know. It's like some, they do a lot of stuff like that there. Yeah. Japan has those roles, those gender roles that are different. But I remember like my glass of sake was sitting for a while and one of the assistants came over and like took it from me. And then they had like this ice bane and rolled it in it. So it would like chill it back down to the right temperature. and there's just so much attention, detail and intention to everything that was just like, wow, like this is really caring for people.
14:47This is hospitality. This is what I want to create one day. Like this guy loves what he's doing. I mean, I believe he retired a few years ago at like 80 something, you know, and just being able to have that kind of dedication and focus on a craft and just improving every day. Um, and that interaction, it just felt so genuine and real. And I don't think I'd experienced a restaurant like that before. I mean, it's kind of the juxtaposition of what we were just talking about. I don't think I ever even saw the dining room at Gordon's. Yeah. You never, you didn't even know the color of the, of the carpet there.
15:20Do you go to Japan a lot? Is this part of your research and just your interests? No, it doesn't. I, I haven't been a lot. That was like a big trip for me. You know, as a young cook, that was a big investment back then. And like doing stuff like that now, It's like with kids, I just don't get to travel as much. Let's move on to your fourth restaurant. I'm very curious where we're going to go. Yeah, we're going to go to Copenhagen. Relay restaurant. Christian Puglisi's restaurant was a huge inspiration, I think, for what Oyster Oyster became. I mean, it was talking about sustainability, working with organic farms, having his own farm.
16:01a very whimsical menu too, in a sense that things were always changing. And I, instead of like a dish being perfect, it was like, this is what's in season. This is what we have today. And we're going to use this kind of like empirical knowledge we have to create dishes. It's a restaurant that was really influenced by, by the book and just reading Instagram. And then in 2018, I finally went and dined there. Jonathan Tam was the head chef at the time who has Jatakan, which is a fantastic restaurant um and it was a restaurant that lived up to the expectation right like i was so hyped to go there i was like worried like oh it's gonna be a letdown it's always a worry right especially a place like relay puglisi he's got that cool cookbook he's got this but the feeling midway through i'm sure was like relief in some ways yeah exactly and it's just even a restaurant where the overhead like all the bs is cut out of a restaurant right like all the performative stuff is gone it's really letting the ingredients uh talk and the actual people be genuine with you and it's it's just real hospitality and i love that that you could have a restaurant that's kind of like focused on excellence these really important ethos and then just like delivering great food but like no one's like pompous and there's not in suits and stuff like that and i just really was like this is cool and it's like a good blend of the restaurant just spoke about and then Relais, like, that's the hybrid.
17:24I need this restaurant. Yeah, because there's fine dining principles everywhere in that restaurant. I've been able to dine there myself and visited Christian's farm. And it's a great call that he's inspired a lot of American chefs like yourself in this way of kind of like effortless service, high ethics, but not like a big, massive mission statement on the front of the menu, just kind of like talking about it with you during service. Exactly. Yeah. It's really cool. It's a shame it's gone, but. Yeah, and did you go to Baste, his pizzeria? Yeah, it's actually one of my favorite pizzas in the world.
17:57Same. It's like my top three for sure. Yeah, no, dude, doing that style of like naturally leavened dough and like just the different grains. Yeah, and they're making their cheese and all this stuff. They're making their cheese. It's like crazy. It's so good. Yeah, are they both gone now? No, that's still open. Baste is still open. Burleigh is no longer there. Great call. Yeah, going to Copenhagen as a chef, did you get to go to the big Noma? Yeah, I went to Noma as well. That was really incredible. Once again, did not let down. And it was in the new location. I didn't dine at the previous. Super cool.
18:29We sat at like an eight-person table, like a communal table. And I love that kind of experience because you're interacting with different people. And I went to her in the seafood menu. And I'm a vegetarian. And they still prepared the vegetarian menu. And it's like my favorite experience because they just put like truffles and really good mushrooms on everything. and they'd come and like open this crock and this air and everyone's looking at me like, who is that guy? You got this special menu. I want that, right? When you go vegetarian sometimes for tasting menus, you get a lot of jealousy sometimes when you're like one of the few making that option.
19:01Yeah, it's like, oh, I kind of want that. I kind of want that. I want to ask you about your vegetarianism because I know a lot of chefs who cook plant-based maybe aren't fully plant-based or vegetarians. But you are. Have you been a vegetarian for a while? What's your journey there? Vegetarian for eight years. Yeah. So I was at a restaurant called Hazel that I was running. And I started getting really into this environmental and sustainability issues. And at that restaurant, I was known for like a duck dinner and ribs and tartar. Chef guy of a certain area. Yeah, exactly. And then I was like, I don't know.
