I love everything about Daniela Soto-Innes. First, she’s funny – like real laugh out loud funny – with the kind of personality that makes it impossible not to be instantly taken by her. She’s also incredibly talented too. Head chef at one of the most talked-about restaurants in New York City, she was just named Rising Star Chef at the James Beard Awards, which is pretty much the Oscars in the food world. Oh, and she’s only 25. It’s part of the reason she’s the subject of a documentary about her life that was aired at the Tribeca Film Festival. It’s all part of a series on inspiring women commissioned by the female-empowerment campaign ActuallySheCan made by filmmaker Emily Harold.
“One of the amazing things about Daniela is she proved that all the boundaries young women experience doesn’t have to exist,” says Harrold, who is also 25. “With Daniela, they don’t exist because she doesn’t see them. There are obviously boundaries, but she just steps past them. She proves that you can be really successful, really happy, and love what you’re doing.” It’s true. She’s incredibly modest when I reel on about her accolades and achievements. She’s proud, of course, but it’s clear that she doesn’t let the success define her. She assures me that her focus is, and will always be the food.
For the uninitiated, Cosme is without doubt the place to eat in New York right now and for good reason. It’s cool, without being trendy; it’s often packed and lively, without making you shout to have a conversation and the cooking is the perfect balance between traditional and modernity. Unlike most Mexican restaurants in New York, tortillas aside, you probably won’t recognize the names of anything on the menu. The inspiration behind everything on the menu is rooted in authentic Mexican flavours but the dishes are completely here and now. Each server goes into painstaking detail talking you through the provenance and inspiration behind each dish and everything that comes out is not like anything you’ve ever tasted before.
When it opened back in 2014, Daniela had just turned 24 but she wasn’t new to the kitchen by any stretch. In fact, she grew up in Mexico City, the youngest of three girls, surrounded by food. Her childhood was spent going to cooking classes and farmer’s markets with her lawyer mother whose father had thwarted her own early culinary ambitions. She started her career in high school, interning in the kitchen at the Marriott until they hired her. Looking for real food training, she moved to Austin, Texas, where she graduated from Le Cordon Blue of Culinary Arts before travelling and staging at restaurants in New York and Europe. It’s when she arrived back in Mexico City working at Pujol, which is widely considered the best Mexican-food restaurant in the world, where she met founder Enrique Olvera who hired her as the woman in charge when he opened Cosme as Pujol’s sister restaurant in New York. The beginning wasn’t easy. Every cook in the kitchen was older than her and it took her a whole to claim her confidence and stop being embarrassed by her age, not to mention being a woman in a notoriously male-dominated industry.
We caught up with her recently to, first and foremost, be a fly on the wall as she prepared for service, but also to talk mentors, operating outside your comfort zone and on the prospect of launching a restaurant of her own.
ON WHERE HER LOVE OF FOOD STEMS FROM: Growing up in Mexico City, you’re surrounded by food. You open your front door and the first thing you smell is toasted corn. Step outside and you see lots of juice and taco stands and then you turn around and you’re in front of a bakery. You’re surrounded by food at all times. All the parties you go to growing up are centered around food. If the food is good, the party is great. I was also very lucky growing up because my mother and great grandmother went to culinary school so they were always experimenting with new dishes. They both loved to cook so it played a huge role in our household. I remember being three years old and going with my grandmother to a bakery she used to run. She’d make me sit in a corner and I’d just watch everything she did. When I started walking I’d go and steal the bread from the ladies there. When I was four I started Montessori school. I was a test child for the food because my mother’s best friend owned it. I liked the cooking class there the most because it allowed me to eat all the time, which is definitely where this all started.
PERSEVERING HER WAY INTO THE MARRIOTT: When I was thirteen or fourteen I entered a high school with a really strong careers program so they built a big professional kitchen and we always had real chefs over doing talks. I remember the only master chef in Texas came to talk one day. It really inspired me. The funny thing was that the speakers only ever talked about the negative sides of the industry like how tired they were. A chef from Boston came one day with his sous chefs from Germany and France though, and they were a lot more positive about it all. I remember look at them and wishing that I could be like them one day. I went to the Marriott to ask for internships all the time but they’d laugh at me and turn me away. Then, one day I came back after that talk and was super enthusiastic and they finally took me on board. I worked there for free for two-three years and that’s how it started.
FIRST JOB LEARNING CURVE: The chefs there were very strict and came from small restaurants so I got to learn so much. They saw me as their test child because I was so naïve (I still am!) so they could mold me into anything they wanted me to be. What I learnt over three years in culinary school, I learnt on the job in a month. I learnt how to work in high volume and with different cuisines. I also learnt how to work with different people and to really put my head down and listen to what I was being asked to do. That really helped shaped my career. I’m always looking for ways to do things better and faster. In hotels there’s a structure of how things should be, and I definitely took that with me. Of course, I don’t want to do 1,000 covers every day but that experience really helped me be faster.
