MEET: EXEC. CHEF ÉFRÉN HERNÁNDEZ, CASA SUSANNA
Executive chef Efren Hernandez poolside at Camptown, Leeds. Photo credit: Victoria Sedefian/The Dishing.
Executive chef Éfrén Hernández goes beyond the kitchen to talk about movies, modern Mexican, James Beard nods + earning his stripes.
Interview + Art Direction: Susie Davidson Powell
Photos: Victoria Sedefian/The Dishing
Shoot location: Casa Susanna, Leeds, N.Y.
Tastemaker: Executive Chef Éfrén Hernández | IG: @efrencitoh
Casa Susanna at Camptown, Leeds | IG: @casasusannacamptown | Rivertown Lodge, Hudson | IG: @rivertownhudson
Hometown: Inglewood, Los Angeles, CA
Current city: Claverack, NY
Personal style I like to wear either Blundstones or Crocs in the kitchen and also outside of the kitchen! I like Tillit like every other chef in New York, haha. I like Uniqlo and Muji and Levi’s.
Listening to: My daughter singing Chapel Roan.
Favorite spirit: Used to be mezcal - now I’m sober.
Favorite classic cocktail: I never really drank cocktails. I was a mezcal on the rocks guy.
Favorite bar or venue ever: I love lots of restaurants in Mexico. I really like Mi Compa Chava in México City and I like Panadería Rosetta there for breakfast. In New York City, my wife and I lived near a place called Samurai Mama in Brooklyn that I really liked.
Biggest chef influence: Enrique Olvera, probably (Owner/Executive Chef of two-Michelin starred Pujol in Mexico City.)
The Dishing talks with tastemakers in the hospitality industry + trailblazers at the intersection of food, culture + art. Today we’re talking with twice James Beard nominated Executive Chef Éfrén Hernández of Casa Susanna at Camptown in Leeds and Rivertown Lodge in Hudson. Let’s get into it!
Chef, you were born and raised in Los Angeles to parents from Guadalajara - tequila country - in the Jalisco region of Mexico. What are some of your earliest food memories from growing up in LA and visiting family in Mexico?
EH: We lived down the street from a Mexican bakery that, at the time, I didn’t realize was a very good Mexican bakery because I had no frame of reference. But I loved that bakery and in particular the breads known as payasos (clowns) and sandías (watermelons). Menudo is also an early memory. My parents really like menudo and I love it. When I was a kid I had no idea it was a tripe stew! I think that’s probably why I’m so open to eating anything and everything.
You attended Lenox Middle School in Inglewood (L.A.) which you describe as one of the worst failing schools, but your grades were so high a benefactor stepped in and got you into an upscale private school in Brentwood. How significant do you think this intervention was to your future path?
EH: Super significant! I think they made me feel like I was actually capable of doing whatever I set my mind to. I think that wasn’t a privilege a lot of my friends and other kids around me were afforded. That created a confidence in myself that I think carried into when I started cooking and I thought, okay I didn’t go to culinary school, but I’m going to work hard, read a lot, and learn as much as I can and become a legitimate chef.
What are your childhood memories of cooking/eating at home or dining out?
EH: We ate mostly at home. At around 4:30pm my mom or dad would yell for me to go take the grill out. I would pull it out of the garage and into the backyard and they’d grill some meat, some veggies, whatever. Our table usually had some kind of grilled meat, some rice, beans, a cactus salad, some homemade salsas, lots of tortillas. There was one restaurant we’d go to every now and then called El Pollo Inka which was a Peruvian restaurant that specialized in rotisserie chicken but we never ever got chicken, hahaha. I would get the ceviche and the mariscos saltado. Every time. I love that place.
Executive Chef Efren Hernandez at Bar Piscina, Camptown. Photo credit: Victoria Sedefian/The Dishing.
It may surprise some to know you moved to New York to study film at NYU. You have not only written a film short that was accepted into Sundance Film Festival but sold a movie script that continues to be shopped around for future production. Can you tell us the plot of either? What sort of stories do you like to tell?
