I began to sell drugs for the dishwashers. I had spent a lot of time in kitchens by then and applied for a job as a chef. and Havre 77. In the Mexican generation my father was from, he didn’t want us to follow his path. The idea was to keep things small. Even the table bread is perfect; crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside and it’s made daily and served with a smattering of butters, from bean and sheep’s cheese, eggplant ash and goat cheese or truffle oil. My entire education took place in kitchens. I had a feeling in me that it would be all right. I was deported again and I really didn’t know what was next for me. Over the three and a half years he spent working with Olvera, Eduardo realized that Mexico was in dire need of sustainable and environmentally conscious restaurants. De pequeño se mudó con su familia a la ciudad de Atlanta, por lo que lo único que lo seguía conectando con México era la comida. Friday April 27 2018. It was a moment in life. On a recent springlike morning before Máximo Bistrot opened for lunch, Mr. García, known as Lalo, sat with a reporter to talk about his complicated journey from there to here: “We started Máximo Bistrot in 2011 with four employees. Immigration put a hold on me and transferred me to one of the hardest jails in the system, where I spent three years making auto tags. We also have 130 employees with six partnerships in Mexico, two in London and one in Dubai. Then, at the end of 2000, I came to Mexico, deported for the first time. Los Angeles; Mexico City; New York Mexico City Back. We got away, but I told myself I needed to face the consequences, so I turned myself in. Then we’d go to Ohio to pick cucumbers for pickling and back to Georgia to harvest the onions we’d planted. “It’s the only thing I really know how to do,” Maximo’s Head Chef Eduardo Garcia humbly explains. “I wanted eventually to become a sous chef, so I took another kitchen job, which paid $29,000 a year, as a cook at a restaurant in Alpharetta, Ga. My father was very ill and I needed the money. Everything here is local, from the napkins hand-sewn by artisans from Oaxaca to the daily-rotating menu which is crafted by local seasonal ingredients. A lot of them were Mexicans who had migrated to the United States and then sent money back home to construct houses. After that, it was Pennsylvania to pick mushrooms at night: Mushrooms only come out at night. and Havre 77. He said I should try for a job there. “I don’t hide from any of this, because I want people around me to know who I am. “From 2007 to 2011, I worked as chef de cuisine at Pujol, and then at the end of 2010, the beginning of 2011, with a loan from an uncle of mine, I opened Máximo Bistrot. We’d been going up and going down the country and always through Atlanta until one year, in 1991, we stopped to visit an aunt there and my father found a job at a country club cutting grass. “I stopped that work when I turned 14. I can read and write a little, but my grammar is horrible. “The Puerto Rican guy went on to work as a butcher in Brasserie Le Coze, a restaurant Eric Ripert [the chef and an owner of Le Bernardin] was opening. Eduardo García at Máximo Bistrot, his celebrated restaurant in Mexico City. Friendly warning! After that, the sun is too hot and you don’t mess with the plants. “After six months, the owners of that restaurant said, ‘Now we can make you a sous chef.’ Unfortunately for me, as well as I was doing, I met some bad hombres along the way. “It’s the only thing I really know how to do,” Maximo’s Head Chef Eduardo Garcia humbly explains. Hard physical work has always been my life. About; Search; Choose a Destination. I was just working at something I loved. The dishes are sophisticated without being pretentious and pair equally with a craft brew or a fine wine and although it changes daily, the menu is always on point. Sometimes, still, we’re ashamed we’re from Mexico. I never went to school. It was there that I began to wonder, ‘How else do I learn to be a real chef?’ And that was when I really began to think about cooking seriously, constantly studying Charlie Palmer or Charlie Trotter and what they were doing. I could just make money on the side. The best part is that menu changes daily, sometimes between lunch and dinner, so you’ll always find a new palate partner to dance with. Mexico City / Eat and Drink. La nueva locación de Máximo Bistrot del chef Eduardo García ocupa lo que fue un antiguo taller de autos en los años setenta y, hasta hace poco, un billar en la calle de Álvaro Obregón. I even loved working in the fields, though my father died of gastrointestinal cancer that most likely came from being around so many pesticides. De 2007 a 2011, trabajé como jefe de cocina en Pujol y luego a finales de 2010, principios de 2011, con un préstamo que me hizo un tío, abrí Máximo Bistrot. He watched how I learned and he said, ‘You’re very talented.’ Whatever task anybody gave me, I picked it up right away. A lot of people have been through what I’ve been through. When I was little, he looked at us and said, ‘This is not good, little kids working like adults.’ But, unfortunately, they didn’t have a way to educate us, so I don’t hold him to blame. Even as a kid, I was really into getting more chips than anyone. Now that is changing. I was charged with aggravated assault, convicted and spent one year in county jail and three years in maximum security prison in South Georgia. “A guy above me at the Georgia Grille was from Puerto Rico. Share. I had a Social Security number, but it was a fake because I was actually too young to work legally. By: Later, to make a living, he started washing dishes at a restaurant where he learned to cook and although he never formally studied culinary arts, he ended up cooking at Le Bernadin, one of the best restaurants in New York City which specializes in Eurocentric classical cuisine. Máximo Bistrot is a French-inspired restaurant in Mexico City featuring a daily-changing menu by chef Eduardo García.