Born and raised in Mexico City, Isabel Coss trained as a ballerina before swapping the stage for the kitchen. As a teenager, she rebelled against the rigidity of ballet and discovered a new passion—baking bread at Enrique Olvera’s Michelin two-star Pujol.

In 2011, she joined the pastry team at Alex Stupak’s Empellón Cocina in New York City, where she met savory chef Matt Conroy. The pair began dating within a year and married in 2015. Coss went on to cook at Agern, a progressive Scandinavian restaurant in Grand Central Terminal, and later returned to Olvera’s world at Cosme in Manhattan’s Flatiron District.

Throughout their careers, Coss and Conroy shared a quiet ambition to someday build something together. “It was an unspoken understanding that we would both work to get better at our craft,” Coss says, “so that one day we could be the best versions of ourselves and work together.”

In 2020, Conroy moved to Washington, D.C., to lead the kitchen at Georgetown’s Lutèce, operated by the Popal Group. Coss joined later as pastry chef, helping elevate the restaurant to national recognition. She was named one of Food & Wine’s Best New Chefs in America in 2023. Lutèce, meanwhile, earned accolades from The New York Times, Washingtonian, and the Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington.

In 2024, Coss, Conroy, and the Popal Group opened Pascual, a wood-fired Mexican bistro on Capitol Hill. It was named one of Eater’s Best New Restaurants and earned a spot on The New York Times list of America’s Best Restaurants.