19:40I don't feel right about this. And it's something that's always been kind of a drive under me as even a young person. Like I really preferred vegetables and light, I don't want to say lighter food, but those kind of clean flavors. And then I made the shift in 20, late 2016, 2017, around then. And then we started building Oyster Oyster because I needed a space where I could make this change that I wanted to see. All right. We're wrapping up your top five. What's your last restaurant that has inspired your career? Yeah. And this is pretty recent and it's not actually dining in the restaurant per se, but not the restaurant.
20:14person just using the term the term will come up in conversation and people will be confused so thank you for clarifying um the inner little washington uh we were invited to do a dinner with patrick and his team about two years ago and um we went we went to the inn and the type of hospitality they gave us as a team that was coming to cook there was incredible like we just felt pampered like it's like what do you need everything we asked for was delivered it was there on time The staff was there to help us. Do you need a coffee? We got a coffee. You need this, this, this. Like everything is amazing.
20:48A lot of times when you do these events, you're just there as like the work, the help. And like even asking for a water seems like an effort for someone. And just to be given that level of hospitality to a team that's coming to cook an event was amazing. So we did the event. And then afterwards, they took us through the courtyard and we're walking. It was like this beautiful night. And we're talking to each other. And my sous chef, Dana, she's like, I would love a cigar right now. And they take us into this back dining room. And they've prepared this feast for us. There's like veggie burgers, regular burgers, French fries.
21:23Patrick's back there. Like all this food. There's whatever drink we wanted. And cigars show up, you know. Wow. And we're just like, is this unreal? Like where are we right now? This is crazy. And we just had like this great night talking with everyone and just imbibing and eating. and we're just like the most care I've ever felt as a chef, even out of any restaurant, you know? And it's something we've taken as our like core values at the restaurant that we want just even our staff alone and anyone who comes to do an event at Oyster Oyster to feel that like the same effort we'd give to like our most PPX guest, we're going to give to you.
22:00And it just trickles down. Like now it's like whatever we thought was for a special guest is like what every guest gets now at the restaurant. When you come to dine at a restaurant, you're going to feel great. You come to do an event with me. We're going to make sure you have everything you need. We don't want to let you down and want to take care of you. And I think that's something the industry really needs now is just like to make it attractive again. It's like, we need to remember we need the hospitality as much. Like we have to take care of ourselves and our own. And it's so important because a lot of times these ask are very heavy to go do events and things.
22:32And it's Like there's not really any payback or you're not really thought about. And, you know, a lot of these nonprofits are still paying their people really well to operate the event. It is that dynamic of the chef going and doing the charity event and not getting really compensated for it. For a great cause, obviously, and benefit. But you're not really getting taken care of and you need to kind of change that. Exactly. So that was really great and just a really lovely team there. So that was a really special experience for us. How was the veggie burger? It was great. It was great. It was like a beet-based thing that they made, and I was really happy with it.
23:09It's an amazing point you make about restaurants hosting other chefs in a collaboration or even just as guests. You want that ethic to translate that you're going to give your guests. I totally agree with you. You should even do more because you're peers. Diners are guests, and some may be friends, but you guys are peers. Exactly. You're working side by side in this very difficult industry. So you should treat each other well. Yeah. And only do events with people you know and that are your friends. That's advice I'd give. Someone you have some rapport with because if you don't gel, it can be a really awkward experience.
23:48Yeah. Especially when it's like a collaboration menu. Yeah. You're like, hmm. Yeah. I guess you have to learn, you know, the hard way in some ways. But do you have, you host chefs at Oyster Oyster? Yeah. We usually do a series called Trey Veg, Very Veg. We invite chefs who normally don't do veg and we say, come do a veg menu. We've had some great chefs come do it. And we're going to kick it off again this year too. Oh, yeah. Who are some chefs that have been there? We've had David Posey from Chicago. We had Ian from Petromala in Philadelphia. Amanda Schulman from Her Place. Anna Castro and Isabel from Pascual that was how we started the year we did we got we got Chabella and Anna together for one dinner it was our first day back from our winter break and it was nuts like it was so cool the food was delicious but it was like such high energy I had a great time I love that Rob Ruba thank you so much for joining This Is Taste and taking the Resi Top 5 yeah thank you this episode is brought to you by Aura Frames.
