Even amidst the COVID-19 shutdown, restaurant entrepreneur Santiago Perez is making global headlines through his plan to elevate Mexican cuisine to the status of fine dining on the international scale.
Perez states “For so long, Mexican food has been considered cheap or fattening “But, there’s so much more to it. We wanted to show the richness and depth of the culture.”
Perez’s quest started with the swank Mexican restaurant Cosme in New York and has quickly expanded with new ventures opening between New York, Los Angeles, and Las Vegas.
Together with celebrity chef Enrique Olvera and Daniela Sotto Innes (who was recently named World’s Best Female Chef) Perez leverages one of the most accomplished culinary teams in the world to help Mexican cuisine make this lofty transition in the public eye. And so far, so good. Since its opening, Cosme has earned recognition by the James Beard Foundation and additionally as one of The World’s 50 Best Restaurants.
Beyond just Cosme, Perez launched another restaurant in Manhattan—Atla- a more casual restaurant in Noho in order to diversity his offering and the public’s range of experience with Mexican cuisine.
Now, on the heels of breakthrough successes in Cosme and Atla, Perez will be opening the restaurants Damian in Los Angeles and Elio at the Wynn hotel in Las Vegas in March.
To learn more about Santiago Perez’s rapid expansion and the evolution of Mexican cuisine at large, follow him on Instagram. (IG @santiago.perez)
