About Zarela

"Zarela Martinez and her namesake restaurant, Zarela, are Manhattan institutions, responsible for exposing this city's diners to a Mexico more multifaceted than most Mexican restaurants visit." - New York Times 2006

ZARELA MARTINEZ, one of this generation’s leading U. S. restaurateurs, was born and raised in Mexico but began cooking professionally during the late 1970’s in El Paso, Texas. With the encouragement of Paul Prudhomme and Craig Claiborne, who had been impressed by her vivid Mexican food, she made some nationally noted guest-chef appearances and in 1983 moved her business to New York.

Here she quickly made her mark as menu-designer and later executive chef for Cafe Marimba, the city’s first serious attempt to recreate regional Mexican cuisine with local resources. A loyal following of diners and food writers responded eagerly when in 1987 she decided to start her own restaurant, Zarela. Since its opening 21 years ago, New Yorkers have taken Zarela to their hearts.

A favorite meeting spot as well as a culinary standard-setter, it regularly wins superlative reviews and professional awards. In her continuing commitment to bringing regional Mexican food to New York, Zarela has launched an ongoing series of weekly gastronomic festivals featuring foods from different states in Mexico. Her 13-part public television series Zarela! La Cocina Veracruzana, still occasionally airing throughout the country, features the Mediterranean-and African-accented regional cooking of Veracruz State and her companion cookbook, Zarela’s Veracruz (Houghton Mifflin 2001) is a culinary voyage of discovery every bit as irresistible as her seminal book Food from my Heart (Macmillan 1992) and the acclaimed The Food and Life of Oaxaca (Macmillan 1997).She is presently working on a fourth book.

Her mission is to make her culture in all its manifestations known and understood and has recently been named to the board of the Mexican Cultural Institute. Her website www.zarela.com is an invaluable resource for lovers of Mexican food and culture and her how-to videos on basic Mexican cooking techniques and flavor principles featured on www.youtube.com are fun and informative.

Ms. Martinez has been honored for her entrepreneurship and business accomplishments by Hispanic Magazine, The Women’s Leadership Exchange and The Women’s Venture Fund. Her family received The Coalition for Hispanic Family Services”The Orgullo de la Comunidad” award in 2006. In addition to her restaurant work and writing, Ms. Martinez carries on an extensive catering business and gives Mexican cooking lessons as well as lecture/demonstrations on Mexican cuisine and culture, and has acted as a marketing consultant for such clients as Unilever Best Foods, Nestlè©, Marriott and Taco Bell. Ms. Marti­nez has made many guest appearances on a wide variety of television programs such as “Julia Child: Cooking with Master Chefs” and “Martha Stewart” and is a frequent guest on NPR ’s The Brian Lehrer Show. She is active in organizations including MexEd Foundation, Latino Nutrition Coalition, National Hispana Leadership Institute, Women’s Venture Fund, CityMeals on Wheels, and the Hispanic Children’s Fund. “From my childhood on, cooking meant sharing and security and a way of “speaking” to people.

“When I grew up I found that cooking grew also to be a means of celebrating and honoring those who would eat meals that I’d carefully prepared from scratch. Over the years as I lived and thought and learned, cooking grew even more to embrace nearly every aspect of culture and human relationships. I have been lucky to make my career as chef, consultant, and businesswoman an never-ending source of joy and fulfillment.”

Read Zarela’s biography in English and Spanish

Photograph ©Manu Bastien