![]() ![]() ![]() brand in Rice Village's food hall concept Politan Row. In the tail end of 2019, Elizondo thought she had finally found a permanent home base for her Cochinita & Co. She eventually found work in the kitchens of top local restaurants like State of Grace, Pax Americana and Xochi - where she first met her current business partner and good friend Moreno - before deciding to go off on her own in 2016 to start Cochinita & Co., initially a food-truck concept that pivoted to a pop-up and catering model. ![]() "It was not my thing, so I left the office job and enrolled in culinary school just so I could get the basics down." "I was so miserable," she says with a laugh. But she quickly found that that lifestyle, although it came with perks like weekends off, health insurance and paid holiday leave, just wasn't for her. "I started developing a passion for food, and that's why I kept moving up."Īfter Elizondo got her DACA permit, she decided to take a brief hiatus from the restaurant industry to work an office job, something she had always dreamed of doing. I learned so much about Peruvian history through his food," says Elizondo. "He was so dedicated to, not just the food, but to teaching us about the culture. It was a valuable training ground for the future chef. "It was more to pay the bills," she recalls.Įventually, though, Elizondo found her way her way to Latin Bites, the now-defunct Peruvian restaurant by Chef Roberto Castre, whom Elizondo considers one of her chief mentors, and she worked her way up to becoming the general manager of the lauded, family-run spot. She's very flamboyant, so she definitely gave me my creativity."įollowing in her mother's footsteps, Elizondo got her first gig at the age of 16 as a hostess, but it wasn't necessarily because she had a keen interest in the restaurant industry. "She's a very spontaneous and charismatic person. "She would come home and make her own little creations from what she learned," remembers Elizondo. at the age of 12, and grew up watching her single mother come up with novel recipes in the kitchen of their home after ending her shifts at the restaurants where she was a cook. It's an arrangement for which Elizondo is grateful, because the entrepreneurial-minded young chef's meandering journey through Houston's culinary scene has not always been easy. It's not us working for them or them working for us - we're both just working in conjunction and doing our own thing." They don't put any limitations on what we can do on the menu. "It's a collaboration and a partnership," says Elizondo, 30, of her brand's culinary marriage with Kickin' Kombucha. ![]() and her business partner, Chef Julio Moreno, 32. The Mexican-inspired restaurant, which already has a loyal fan base in spite of being so new, is the latest project by Mexican immigrant and DACA recipient Victoria Elizondo - the chef behind popular pop-up, catering and market concept Cochinita & Co. Bottles of the authentic beverage are among the grab-and-go items populating the well encumbered display cases lining one side of the shop, cases that display epicurean treats from local businesses like Angela's Oven, Bee2Bee Honey and Flying Saucer Farms, in addition to Cocina Local's tamales, salsas and more. The food here, while meant to be savored, tends to be inhaled - often washed down with the restaurant's horchata. It's a situation that the nascent restaurant's mushroom tinga tacos - with a delectable combo of smoky chipotle, lion's mane, oyster mushrooms, crema and queso fresco - and other tasty menu items like elote, nopalitos and piled-high tostaditas also find themselves in. The almendrado mole tacos at Cocina Local, the restaurant inside Kickin' Kombucha's newly opened Kickin' Market in Eastwood, are constructed from a so-good-it's-sinful alliance of chicken, almonds, chile, cacao, sesame seeds and spices that are so resolute in their combined deliciousness that they aren't known to survive long after being plated. ![]()
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