'Ciao House' Winner on Latina Representation in 'The Bear,' Fine-Dining World

Fresh off her win on Food Network's latest culinary competition, Chef Natalia “Boa” Rosario pens a thoughtful guest essay for The Awakening.

Chef Natalia “Boa” Rosario on Food Network’s “Ciao House.” Photos: Jay Maidment SMPSP

Chef Natalia “Boa” Rosario, who recently competed on and won Food Network’s “Ciao House,” writes this essay on Latina representation in fine dining.

Being a Latina chef in the fine dining industry is not an easy task. Throughout the years, Latinos have always been seen in the restaurant industry as the bus boys, dishwashers, porters, etc. 

Even in Latin America, throughout the years, it has been a handful of chefs putting Latin food on the map. Yet more than 20 years ago, nobody really knew what Mexican, Peruvian, Colombian or other similar cuisines were really like—if you had not traveled to those countries to eat. It has been a collective of people like Enrique Olvera (Pujol), who in reality not only put Mexican food on the map, but also the fine dining approach to it. The same thing happened with Gastón Acurio and Peruvian cuisine, which is an even more recent example of putting a country’s food on the map, and in a elevated manner.

Being a cook in this industry in Latin America is very hard. Money is not always the best. Low income is very common. Regardless, it's the passion that has driven people to stay in this industry—even knowing that one day they might not be able to open their own restaurants. For Latin America, where most of our food is concentrated in a family-style setting, the acceptance of fine dining has been hard for our own people. It’s too hard to understand the “why” we would want to cook in small bites and offer that type of gastronomical experience. There are a lot of people who want to attend culinary school in Latin America to become chefs; however, because “fine dining restaurants” used to be so scarce, there wasn’t much interest for cooks to follow a passion into wanting to stage or work at them. 

This has changed drastically, with social media and San Pellegrino’s World’s 50 Best Restaurants list awarding so many restaurants in Latin America. There is now more interest. There is also something else to take into consideration, immigration. The difficulties of obtaining a visa to work in the United States makes it almost impossible for those passionate people to stage/work at a Michelin-starred restaurant in the United States. It's important to note that in “America” as a continent, the Michelin Guide is only present in the United States. I am a Latin chef who has the blessing of being from Puerto Rico, which being a territory of the United States, I am a U.S. citizen. I have the blessing to have been raised also in Mexico City, where I explored more of my culinary voice. My situation is uncommon. 

I have always known that I wanted to be in fine dining. Before I went to culinary school in Mexico, you were just barely starting to hear about fine dining. I went to work at Pujol, and I was on a mission that one day I wanted to be Enrique Olvera’s biggest competition. For this, I knew that I needed to leave Mexico to work in one of the best restaurants in the world.

I moved to Chicago to work for a Michelin starred group. I didn’t think it would be that hard, and being fluent in English, I did not think that there would be many hiccups. I was so wrong. I didn’t understand half of the things chef talked about. I didn't understand why the system of date labeling was DD/M/YRRR. In Latin America, it is the opposite way. Even our way of storing in the pantry would be most heavy on top, and glasses on bottom, due to frequent earthquakes. Nothing that I had learned throughout my many years in Mexico served me here. I felt ignorant most of the time. I would get screamed at all the time.

During my first week in this Michelin world, the kitchen manager told me that I should quit, that I didn't have the talent for this game. Even though I was fluent in English, there were kitchen terms that I didn’t understand, and instead of getting educated on them, I would get backlash and made to feel less than because I didn’t know them.

Because I was also a woman, I was made to feel as if I didn't really have a future in this career. They would tell me that I was eventually going to get married and have kids and leave the industry, so for the most part they didn't feel the need to teach me more than I was eager to learn.

This might sound crazy for America, but this is our reality. I pushed for change, cried many times, felt like quitting many times or most of the times. There was a moment after a sexual harassment case, I became the only woman in this Michelin-starred restaurant for a year and a half. Nobody listened to me. If I had to give orders to a person equal to me, sometimes the men would go consult with other men if my orders were correct. This hurt a lot; it was like I didn't have a voice. I always felt like I came last.

I think the hardest moment of my career was when I had already been at this restaurant for three years, and I had never gotten promoted. I saw everybody else getting promoted except me. I was speaking with a former co-worker and told him that I didn't understand. I worked very hard and knew my talent. His answer, and to this day I have never forgotten: “You have to work harder to get promoted because you are a woman, and the worst part is that you are a minority.”

