Today we’d like to introduce you to Simon Quintero.
Hi Simon, thanks for joining us today. We’d love for you to start by introducing yourself.
From a very young age, I developed an interest in cooking due to my mother’s role as a cook and due to my visits to the Venezuelan countryside, where I learned a lot about the preparation of traditional dishes. This influenced my decision to dedicate my life to cooking and I have held many different positions in the industry throughout my 16-year career. I ran my catering business in Venezuela for over 10 years and moved to the United States in 2016. I worked as a Kitchen Lead at Westgate Resort Villas for 2 years and as Cook I at Disney Boardwalk Resort, right now I am well on my way to catering once again. Recently, last June, I took an important step in my career by winning first place in the Fusion Cooking Contest Organized by Fusion Fest, which is a project of the Orange County Office of Arts & Cultural Affairs
I’m sure you wouldn’t say it’s been obstacle free, but so far would you say the journey has been a fairly smooth road?
I have been lucky to have mentors who have guided me well along the way, however, there are always challenges to face, for example, learning the basics and traditional cooking school, but when leaving the classroom, everything is different. New concerns are opened regarding new trends, which I learned from the hand of Venezuelan Chef Jhon Guerrero who was part of the El Bulli team in Spain. By having the opportunity to run the Nutopia restaurant in Maracaibo, Venezuela, I was able to take advantage of all that knowledge and apply it, as well as the opportunity to work with an excellent staff that made all the work easier. When I moved to the United States, the main barrier was the language, but on my own initiative I have learned and I have made my way in this country.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Dedicating myself to the kitchen has filled me with many gratifications and among those has been having had the opportunity to teach what I have learned to the people who have worked with me. I have been able to develop myself in the area of creative cuisine, mixing flavors, ingredients, history, culture, and gastronomic memories of different countries. To say that I specialize in a specific cuisine, no, because I feel that it would not be fair not to be able to merge all those recipes from around the world that deserve a place on restaurant tables. I think that is what characterizes me, the power to create from the gastronomic bases of different cultures and take many traditional recipes to another level.
What do you like best about our city? What do you like least?
What I like most about our city is its cultural diversity and the opportunity to have contact with cultures very similar to the Venezuelan one, which allows me to create new recipes based on that cultural exchange. What I like least, I could say, is the segmentation of the gastronomic proposals, in tourist sites there is diversity, but in other less touristy areas I still feel that there is a lack of space to develop more creative gastronomic proposals that fuse cultures, which could give an extra to the interest of many of the visitors to our city to be able to say that not only do you come to the theme parks, but you can also do a gastronomic tour beyond the typical food chains.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/simonangelquintero/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/simonangelquintero/
Image Credits
Yhonnathan Roca
Kadeem Stewart