ON STUDYING AT LE CORDON BLEU: I was never supposed to be a cook. I was supposed to be a swimmer but one of my friends was like, ‘You need to go to Austin,’ so I applied for the program there and moved. It was an incredible experience but I don’t think everyone needs to go to culinary school to be a chef. Honestly, the best cooks I know didn’t go to culinary school. What the process did teach me is the importance of slowing down. Before starting, I was working from 4am to 12pm every day. I wasn’t a rich kid that didn’t have to work so going to school really helped me focus on what I really wanted to do with my life. I had a good three years in Austin. The chefs were very good to me. Since I already knew a lot of the things they were teaching, I would go and ask them to teach me how to use certain ingredients and really ask them to be tough on me. That was the advantage of having that experience beforehand.
THE IMPORTANCE OF TRAVEL: It reminds me that I always need to be active. I’ve been working in kitchens for 11 years but I’ve learnt that even someone who’s been doing it for two years has something to offer. They’ve been places you haven’t been and have something different to bring to the table. So if I go to Japan, I will not know anything about their cuisine even if I have more on-paper experience than someone there. Travelling really shows you how little you know and encourages you to be curious and always hungry to try new things and learn more.
ON BEING PART OF THE OPENING TEAM AT LAUDED RESTAURANT, BRENNAN’S OF HOUSTON: I really wanted to get my butt kicked in a big restaurant so lots of people I know told me about to go and ask for a job. There were eight male chefs when I started and I was totally intimidated – but that’s why I went for it. I realized that part of the reason I was intimidated was because I knew I had a lot to learn, things I could learn from them. They started me off in pastry and I learnt a lot about Creole desserts. I was doing 300 trays of pralines. I would always burn my hands making them – they’re really challenging to do fast and by hand. I then worked my way through every station. I was one of the first women to ever run the meat station. After that, there wasn’t much scope for me to grow so they had me working on the tasting menus for the chef tables. We did cooking shows with [the restaurant’s chef] Danny [Trace] for Fox News. It was really fun and probably the first time I realized I could be more than just a line cook. They really liked me because I was creative. Whenever they needed something to be done fast, the team would always scream my name.
WORKING UNDER PRESSURE: I honestly love it. I love to cook under pressure. I think if you’re not cooking under pressure, you should probably leave the kitchen you’re in and go somewhere that pushes you to be the best you can be. At the end of the day, that’s how you learn. When you’re comfortable, you’re stagnant. When you’re being challenged, things quickly become easier and the pressure subsides. It’s like riding a bike or learning how to swim. It’s difficult in the beginning but once you get it, everything makes sense. That journey is important. It’s a beautiful flow. Sometimes someone needs to push you into the water for you to realize you won’t drown.
ON BEING APPROACHED TO LAUNCH COSME NY: I didn’t have time to think about it. I was told that I’d have to move to New York in three days. I remember being in culinary school and travelling to New York, asking people for a job and they’d laugh. Every summer I’d travel back and try and get a job. They’d always say that they didn’t hire women so it was great to finally be given that opportunity. As a cook, coming to New York is like coming to Disneyland. We built the restaurant in like nine months to a year, and then I started hiring people; it was my first job where I was the boss. It was a lot of pressure, but when [Cosme founder] Enrique Olvera, one of the chefs you admire the most, trusts you to open a restaurant in New York, well, you do it. My job now is a rollercoaster. I’m always doing something new every day. So much of it is about being part of a team. I’m nothing without them. You always need a team to help you.
ON THOSE INFAMOUS CRAZY WORKING HOURS: I don’t actually work as many hours as I used to. In my first sous chef job, the problem was that I didn’t know how to delegate. I used to wake up at five in the morning because I felt like if I didn’t do something, it wouldn’t get done. That works for a while but not forever. I think if you’re smart about running a kitchen or running a business, you need to know how to delegate and how to trust people to learn and fix things when they mess up. I still don’t have much personal time now though. I rarely see my family and recently missed my sister’s wedding. It’s sad but I think my family understand. My mum sees in me what she wanted for herself so I think she’s happy I didn’t follow her path and do something just for the money or because of what other people think. Growing up, I remember my aunt saying, ‘What, are you going to be chopping onions all day?’. I’m still chopping onions but I’m the happiest onion chopper ever!
ON THE ‘WOMEN IN FOOD’ ISSUE: It’s true – I’ve never worked with a female executive chef – but I hate talking about the sex issue. When I was growing up, my father was a basketball player, and he encouraged me and told me that women could do things just as well as men. Talented people should get these positions but gender shouldn’t be part of it. People should be looked at for what they do. Not long ago, a journalist asked Enrique why he hired me, a woman, and he said he hires people because of their talent, not their gender. I agree with that.
OVERCOMING BEING ASHAMED OF HER AGE: I realized shouldn’t be embarrassed my age. It just became so much easier when I realized, I can do this, I can inspire people, I can teach people. It doesn’t matter your age, it doesn’t matter that you’re a woman. I don’t have to lift 100 lbs of bones just to say, ‘Hey, we’re the same’.