EH: Haha, well the short film I wrote, directed and acted in actually was about me going on a road trip with a female body builder who I seem to be in some kind of possibly abusive relationship with. It’s a dark comedy. Pretty weird. Pretty funny. Then I made a short film about conjoined twins. Also pretty weird, pretty funny. So I guess they’ve mostly been a little weird and trying to be funny. ‘Master Muscles’ premiered at Sundance in 2014 and ‘Ham Heads’ premiered at AFI in 2016.
Chef Efren Hernandez by Victoria Sedefian/The Dishing
Let’s talk about your career path in a quick potted history: You applied for a job as a projectionist at Nitehawks Cinema in Williamsburg but were hired as an expediter for the dining room and then as a cook. From there, you went on to cook at Faro in Bushwick, Brooklyn, which you have called “your most formative years” where you learned the most under Exec. Chef Kevin Adey. The kitchen earned a Bib Gourmand and Michelin star.
During a break to work on your movie script, you helped friends open Mimi’s in Greenwich Village and became the founding chef of their sibling wine bar, Bab’s, in the West Village that earned excellent reviews in the New York Times and Infatuation guide, putting your name on the map. When did you feel you had finally earned your stripes as a chef?
EH: I’m still earning them! Being a good chef is hard and I’m still trying to learn how to do it. Making food is one of the easiest parts honestly… There is a lot more to it that is more difficult and stressful. At least for me. Like being a good boss to everyone and making sure people are happy and comfortable not only at work but in their lives.
I guess I mean that running restaurants has so many aspects to it that sometimes I feel like I don’t get to be as creative as I’d like to because I’m dealing with the minutia of it all. Making sure we have a dishwasher for every shift, figuring out call-outs and how to balance 30+ people’s schedules and personalities and doing invoices and payroll and food costing — like someone just texted me that they won’t be able to work Sundays anymore, so now I have to reconfigure the whole schedule to figure out how to make the restaurant work… and one of our lowboy’s compressor is shot so we need to get that replaced… and the walk-in at the other restaurant is frozen over so we need to figure that out… and someone just quit and is only giving a one week notice! [Laughs] — you get the idea!
For sure! It’s a lot, chef. Ok, you moved upstate in 2020. How did that come about?
EH: Well, my wife Rebecca is from Delmar and she had brought up the idea of moving upstate maybe a year or two before we actually moved. I wasn’t too sure about it for a while, but then we visited and I started to think it might be nice. Then I started cold-emailing people upstate with restaurants and basically seeing if anyone was hiring or would meet me to talk about restaurants upstate. Rebecca told me to reach out to Rivertown Lodge because she’s an interior designer and she liked the design of the hotel. She thought their menu looked like the sort of thing I would like and so I reached out and Ray met me in the city without any real job opening, just sort of to meet and talk. Couple months later, my two restaurants in Manhattan close in the Covid lockdown and Rebecca and I sort of realized that if we leave now we might beat the rush out of the city so we went upstate to her parents’ house for a month or so until we found our own place in Hudson. Then I reached out to Ray again and we started talking about me possibly working with them. That’s kind of how it all happened.
Congrats on your two Best Chef James Beard nominations for Casa Susanna. What was the impact for you in getting your first James beard recognition? How did you feel with a 2nd nod?
It was a huge impact for me. I think sometimes people say these things don’t matter but it does to me. It’s an acknowledgment that all the work we put into this and all the time we lose with loved ones or what have you is at least being recognized. I felt amazing to get nominated again. Maybe one day I’ll make the finals!
You’re industry-trained and didn’t have formal training in Mexican cuisine although you have taste memories from your parents’ home cooking. How did you come up with the idea for wood-fired modern Mexican at Casa Susanna?
