| Chefs of Zihuatanejo - Chef David English |
By Catherine Krantz
How exactly does one become a chef in the restaurant of the prestigious Villa del Sol? By peeling a lot of shrimp!
Villa del Sol with its prestigious membership in the Small Luxury Hotels of the World Association and its 4 Diamond Award for excellence from Triple A, is truly the jewel of Zihuatanejo. Ranked, just recently by Conde Nast magazine, the #5 resort in all of Latin America. Villa del Sol has always been an award winner and routinely receives glowing reviews and writeups in the largest of world-renowned international magazines. With so much pomp and circumstance, we could only assume the restaurant of Villa del Sol, La Cantina, would only have gruff distinguished European chefs, unapproachable and intimidating with no time to meet with the lowly local magazine. What a wonderful surprise then to meet Chef David English, friendly and outgoing with a great love of food.
Just 29 and already a veteran of some of the world’s most prestigious kitchens, English was a chef at Villa del Sol two years ago and has returned to La Cantina for the season.
Originally from California, Chef David has been paying his dues in kitchens around the world. It all started, with an opportunity to work in the kitchen with a well-known European chef at a restaurant in New Orleans. For a solid week he did nothing but peel shrimp, for $6/a hour, and was told by the chef, ‘‘You should be paying me for this.” (A concept he learned all too well at his most recent stint at La Broche, in Madrid—with a staff of 35 cooks, only 7 of whom were paid.) After a week mastering the fine art of shrimp peeling, he was promoted to the next station and thus began eight years of chef-ing and learning the tricks of the trade from some of the world’s greats.
Having just returned from 8 months in Spain where he worked at 6 different Michelin 2 star restaurants, with 3 months at Madrid’s La Broche who were at the moment in hot pursuit of their third star. La Broche, with an average of 60 diners for lunch and 60 for dinner, and 35 cooks in the kitchen, has almost a cook per diner ratio. It was working in this “pursuit of a third star” environment with only the highest standard of quality, the highest attention to detail that Chef David was reminded of how much he loved the kitchen. For him its all about great food and team work in a fast paced, challenging environment, working hard and being exhausted at the end of the day. He is happy to be back at La Cantina, working with Head Chef Fabrice and all the same excellent crew as were with him when he was here two years ago. La Cantina, is beach front and candle lit, with an open air kitchen that Chef David especially enjoys for its beach breezes and sounds of La Ropa waves that make it the perfect environment to create. A peaceful interlude before April when he heads off to jobs in France to work his way up the ranks some more. La Cantina has on average 40-50 diners with a full capacity of 60, and with 3-4 chefs for lunch, 5 for dinner, its more than enough to keep him challenged and he is eager to bring what he has learned back to Villa del Sol. They can accommodate parties of up to twenty but the restaurant is designed intimately with small tables looking out onto the waves of La Ropa. They are also planning monthly beach barbecues, a lively diversion with great food and a chance to see Chef David before he heads off again. Villa del Sol and the food lovers of Zihuatanejo welcome Chef David English back for another fine season of fine dining.
December 2001
Contents | Previous | Next |
|
|
