“My grandmother is the person I spent a lot of time with when I was growing up, so she had a very strong impact on my life as well as in the development of my palate and my cooking style.”
Memories of a childhood
My grandmother was a great cook and introduced my palate to many great flavors and ingredients, which if it wasn’t for her I would have never seen or tasted at such a young age”, remembers Richard Sandoval, and mentions his father, who also had an important role in his life: “He taught me how to run a business and without that I would have never been able to create the company that we have today”.
This 46-year old chef and member of a family of three brothers, says the memories of his youth he treasures most are the large family gatherings held at his grandmother’s home: “Weekends were filled with great meals; without me knowing it, I was being prepared for my future career in the restaurant industry”.
Reinventing Latin American cuisine
Combining ingredients of traditional, modern and coastal Mexico with flavors of Asian cuisine, and even French, in its various restaurants this chef seeks to reinvent Latin American cuisine, which, according to him, still has much to prove.“I am a great admirer of Latin cuisine and culture; therefore, I have spent the last few years traveling to as many countries in South America as I can to learn as much as possible and then, I modernize these cuisines by using different culinary techniques”, explains the chef.
Some of the greatest virtues that Richard Sandoval has discovered about Latin American cuisine is its diversity and the large number of ingredients with which you can play: “The food of this continent has amazing flavor profiles, which I love because I like to play with people’s palates, and these bold flavors allow me to do that”.