Five Minnesota chefs and two businesses are in the running for the prestigious James Beard Awards this year. Among them is Oro by Nixta, a semifinalist for best new restaurant in the United States.
Gustavo and Kate Romero expanded their northeast Minneapolis tortilla operation into a restaurant this past summer. It’s since been celebrated in Eater Twin Cities and the Star Tribune as restaurant of the year but it’s also part of a mission to showcase heirloom Mexican corn.
The co-owners and chefs joined MPR News host Cathy Wurzer to talk about celebrating heirloom corn and their recent nomination.
What have you done to celebrate?
Kate: Well, we got the news yesterday morning and the restaurant is only open Wednesday through Saturday. So we were open yesterday, we were celebrating with all the faces that dine with us.
Not even not even a toast of champagne or anything like that?
Gustavo: We did some a little bit. We have to talk to the team and thank them for their hard work and discuss what’s next and in and get back into it.
I understand you have a pretty small staff. Is that right?
Kate: Yeah, absolutely. Our entire payroll, I think consists of about 20-22 employees. So everybody here is here all the time and we don’t have multiple different servers every day. If you come in here for dinner you’re likely seeing one of the four or five servers that we have taking your order. Then the kitchen staff is all here full time, they’re the same people doing the same thing every day.
What do you each bring to the restaurant?
Gustavo: Oh, man, I mean, combine 35 years of experience. You know, I think we are definitely different, but we want the same thing. That makes it interesting to work. We complement each other pretty well, we work really well together.
How hard is it to navigate a brand new restaurant?
Kate: It’s pretty hard. I think having worked in restaurants, obviously it is easier working for someone else because you don’t have to worry about the day-to-day operations like paying of the bills, the managing of the staff — you get to just show up.
Being an owner has got its challenges, but it also has its rewards. Like we’re very grateful for the opportunity to be able to employ our staff, you know, pay them really fair wages. They’re all generally happy to be here and work with us too. There’s hard stuff but the rewards are pretty great to have the day-to-day work.
And you get to see people eating your food, that’s pretty cool.
Gustavo: It is very rewarding. We have the luxury that we get to talk to people and we get to ask them how their meal was and other experiences and you know, I think that’s very important to know what they feel.
Your restaurant’s named ‘Oro,’ which I think means gold, is that right?
Kate: Yes, in Spanish. The reason we call it that is because corn is gold in Mexican cuisine, it’s such a big basis of the food that people all across Mexico and really all over the world also but in specifically in Mexico and then Latin American, Central American, South American countries eat. Every dish has some sort of corn, so the ingredient itself is gold.
I think of corn as a side dish or an ingredient but you’re trying to make corn be the center of your menu.
Gustavo: For us it’s been the base and the beginning of everything that we’ve done so we want to we want to showcase it. We wanted to educate people to the importance they have for us as a culture. The idea of changing the way people eat and the way the people look at corn is very important for us so we are trying to do it the best we can.
Don’t you have a relationship with Mexican heirloom corn?
Gustavo: I think every Mexican does. We all kind of grow up around corn and eating fresh tortillas, I think that is very close to home for us. For the ones that are far away from home, having something so important be down the street is just like being home.
Are you supporting Mexican corn famers?
Gustavo: Yes, we worked with a couple companies. We make sure we work with companies that care about the producers. We dream one day of being able to do the same thing here. But the Midwest has a completely different idea of what corn is.
People here are used to the sweetcorn and that’s about it. So it’s gonna take some time and it’s gonna take some some learning and some troubleshooting but that’s the dream, to be able to have some really good Minnesota corn and then we can be proud to make tortillas with.
Are you using other ingredients such as wild rice?
Kate: We do utilize some Minnesota wild rice actually, for one of our most delicious non-alcoholic beverages on our menu, we make a wild rice Horchata. And then sometimes here and there it will pop in to the menu, but our menu changes quite frequently. It’s not on the menu all the time but that Horchata is not going anywhere, people love it.
Do you have anything special coming up to celebrate the nomination?
Kate: I haven’t even gotten that far. I’m just trying to still wrap my head around what happened and get through a lot of emails and flood of reservations and things. Honestly, I just look forward to Sunday when we’re done with this week, so we can hang out with our little boy at home because he is in day care currently for the day and then he spends evenings with my mom, his Polish grandma.
So we’re not seeing him a lot because they’re so busy. So I look forward to that the most, celebrating with him.
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