I didn’t grew up with all this push to be more diverse and inclusive like most of the kids in the United States. I grew up in a world where everyone was just accepted; being a woman, or being brown or being considered a minority didn’t exist. I would hear about it, but I had never actually experienced it. I feel like much of my success today, among many other things, has to do with this comment, because it just hurt so much that I felt like I didn’t want other women in the industry to feel the same way. I wanted them to have a feeling of belonging, which I didn’t have at the time. 

So, what does this have to do with Liza Colón-Zayas, who portrays Latina chef Tina Marrero from “The Bear” on Hulu? It has everything to do with it. I see a lot of myself in her, and I feel confident to say that many Latina women would agree. In season one, we see Tina being a super strong female chef who is just not willing to allow anyone taking over what she considers hers. She worked hard to be where she is, and she is not willing to hear anything from anyone. In a way, she was not being receptive to change.

If you are an outsider to this industry, you would think that she is just being “hard,” “mean” and whatever else you want to call her. But please empathize with how hard it is in reality for a Latina woman in this industry. Once you have secured your voice, your place in a kitchen, and respect from your other co-workers, you are very protective of that space.

In season two, we see a completely different Tina. Her true roots come out. She is eager to learn. She is ready for the nest that she has built to be taken to the next level, and she is receptive to work with the people who know more than her. It is not until later, another female chef recognizes that she is loyal and she wants to grow, yet she wasn’t first choice. They just didn’t have any other choice with the lack of people not applying.

This is how our reality is: We are never first choice, and many things need to happen before we are even chosen. Why? I am really unsure. Maybe it is because for the most part we are considered “minorities,” when stats call for us to be “majority” by 2025.

I’m trying really hard to not make this a racial issue, or a male issue, but every conclusion leads me to it. If you are male, if you are white, even if you are Asian, you will be take into consideration first before a Latina would ever be. Tina is so humble, and just as she is eager to grow, she doesn’t have the jealousy or the ego of many cooks out there in the fine dining world. She gets worried for her colleague Ebraheim when he doesn't return to culinary school due to his insecurities about his skills. This scene is an example of the restaurant industry. Latinos tend to always worry about the people around us and even the people we don’t know; we always come together with a “pueblo unido.”

When you are in the fine dining industry, in the real world, you know that the chefs’ “toys,” such as knives, are not to be touched. You don’t even consider asking the chef to borrow his tweezers. If you do, you will get screamed at for being unprepared. Buying knives is expensive in the restaurant industry. If you do not own Japanese knives or a couple of expensive knives—even due to our terrible wages—you are seen as less, as not passionate, and even “un-cool.”

If a person shows up to “stage” with culinary arts school knives, this person is considered a rookie, a person who is going to need a lot of exhaustive training. In the season, Tina borrows the chef's knife to go to school. She feels like a superstar, like there is nothing stopping her, and this feeling is just how reality feels like. When you are working in the basement as a commis, and you go up to see the “big cooks,” forgetting your knives downstairs, and the chef tells you, “just use mine” really fast and leave it clean, it’s the first sign of trust. The chef trusts me!

To many readers, unless you are brown in a Michelin world, you wouldn’t understand. I worked for a brown chef as my executive for a long time, and it took me almost four years to feel like he trusted me to touch one of his treasured tools. I couldn’t afford with my $12.95 hourly wage to buy a Japanese Damascus knife. The first time I touched his, I felt invincible. The fact that Carmy lets her borrow the knife and trusts her to take it is a game-changer for her. It influences in maybe the most impactful way possible in the real world. Why not trust your teammates, who are eager to learn? Instead of embarrassing them, why not let them actually borrow and let them feel this power that WE ALL have felt at a time?

In the end, Tina becomes a leader, forced into demonstrating herself with the absence of Carmy locked in the walk-in cooler. She was pushed into it, not by first choice, but because they didn't have a choice. This is exactly how it feels to be a Latina chef in the fine dining world. You get recognized, not because you are first choice, but because now with the push for diversity and inclusion, it makes you feel like you are being used to demonstrate that they support this cause, last choice just like Tina, but always resilient and pushing for more. She represents all of us and gives us a feeling of belonging. 

I wonder often to myself if Liza Colón-Zayas recognizes the impact of her being an actress and not a real Latin restaurant chef, how her role might change the way our scene is played. 

We are natural leaders. We come from naturally creative cultures. And we have so much more to show than to be second always.