- [Sheldon Simeon] Chef Hugo Ortega began his journey
as a goat herder in Mexico,
only to end up winning
a Southwest Best Chef James Beard award.
After he immigrated to the US at the age of 16,
his dish washing career led him to meet the woman
that would change his career,
and would later become his wife.
And now, after multiple successful restaurants,
they finally opened Xochi,
a restaurant that is serving food that is closest
to his heart, Oaxacan cuisine.
(upbeat music)
So we actually bring the ingredients
from Oaxaca to make possible
to cook this incredible Oaxacan cuisine.
And to be able to put something on the table
that I truly love.
(upbeat music)
I got to this wonderful city back in the early '80s,
and I never looked back.
We arrange all my money to pay the,
we call him the coyote,
so that's the person that bring you over here.
- [Sheldon Simeon] Oh, okay.
My first job, it was a janitor in a restaurant.
I cleaned the kitchen, and I would start
at 10PM at night, and then finish by 7 in the morning.
The turning point in my life,
that was the summer of '87,
the day I got to Backstreet Cafe.
Playing poker, my friends say,
"Hey, they're looking for dishwasher."
You know, they took me over there,
out of the gate, I meet this beautiful lady,
and so that was Tracy.
She put me to work immediately,
and that was a turning point in my life.
Tracy asked me, "Do you be interested
"to go to a cooking school?"
and she paid for my enrollment.
That way in '91, when she offered me
the position of chef at Backstreet.
I just always feel attracted to Tracy,
and one time in '92 or '93,
I ask her to be my girlfriend and she said yes, so.
It's going to be our 23rd anniversary.
We've been together for about 28 years.
- [Sheldon Simeon] 28 years?
She herself is an incredible restaurateur.
You can feel her presence when she is in the kitchen.
An incredible team, I think.
Yeah.
It was the first time that I worked alongside my wife
opening Tinroof, my new restaurant.
There was a lot of things that we had to learn together,
but it's a pleasure that I get
to share that moments with my best friend.
I see the way that you talk about Tracy, and--
She's been like an angel, an inspiration to me.
You know, pick up this homeless guy
and give him the opportunity,
it's just very rare that that happen
to an individual like myself
and I am not on the other side of the table.
The first dish is this rib eye.
We want to season it.
This is a chicatana mole.
These are the chicatana, so the ants.
We use this ingredient to make the chicatana mole.
Oh, they remind me of like, prawns,
like small little shrimp that we have in our rivers.
There's like that saltiness,
and they're crunchy, and a lot of umami too.
The recipes have been done for generations.
The season is about maybe a week
where you can catch these ants.
Natives of Oaxaca, they collect them,
they season it and toast it
on the famous comal.
They make mole in this case.
Mole's a way of living in Oaxaca.
Every restaurant you go, they have their own mole version,
so there's hundreds and hundreds of moles.
This is from the valleys of Oaxaca, sopa de piedra.
Traditionally done by the river
in a natural stone dish, already carved like a pot,
and then they bring the hot river stones
and cook the seafood.
Has that flavor from the rocks,
the ash of the, you know, that,
it's burning on the wood and it imparts that smokiness
into the flavor of the fish.
I live with my grandmother from 8 to 13.
It was in her memories.
I was a goat herder.
These remote areas, there was no electricity,
so by five o'clock, you have to be out
and make the very best out of the daylight.
I learned to respect the land,
seasonality in these places is very important.
That was the way of living,
very kind of simple, dedicated to the land.
From little kids out in the fields with the goats.
That was it, that was our life.
No HEB back in the day?
No, no, no, no HEBs back in the days.
(laughing)
No HEBs.
These are fried beans, they have that poleo herb.
They're going to have that kind of minty flavor on it,
and also have ground pepper paste they call chintextle.
Then we put our mole.
(relaxed music)
I don't want to say it, but it's like a pizza.
It's like a pizza.
But this is the street food of Oaxaca.
The dessert is an inspiration on corn,
which is the emblematic-- Ingredient of--
Ingredient of-- Of Mexico.
Of Mexico.
Then underneath, you have what we call an atole,
blue corn masa, the cookie has been infused
with corn that has been toasted,
and then we have sweetcorn ice cream in baby corn shape.
You know, one of the most iconic ingredients
that Mexico offered to the world, it was cacao.
Once we toast it, we have a strong grinder
where we grind our cocoa beans and make chocolate.
We put it in these tablets.
It's just the cacao, cinnamon and sugar,
that is the chocolate Mexicano.
That is the best hot chocolate I've ever tasted.
- [Hugo Ortega] Oh, fantastic.
How many restaurants do you have now?
Six.
I started off as a dishwasher.
Oh my goodness, okay.
I worked my way up,
and now I'm the owner of my own restaurants.
Fantastic.
For you, starting as a dishwasher,
now you have this empire.
But the most important, Sheldon,
is if everybody marched together,
we can accomplish incredible things.
It's not a one man effort.
I believe in bringing everybody together
and telling them what we want to do
and why we want to do it, and why it's important to do,
and hopefully, that will be good enough
for them to continue believing in what we do.
- [Sheldon Simeon] Every single corner in the kitchen,
there's different ingredients that were so inspiring.
It has opened up my eyes to Oaxacan cuisine.
You get to go back to very specific
of where you grew up.
It's beautiful what you're doing here, chef.
- [Omer Yousafzai] So these are marinated kebabs.
Saffron is very important in Afghan cuisine.
(uplifting music)