Our guest on this week's Menu Talk is Isabel Coss, executive chef at Pascual, a contemporary Mexican restaurant in Washington, D.C.

A native of Mexico City, Chef Coss actually studied ballet—not cooking—as a way to get into arts school and become a filmmaker. But once there, she realized she was more passionate about cooking than film, and enrolled in culinary school.

She quickly landed an externship at Pujol, the Michelin-starred Mexico City restaurant on the list of the World’s 50 Best Restaurants. She worked at the pastry station, honing her bread baking skills. In 2011, she brought those skills to New York City where she was hired as a pastry chef at Empellón, Chef Alex Stupak’s renowned Mexican Restaurant, followed by a position at Enrique Olvera’s Cosme, another award-winning Mexican restaurant.

Isabel Coss in front of Pascual. | Photo by Alex Lau.

In 2020, Chef Coss moved to Washington, D.C., and overhauled the pastry program at Lutèce, a notable French bistro in Georgetown. She now heads the kitchen at Pascual, developing menus for both the sweet and savory sides. The centerpiece of Pascual is a hearth oven where the chef crafts the restaurant’s specialties. 

Coss’s culinary skills have landed her on lists like Food & Wine’s Best New Chefs in America and as a semifinalist for a James Beard Best Chef Mid-Atlantic award. Listen as she describes her love affair with masa, what she’s cooking and baking now and what’s next in her culinary journey.