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25:32And here's the deal. You can preload an Aura frame with photos and have it directly sent to that special person in your life, gift-wrapped and all. There will be no price tag and you can include a personalized message. Think about it. All those photos from this past summer's family reunion delivered in a digital frame. That is pretty cool. For a limited time, save on the perfect gift by visiting AuraFrames.com to get$35 off Aura's best-selling Carver Matte Frames, named number one by Wirecutter, by using promo code TASTE at checkout. That's A-U-R-A frames.com promo code TASTE. The deal is exclusive to listeners and frames sell out fast, so order yours now to get it in time for the holidays.
26:18Support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions apply. From February 20th to March 7th, dive into Canada's biggest culinary festival, Montreal en Lumière, an exclusive partnership with the McCord Stewart Museum and its exhibition, On the Menu Montreal, a restaurant story. The 2026 festival invites food lovers on a flavorful journey through time. Montreal's top restaurateurs will reimagine 65 years of the city's iconic astronomy, crafting inventive, nostalgia-inspired dishes with a modern twist. Prepare your palate. World-renowned chefs, including several Michelin-starred talents, will team up with over 80 of Montreal's finest local chefs to create unforgettable, one-of-a-kind menus.
27:04The full program is available at MontrealOnLumiere.com, presented by Lotto Quebec in collaboration with National Bank. Hi there, it's Matt, co-host of the show. We are currently running a This Is Taste listener survey, and we'd love to hear from you. Do you have a guest request? A restaurant you wish we'd visit to talk about on three things? What about a lesser-known cookbook author who deserves a spot in our studio chair? You can let us know by clicking the link in our show notes to complete the survey. It will only take a couple minutes, I swear, and will help us continue to make the best show possible.
27:41That's the This Is Taste listener survey. Link in our show notes. Yara, Yara, This Is Taste. Thank you for coming on the podcast. I rolled all my R's for you. You did. Was it too much? No, you did a good job, actually. Okay, okay. I need your approval, otherwise we'd have to take that again. Stamp of approval. I'm really excited to have you in the studio today. I'm such a fan of your food, and I think we'll have a great conversation. And to start, I want to get a little bit of insight into who you are and your background. And I'm wondering if you would tell me an early food memory. An early food memory.
28:17I always hated cooking as a child. So I one of my I guess it's not like a great food memory, but I have this very present memory of my mom always asking me to clean tomatillos and take the husk off of it. And I remember just being younger and being like, this is the most disgusting thing and the most disgusting smell. And that's just like, I'm maybe not the best food memory, but a memory that has always stuck with me. And even to this day now, I really enjoy the smell. But I can't help but to think back to that every time I'm like peeling tomatillo husks. I love that story. I feel like my version of this was being forced to like strip the ears of corn and take all of this silk off as a kid.
29:01And just like sitting on the porch with my sister having to do that. I feel like one of the best reasons to have children is to have them be your prep cooks. That's probably what my job was. That's when my mom had me, yeah. Yeah, prep cook. Be her personal prep cook. That's really sweet. I feel like also people always tell me, a lot of people tell me like a positive food memory, but I think the weird or like the bad food memories are actually like so much more fun and evocative. They are. I think it shows once you reflect on them, you realize how much of an adult you actually are now and how you've changed so much and how much you've grown and how you've taken negative things and turned them into positive ones, maybe even your career.
29:41I peel tomato husks professionally and I don't complain anymore. I was going to say, I bet you've peeled like thousands at this point. I do, yeah. That's funny. Well, okay, so you overcame this hatred of peeling tomatillos as a child and then you ended up working in restaurants. Can you tell me a little bit about how that happened and maybe like broad strokes what your career has been like so far? Yeah, I went to culinary school. Nothing fancy, just a local trade school in the San Fernando Valley. And my teacher before I graduated was like, hey, you're going to graduate soon. Like I worked in retail at the time.
30:18I was a visual merchandiser for like Urban Outfitters and Hot Topic. So fun. Yeah, it's kind of like plating, but on, you know, models and not plates. but he was like you need to get a job you aren't doing anything related to the thing that you're going to school for and I was super nervous and I think that's really what it was like you know I was ready to graduate and I studied really hard but I was just so scared to actually do it and he was like my roommate is looking for some help I think you should head down there and help him out and it turned out to be a restaurant called Katsuya in Hollywood and mine and that's how I got my first job, my teacher's roommate gave it to me.
31:02I love that. And I'm an LA girl, so Katsuya means a lot to me. When was the moment that you realized that you wanted to be working in restaurants? I had a teacher, her name was Miss Frederick, in high school. I had to take a home ed class to get some extra credit points. I was trying to get into San Francisco State at that time I was really interested in social work and I wanted to major in psychology and sociology and go into more of a field of helping orphan kids and people who are looking for housing and things like that and so trying to get into that school I took Miss Frederick's class and I just kind of secretly fell in love with her I just loved her like boss woman energy which I think was like really more rare to see at that time.
