Maria Mazon is reuniting with her “Top Chef: Portland” colleague Byron Gomez this weekend to host a six-course dinner to benefit an organization that advocates for immigrant children.
Mazon, chef-owner of the popular North Fourth Avenue restaurant Boca Tacos y Tequila, and Gomez, executive chef of the Aspen, Colorado, popular supper club 7908, married their Latin American culinary styles to create a menu that borrows equally from Mazon’s Sonoran heritage and Gomez’s Costa Rican.
“I’m really hoping that people experience something besides Latin America,” Gomez said Monday, days before he was set to travel from New York to Tucson for the first time. “A lot of people, when they think of Latin American food, they think of Mexican food. I wanted to bring something different to the table, not only the finesse but also different ingredients. And that’s where the fun starts. That’s where the creativity starts.”
Tickets for “Latina Comida en Tucson” on Saturday, Oct. 30, are sold out; Mazon said she expects between 70 and 80 people will attend.
But fans of the show, which aired last April through July 1, can meet Mazon and Gomez at a free meet-and-greet from 5 to 7 p.m. Friday, Oct. 29, at The Red Light Lounge at the Downtown Clifton, 485 S. Stone Ave.
It will give Tucsonans a chance to witness firsthand the pair’s chemistry, which was on full display last spring when they competed in season 18 of Bravo’s popular reality/cooking show “Top Chef: Portland.” Gomez finished sixth and Mazon finished fifth in the show, which featured the most diverse cast in the show’s history.
“This season of ‘Top Chef’ was .. not only (viewers’) favorite, but it was very different. Nothing was fake; what was seen on TV was (how it was between the cast members) every day,” Gomez said.
“That season was extremely special because … of the bonds,” added Mazon. “I really do consider them family.”
The Tucson dinner is Mazon’s second benefit venture with fellow “Top Chef” castmates. She teamed up in September with Oakland chef/restaurateur Nelson German and Houston chef/restaurateur Dawn Burrell for a dinner at German’s Afro-Latino restaurant Sobre Mesa in Oakland. She has several more events planned with “Top Chef” alumnus this fall including in Virginia and Seattle.
“If we get the opportunity to bring the caliber of chefs that were part of the national TV show to our hometown, why not?” Mazon said.
The self-taught Gomez started his career at Burger King and then TGI Fridays as a teen growing up in New York before landing at the One Star Michelin restaurant Café Boulud where he learned the art of fine dining. He also clocked time in the kitchen of the Two Star Michelin restaurant Atera and cooked for the Three Star Michelin restaurant Eleven Madison Park, where he was sous chef when the restaurant was named the Top Restaurant in the World by San Pellagrino in 2017.
Gomez and Mazon collaborated on the “Latina Comida” menu, drawing from his fine-dining wheelhouse and Costa Rican culinary roots and her more casual, authentic Mexican cuisine. The menu, which features a trio of cocktails created by Boca’s bartenders, opens with an appetizer featuring oyster topped with grilled oyster foam and pickled chayote squash, followed by a smoked pumpkin crema topped with candied chiles and caviar.
Filet mignon is the centerpiece of the bistec crudo — think steak tartare — accompanied by chorizo yucca crumb, yellow plantain and roasted avocado puree.
Mazon’s Mexican heritage shines in the trio of moles (sesame, mole verde and mole negro) served with fried red snapper, while Gomez’s achiote flowering cauliflower features cauliflower in an achiote glaze and a quintessential Costa Rican palmito sauce made from hearts of palm. The dish, he said, connects his and Mazon’s Latin American cultures through their shared connection to the Mayans who were indigenous to both countries.
Saturday’s dinner ends with a roasted shredded duck taco with nopal salsa and a surprise dessert.
Gomez said the menu complements his and Mazon’s cuisine and cooking styles.
“That’s the beauty of it that two artists can work together and say, ‘Hey, this is what my flavors are like, what my cuisines are like,’ “ Gomez said.
“At the end of the day our common denominator is food and our common denominator is friendship and being Latino,” added Mazon.
