Chef Austin Simmons collaborated with Chef Hugo Ortega on October 7th in The Woodlands.
The winner of the 2017 James Beard Foundation’s Best Chef Award, Hugo Ortega started with very humble beginnings. He was raised in Mexico City and Puebla, Mexico, and learned his love of cooking from his mother and grandmother, a revered mole maker. At age 17, he left Mexico for Houston and began his career in the restaurant industry as a dishwasher and busboy at Backstreet Cafe before graduating from culinary school and later becoming its executive chef and owner, along with wife Tracy Vaught. His American Dream continued when they opened Hugo’s in 2002, featuring regional Mexican cuisine; Caracol, a Mexican coastal kitchen, in Houston’s Galleria area in 2013; and Xochi, celebrating the flavors of Oaxaca, in early 2017 in the Marriott Marquis Houston Downtown. Hugo has published two cookbooks: Hugo Ortega’s Street Food of Mexico (2012) and Backstreet Kitchen: Seasonal Recipes from Our Neighborhood Cafe (2013). Chef Hugo was a James Beard Award finalist for six consecutive years, 2012-2017, before receiving the award for the Best Chef: Southwest. Chef Hugo has been recognized locally, nationally and globally for his inspirational story and his passion for sharing traditional Mexican cooking and culture, believes that ‘a chef is only as good as the last meal he cooked’.