31:52And she just really inspired me. We never had a direct connection where, you know, I would go to her for advice or anything like that. It was just more of admiring her from like far away. And of course, she was always like, I went to this school and things like that. So very last minute, my senior year, I just kind of canceled all my plans. And I was like, I think I'm going to culinary school. There's something I really enjoyed about how she ran the class and the steps of following a recipe and cleaning up and this discipline. There's a type of discipline that I just didn't have that I was very curious and almost felt challenged.
32:25Like, could I be one of those people that like wake up really early and, you know, sharpen their knives and kind of like head into work with a goal? And I think I was curious about that challenge specifically. I don't know if my relationship was ever really about food. So I feel very grateful now that I have found it. Yeah. I mean, and now you're that kind of boss woman running the restaurant, like coming in to work with your knives sharpened every day. I do. I can't believe it. Yeah. So, OK, tell me, like, when did you move to New York and what was your kind of path through restaurants before coming to Hellbender?
33:02Yeah. So I moved to New York right in the beginning of 2019. I got offered a job at Momofuku Co. And I took it. I wasn't really sure what to expect. At that time, I had worked in some of the best restaurants in L.A. And I was just looking for, like, the next best thing. Everybody praises New York. Some of the best restaurants are here. In my mind, the best cooks were here. And I wanted to see if I could, like, hang. So I came out here. I took the job. 2019 was a great year. I think we all know 2020 probably wasn't. You know, we all thought the world was going to end, or at least I did. So I was almost ready to kind of head back home and be like, maybe this is a time to, you know, spend with your family.
33:52And I had this like intermediate time of kind of waiting for something new to happen and then finally deciding to go back home. I befriended Daniel Eddy, who is the owner of Winner in Park Slope. And he had just opened the bakery at that time. It was maybe like one or two weeks. And he was asking just cooks and chefs if they were willing to help out and maybe run a little pop up or help with like some desserts. I think staffing was really difficult at that time. So any way that he could reach out to people to help out. I ended up being one of those people. And it was the first pop-up I ever did in my life.
34:33I wasn't taking it too serious. Daniel didn't really ask me many questions. And it was the first time that someone kind of let me cook and do whatever I wanted. And it was the first time that I was like, okay, if I'm going to make something and I feel like no one's really judging, no one's really looking, the city's kind of empty, I don't have a boss, like, what am I going to make? and I just naturally made food that I enjoyed for myself cooking at home, things that I grew up with. So I made like a fried potato taco. I made a small aguachile and a little tomato and peach salad. It was like a, I remember the outline of the pop-up had to be like$25, three items, and it has to be like grab and go.
35:20And it had to be ran Monday through Friday. So we ran it Monday, you know, Tuesday, Wednesday. On the last day, Friday, there was like a line out the door, which I was very surprised to see and very excited. And Monday of that week was the first write up I ever received an eater with Best Dishes Eater Editors ate this week. and I was just over the moon surprised and really cannot believe that I have lived here one year. I have no restaurant, no name, you know, no title. And I somehow was able to make it onto this publication simply because, you know, someone lives in the neighborhood and they happen to be there.
36:03So it felt a lot of a full circle. Also, maybe I was like, maybe I was just in the right place at the right time, but I'll take it. Yeah, I mean, I think like that moment of the pandemic and restaurants here in New York, like people were really wanting to support, right? And wanting to have new things to eat, like new things to do. So it seems like a right place, right time kind of moment. A hundred percent. I recently saw Daniel Eddie and I brought it up and I was like, oh, my God, you know, thank you so much. You were like one of the first. He was like, what are you talking about? I was like, you know, this one time he's like, did I really do anything for you?
36:41I was like, of course you did. Like you gave me this, you know, opportunity with no judgment to kind of like let me be myself. And it's something that I realized I never really had just at that time working in fine dining. It wasn't really something that was offered to you like, hey, what do you think? Or like, what do you want to do? You know, now I think now that I have a team, I look back to that moment a lot and try to, you know, ask them questions, make them help them make decisions without feeling judged in that way. I think that really, really helps people kind of come to who they are and making food.
37:16Yeah, I think that's really important. And if this pop-up was the first moment that you were able to kind of think about what your menu would be and cook your own food, how did you get to the point where you were able to open Hellbender? So this pop-up gave me a confident boost to stay in New York. And I feel so grateful that I did start this in like a rise of pop-up culture. I feel like pop-ups became extremely popular at this time. Nobody really had a brick and mortar. So people were like jumping around. It was very exciting. People were like, I have to go to this pop-up because it might not be here again.