EH: I think the idea has been brewing in my head since I started cooking. All the places I worked at were nice and elevated but not too stuffy modern European or modern American food and I kept thinking what would the Mexican food I grew up eating look like in this concept. Then I went to Pujol for the first time and my mind was blown. I was like, “This! This is what I’ve been thinking about but not been able to materialize!” I think experiencing that helped me give it real shape outside of these sort of abstract ideas and dreams. To see it in front of me almost made me realize I could replicate it in my own way, if that makes sense.
Why did you feel it was important to introduce the masa program (making tortillas in-house) at Casa Susanna?
EH: Masa is the cornerstone of Mexican cuisine and it’s an art that, for a while, felt like it was being lost. With globalization and industrialization people were just buying tortillas in a bag. Especially in America. When I lived In the city, there were maybe a handful of places that were making their own masa but it wasn’t many. I think there are more now. I think there’s been a resurgence led by chefs to bring masa back to the forefront of Mexican cooking. I think when you have a fresh tortilla vs one in a bag it becomes pretty clear why it’s important. They’re not even close. So I knew that when I opened my Mexican restaurant it needed to have a masa program (nixtamalized masa dough, all-ground in-house) and it needed to do it well and it needed to do it seriously. Masa is like pasta - extremely versatile starch vessel for carrying flavor. Like the different pasta shapes, masa comes in all sort of shapes too. We make traditional tortillas, tamales, sopes, tételas, tlacoyos, tostadas, tlayudas, etc. It’s served as an unexpected way to educate people about Mexican cuisine too.
How would you sum up the last 5 years from the 2020 lockdown to today in 5 words.
EH: “I love my wife & daughter.” Oh, five words? Family. Regroup. Hustle. Perseverance. Kindness.
Chef Éfrén looking over his ordering book. Photo: Victoria Sedefian/The Dishing
Restaurants and bars still report less foot traffic since the pandemic and many are focusing on programming and chef collaborations to attract customers. Your James Beard nominations may have insulated you from that a little, but you have had a couple of chef collabs. Can we expect more of that or what other plans do you have in mind?
EH: Yeah, I’d love to do more chef collabs. It’s hard to find the time between the two restaurants and the event season but I really enjoy it every time I do it.
The cocktails at Casa Susanna incorporate a few less familiar agave spirits like raicilla and sotol. Are you/the kitchen involved in the cocktail program?
EH: Not really. Natasha David consulted with us on the drinks menu and I think she absolutely killed it.
I know you have a weakness for donuts. What’s your favorite kind of donut and where it is from?
EH: Maple bar donut from Randy’s donuts in Los Angeles.
If friends came to visit, where are 3 favorite spots you’d take them for breakfast, lunch or dinner?
EH: Cafe Mutton, Mel the Bakery, and… I really want to go Willa in Millerton. I cooked with Daniel once and I really want to go to his restaurant!
You have a young family and live upstate full time. If someone wanted to spend a weekend at Camptown in Leeds or Rivertown Lodge in Hudson, what else would you recommend they should do?
EH: Definitely some nature time. There’s a lot of great trails and hikes and New York State’s nature is underrated. I think everyone thinks of New York City when they hear New York and they don’t understand how fucking beautiful this part of the country is.
Imagine your ideal day or night out. If you could go anywhere with no limits on costs or reservations, where would you go and how would the day or night unfold?
EH: Hmm, this is an interesting question I don’t have a real answer for. I would definitely want to spend it with Rebecca and my daughter Sósima. Maybe we catch a 2pm movie of whatever the newest Pixar movie is and then maybe we play some arcade games or hit up a comic book store and then we go to a family friendly restaurant that still has really good food for adults too (this used to be Gaskins for us) and I order maybe 2 to 3 dishes too many for us to eat but we eat them all anyway and then we drive home and pass out by 8:30-9pm.
Ha - that sounds pretty epic in its own way! I appreciate you talking to The Dishing, Chef. Definitely looking forward to more chef collabs in your kitchens. Maybe we’ll see something happen with Chef Daniel!
