Mexico City–born Emmanuel Chavez, the chef behind the MICHELIN-starred Tatemó, immigrated to Houston with his family at age 11. As a teenager, while busing, prepping, and cleaning in his parents’ Tex-Mex restaurant, his love of food took root.
Chavez began his career in the kitchens of country clubs and hotels as a fry cook until he landed a sous chef position at age 23 at the Italian restaurant in Houston’s Hotel Granduca. There, he worked under an Egyptian chef who taught him how to make fresh pasta and how to work with spices. At the same time, Chavez started a supper club called Brink Dining, selling tickets to eight guests and serving three courses in his living room. His talent generated buzz through word of mouth and on social media, ultimately catching the attention of chef Eric Rivera, who offered him a sous chef position at the Thompson Hotel in Seattle.
Chavez cooked in Seattle for six years, during which time chef Rivera introduced him to the process of nixtamalizing corn to make tortillas. Nixtamalizing, an ancient Mesoamerican method, involves treating corn with alkaline and steeping it to make masa. Learning about nixtamalization, and the deep history of tortillas, energized Chavez and changed the course of his career.
Today, with business partner Megan Maul, Chavez runs the Houston-based Mexican restaurant Tatemó, where he serves an eight-course tasting menu that celebrates the corn he imports from small farmers throughout Mexico and nixtamalizes in-house. For his work at Tatemó, he has received two nominations from the James Beard Foundation. In 2024, the restaurant received its first MICHELIN star.