37:51And I kind of took advantage of that and I just went for it. I was like, okay, I did it once. I can probably do it again. And I eventually did one at Rolos where I met my business partners now, Howard, Rafik, and Ben. They asked if I would help out. At that time, I believe they were like maybe a year old. And we had a great time. It was a little fusion of some things at Rolo's, a little remake of some of the items they had with some Mexican ingredients, and then figuring out how to use a lot of their wood fire equipment. So we had a blast. We had a blast. I didn't think too much of it at the time.
38:34I was like, that was probably like the most popular restaurant that I had done a pop-up in at that time. So it got a lot of publicity. And a year later is when I got a call from them asking if I, you know, would meet them up for dinner. They wanted to propose something. We met up at Cozy Royale. Love their burger. Yeah, I had the burger. I think we had four burgers. I love a sesame bun. And the conversation, I was very stiff. I've never been in a lot of conversations like that. I felt like I was really sweating, like trying to be professional. I'm in front of these, you know, I think it was also our other business partner, Stephen.
39:17So they're all like dads, you know, older, very professional. And I didn't know them in a friendly way at that time. So I felt very much like, OK, I'm going in here with these, you know, top chefs. What are they going to ask me? And they were like, hey, we kind of came across the space. we think it has a lot of opportunity we personally don't have the bandwidth to carry out a project like this at the time they were already opening radio bakery would you be interested in doing something in it we really enjoyed the food that you made at the pop-up and we felt like that's something that the neighborhood needs at the time so they were like we're not asking you to be our chef were asking you to be a business partner in the project.
40:08I was so confused. I'm not going to lie to you. Like I it all happened so fast where I was like, I just kind of learned how to make, you know, my own food. Like, am I really in a position to like now run an entire restaurant? And I was like, I mean, people do it all the time, right? People just close their eyes and say yes. And I felt like in my heart, I had the best intentions and I had worked really hard to be here at this moment. So why would I say no now that the opportunity has presented itself? And that's kind of how it started. Hell yeah. I love that intentionality. I think like that's exactly the right way to respond when you have an opportunity.
40:50And I think what Hellbender has become is such a cool combination of, like, really a neighborhood restaurant that is so kind of beloved by the people who live in Ridgewood and also a destination restaurant that has received a lot of press and accolades this year. And being able to kind of hold both of those truths together, I think, just shows, like, what the restaurant is able to kind of accommodate. If someone is listening and they haven't been to Hellbender before, how would you describe the food? And do you think there are any dishes on the menu that kind of showcase that in a way? Yeah. Hellbender is a Mexican-American restaurant.
41:27And I like to describe it in that sort because there aren't any very traditional Mexican dishes. A lot of them use and highlight Mexican ingredients and traditional techniques. But they try to combine American culture and, you know, more popular things that you might have grew up eating with. So one of our most popular dishes is the fried Oaxacan cheese. It's, I think, the first item that we are indeed recipe undeveloped. And it was one of those that we thought about it and then we made it and then we didn't have to change it. Like that was it. And that rarely, rarely happens. I was like, oh, I wonder if this will work.
42:05We fried it. I'm like, oh, that worked. I guess it's like a mozzarella stick, but kind of like lighter and less like, I don't know the word, gloopy. Yeah, exactly. The vision behind it was how do we make a Mexican-inspired mozzarella cheese stick? So we literally just take fried cheese. We don't even really do much to it, just kind of cut it into smaller pieces. we bread it in cornflakes and then we pair it with what we thought we used to call a green marinara but it's really just tomatillos tomatillo salsa with a lot of um oregano in it yeah i love that i feel like there are so many dishes on the dinner dinner menu that i really enjoy the crispy lamb tacos are another kind of favorite yeah um and that's where a lot of that's where this you know, a lot of people are like, oh, how did Rolos get involved or like how much of Rolos is in the menu?
43:05A lot of the R &D that I did before opening Hellbender was made at Rolos. So I had access to a lot of the ingredients that they had there. It was the kitchen that I was using at the time. So a lot of things that happened by accident were because I found something at Rolos that I was able to use. And the crispy lamb is something, a dish that they were playing around with. I think they ran it as a special, just the actual method of how they cook the lamb itself. And I was like, this is like making carnitas, but with lamb. And that's how that lamb taco kind of came into place. Yeah. I wanted to ask you about brunch also, because I have not made it out to Ridgewood for breakfast yet.
43:48But a lot of people, I think, seem to be into the masa pancakes specifically. How did that come about? I love that. That was a big collaboration with Rafiq, my other business partner and executive chef of Rolo's, I had a masa pancake recipe that I had developed for a previous project, Shilonen, and that pancake was a vegan pancake. So I had kind of a print or an outline of what I wanted the pancake to be. When we were deciding to open up for brunch, we were like, there needs to be a wow factor or something that's exciting about it. So people are really big on pancakes. We almost did a French toast.
44:32We were like crepe, French toast, or pancake, but we can't have all three. So we tested a lot of different recipes out for all three things. And Rafiq is a dad. He's like, I make pancakes for my kids every single day. Like I am pancake king and master and I want to do the pancake. And I was like, okay, here's, you know, an outline of something I've already started. and he kind of helped me like refine it and test it out and just you know make it a little a little better one thing that he's really adamant about is like no sugar in the pancakes so if you have our pancake without the syrup it's pretty savory that's cool yeah and the day before we opened brunch we made the pancake straight on the on not on the skillet on the plancha on the griddle.
45:23And that day we watched a video of like the best pancake. And I think the Golden Diner pancake came out and it was baked in one of those little pans. Ironically, Hellbender used to be a cafe before and there were a bunch of those little pans all over the restaurant that we were like, we should probably throw these away, but we might use them someday. And funny enough, we grabbed one of the little pans and baked the pancake batter that we had landed on the final recipe into the pan. We tasted it and we were like, this pancake's like way better than any other pancake I have ever had. And we were like, it's going to be just such a pain to cook them all.
46:05And I was like, well, we all looked at each other. We're like, we all agree that this one's better, right? So it was kind of like, is it going to be hard? Yes. Should we just do it? Yes, because we know we'll be robbing this recipe of its full potential if we don't just, you know, go with what discovery we've just made. So it was really interesting how it all came together because it wasn't really until the very last moment. Yeah. And then the fate that you happened to have stockpiled the pans that were already in the restaurant. Exactly. And they were just always in the way. And like I remember a million times that I was like, I need to throw these away.
46:40I think I took a few home. We gave a few away. It's just so funny. Yeah, they were in the way because they were waiting to be chosen. Yeah, they were saying something. Oh, I love that. Yeah, come find us. Today's episode is brought to you by ButcherBox. As a food writer, I can be a little skeptical about subscription cooking boxes you hear about on podcasts. There's big talk about cooking simplicity, but you're usually left with disappointment after smashing that promo code. Now, Clayton, have you ever tried one of those subscription boxes? Yeah, Matt, my friend gave me a code for that one that has all the chopped vegetables in little baggies.
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47:55It was incredible. These ButcherBox ribs are amazing. For nearly a decade, ButcherBox has led the industry with meat and seafood that's antibiotic-free. As an exclusive offer, our listeners can get free protein in every box for a year plus$20 off your first box when you go to butcherbox.com slash taste. Visit butcherbox.com slash taste to get this limited time offer and free shipping always. That's butcherbox.com slash taste. Don't forget to use our link so they know we sent you. I feel like we're talking about what it means to be a neighborhood restaurant, partially because I think Ridgewood is such a neighborhood-y neighborhood in New York.
48:39And I'm curious what your tie was to the neighborhood beforehand, if you had been there or lived there, and how you kind of look at the restaurant as a dining neighborhood. Yeah, I had moved very recently to Ridgewood before Hellbender opened. I've obviously had been there, had friends that live in the area. I didn't necessarily go to eat anything specifically at that time three years ago. But obviously Rolo's. But I always enjoyed it. I lived in Bushwick for the first six, seven years that I had lived in New York. So I always enjoyed the walkover. It was very short. It was kind of nice to run away to a quieter spot 10 minutes down the street.
49:28The adjacent neighborhood. Yeah, to the adjacent neighborhood. But I very quickly grew to love Richwood, not just because my restaurant in there, but because it really does have such a unique and special sense of community. I feel like anyone that has a business there really tries to support each other in any way possible. I have very good relationships with a lot of like the local restaurants and chefs that live in the neighborhood and even just my neighbors. I feel like everyone's always there for each other and you see a lot of familiar faces day in and day out which I think you don't get to do a lot in Manhattan and one thing that I really appreciate is there's a lot of community work involved like there's the Richwood Jazz Club you know that will sometimes want to play outside of Hellbender and I think that's you know really amazing or you know we raise donations locations for maybe the local soccer team down the street.
50:31And we're hosting a toy drive tonight. So a lot of like the businesses come together to try to be like, okay, what can we do for the community outside of just being a business? Because we're not just here to, you know, capitalize on the neighborhood. We want to make sure that it's being taken care of and people feel supported. Yeah, I think that is really special about Ridgewood. And even one day I was at Hellbender, you came in with a bunch of grapes that you were going to put on the menu that had come from your backyard. Like what chef in New York has grapes in their backyard? Yeah, I feel really lucky.
51:02I mean, I moved into that backyard and obviously the grapes were already there. But it is kind of like that. I even went, you know, down the street to the coffee shop and I was like, do you guys want some grapes? Because I don't know what to do with them. But it's having like those relationships, you know, the people that come down the street like, hey, I have all these extra, you know, boxes or I don't know. It's really cute. Pancake pans. Yeah. You guys need more pancake pans right here. Exactly. And you mentioned working at Xilanan before. I'm curious, like in the time you lived in New York, have you seen the Mexican food scene kind of evolve and grow?
51:35A hundred percent. I'm not sure if it's because I just became part of that industry so hard recently or if it was because I wasn't seeking restaurants out before, but I really have seen such a rise in the Mexican community being represented in the culinary world. There's restaurants, you know, like Corima that are making such a buzz. There's places that are opening up in Bed-Stuy, like Olmo Cantina, Dolores, where you start to see different variations of Mexican food in different regions, I felt like for a long time. And I think even now a lot of people associate Mexican food with tacos, you know, which is totally correct.
52:18And everyone loves tacos. Nothing wrong with that. But there's just so much more in that scope that I think is now being displayed. Yeah, I totally agree. I live in Clinton Hill and there's been two new openings that are in like a 10-minute walk to my apartment this year. And it's Marisco Submarino having a new location and then the Burritos Juarez place. And those are two like completely different. One is like Marisco's Aguachile, kind of that realm of seafood. And then the burritos are like their own kind of special thing. And I feel really lucky that those are both like now available to me.
52:51Those are two of my favorite spots. I feel like it's hard to find a good bean and cheese burrito in New York for some reason. It is. It's under, I think it's underestimated. So people are like, who cares what beans you use? You know, who cares what cheese or tortilla? But I think when you do it right with the right ingredients, it shows. Yeah, absolutely. I feel like it's the end of the year and everyone is talking about end of year lists and like the best meals that they've had. And I've seen Hellbender included on those lists. The New York Times did their top 100 and Hellbender was a new addition.
53:23What does that feel like in the restaurant when you receive that recognition? Oh, man, I feel like I can't believe it. I really cannot. Maybe I still have a little bit of imposter syndrome. I go through, like, different personalities. Some days I wake up and I'm like Beyonce and I'm like, of course, it's my world, you know? And then some days I'm like, is this really happening? Like, is it really me? Is everyone going to walk out of a room and be like, ha, ha, ha, just kidding, you know? but it's you know it's important to stay humble and grateful yeah keep making out the food yeah do you have any plans for it could be menu stuff or even like bigger things that you want to see happen at Hellbender in the future yeah I don't want to get too into it but we are doing a very small renovation to the kitchen upstairs we might try to figure an open kitchen situation out that It kind of combines the hotline with the bar a little bit.
54:24One challenge that we've experienced a lot the last two years is that Hellbender was originally built to be a bar, a cocktail bar. And so we designed the kitchen around that. The kitchen is extremely tiny. It is boxed in to be very dark, like no light pollution coming out into what we thought was going to be a dark, sexy bar. and so now we're dealing with trying to run a full-service restaurant out of that tiny box so we are reinvesting some of the money that we've made this year into making it a little bit more of the restaurant that I think we're moving into well that's exciting for you and your team it is sunlight it is okay I want to play a rapid fire game with you to close today So I'm going to make you play some favorites.
55:15Okay. There are no wrong answers. Okay. Your favorite season for cooking? It has to be summer. I know. I hate to say it, but I mean, it's strawberries. It's everything. It's so hot. I love to eat raw, cold fish and things like that. So I feel like summer is always the best time for it. Totally. A favorite cookbook? oh i really like um in search for the seventh mole by susana thrilling it is a very small it's not necessarily a cookbook but it's a little short story about her journey in mexico becoming a mother how she had kind of fell into these six moles and everyone would tell her there's a seventh so it was like her journey into finding it and then she shares like the seventh the six the seven recipes.
56:07Oh my God, I have actual chills right now. I love Mola and I didn't know there was a seventh one, so I'll have to seek it out. It's a good one. Okay. An LA spot that you wish would open a location in New York? Am I allowed to say In-N-Out? Yeah. What's your In-N-Out order? A number two with grilled onions, extra toasted bun, cheese fries, and a pink lemonade. Oh, I didn't know that they did pink lemonade. Oh my God, yes. I'm always doing a Neapolitan shake. I love a shake too. Have you seen people bringing their own bacon to In-N-Out? I just saw a video of this. No, but that's kind of a pro move.
56:46I know. I'm surprised they don't have bacon now that I think about it. I don't know. Who knows how they make their decisions. One of my best friends in high school worked at In-N-Out. So I know like every little hack and trick and all these like crazy orders that you can get. What's like an off menu thing you think more people should be doing it in and out? Definitely the double toasted bun. Definitely like the raw onion and grilled onion. There's something he would always talk about called the Flying Dutchman that I don't remember what's really in it. Yeah, I'm going to Google this really quick because I remember this being a thing when I was in high school that you would like get the Flying Dutchman in and out.
57:25So the Flying Dutchman is like a legendary sailing ship, but it also is two patties and two slices of cheese with no bun. That's crazy. Maybe we won't be getting that one. Maybe not that one. My In-N-Out hack is you can get like jalapeno peppers on the patty. Okay. Your favorite food neighborhood in New York? I love fleshing. There's just, I feel like I'm in another world. I feel like I just transported somewhere else. I love the noodles. I love everything about it. Super great. Your favorite quick lunch spot in New York? I think for a quick lunch spot, I stay in the neighborhood. I really like going to Mama Yoshi Mini Mart.
58:08It's very just grab and go, nigiris, pickles, bowls. Super fun. Your favorite occasion restaurant in New York? I recently had a fancy night and went to Otta. I'm obsessed. Did you go to, they have two locations now? Which one did you go to? I went to the East Village one. Uh-huh. And it was a nice room. It was amazing. Cool. Yeah, it was beautiful. Just, I felt very taking care of. The hospitality and that restaurant group is insane. Your favorite bar in New York? I'm kind of a dive bar girl. There's originally a bar that opened in Richwood, Mr. Nancy's. I really like going there. I also really like Aftermath.
58:50They have very delicious cocktails. A favorite bakery in New York? Again, I'm going to just stay biased to Richwood. Bakery, I don't even know if I'm saying it correct. It's spelled B-A-K-E-R-I. Yeah, bakery, bakery. If people say bakery, I like to maybe just say bakery to act like it's a different word. but it's conveniently placed on my walk to Hellbender so I run in there for a treat all the time. Yeah, what's your go-to there? They always have some type of seasonal scone. I also really like the peanut butter chocolate chip cookie and I love like the sourdough with, I think it has like thyme and things like that, some herbs.
59:33A favorite thing on the menu at Hellbender right now? Ooh. What do I like at Hellbender right now? I really like this Brussels sprouts dish we put on. It's just like roasted Brussels sprouts tossed in like a bunch of salsa matcha and scallions and like a nice big squeeze of lime. So good. Yeah. It's like eating veggies, but like not really. Okay. Finally, a fictional food scene like from a book or a movie that you wish you could magically eat in real life. um the first thing that comes up in my head is a Krabby Patty from Spongebob from the Krusty Krab um I I think he's like one of my chef inspos Spongebob because he's dedicated yeah he's so dedicated like he's like it's Mr.
1:00:22Krab doesn't pay him and he's like I don't care because I'm here for the craft kind of thing so um he's really inspiring and he looks like he makes a good Krabby Patty. I love that answer. And this has been such a fun conversation, Yara. Thank you for coming on. Thank you for having me.
1:01:01Episode portraits by Louise Zergang Pomeroy. Logo design by Ellie Skurzat and Ian Dingham. Visit Taste Online at tastecooking.com and make sure to subscribe to our newsletter to keep updated on all cool things in the world of taste.
From the publisher
Yara Herrera is the chef-partner at Hellbender, a Mexican-American restaurant in Ridgewood, Queens. Born and raised in Los Angeles, she honed her skills in the city’s fine dining restaurants like Wolfgang Puck’s Spago and Providence before moving to New York in 2018 to work at Momofuku Ko, Xilonen, and Sobre Masa. Today on the show, we talk about Yara’s culinary journey, running Hellbender, and creating her distinctive approach to Mexican-American cuisine.
And before that, Rob Rubba, chef-owner of Oyster Oyster in Washington D.C. takes the Resy Questionnaire. In 2023, Rob won the James Beard Award® for Outstanding Chef and continues as a leader in plant-focused, sustainable cooking.
The views expressed in this podcast are those of the speakers – not of Resy—and do not constitute professional advice.
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