Humble Kitchen — Chef Hannah-Ruth Joy

Chef Hannah-Ruth Joy has recently stepped into the role of Chef de Cuisine at República, whose resumé spans continents and Michelin stars. Her career includes CDC and sous chef roles at some of the most lauded establishments in the world — among them Nico’s in Hawaii and the Michelin-recognized Manzano Hospitality group in Spain, whose portfolio spans Gloria, La Salgar, and Catering Manzano. Within Portland, Oregon, diners may recognize her name from celebrated stops at Kann and the late, beloved Quaintrelle. For Joy, this appointment carries a particular resonance as it is a return to the República Hospitality family; she previously served as sous chef at Lilia Comedor alongside Chef Juan Gomez.

Our conversation spans the accessibility of working in Michelin restaurants (for those who are seriously ready to commit), being the only woman in a male-dominated kitchen countless times, and the importance of acting as a team player to foster the most efficient working environment.

How to Run the Most Efficient Kitchen

Just be a genuine team player. Look around you. Be aware of where everybody is and what they’re doing and try to have a positive attitude about helping other people out when they really need it. Open your eyes a little bit and see where other people are.

Everyone in Portland Makes a Beet-Flavored Beet

I think a lot of restaurants here season beets really similarly, typically with a red wine braise, like an oven-roasted beet. It’s just the way that every single person does it, and then when you have it at every restaurant in Portland, it’s the exact same flavor profile of the actual beet itself. I wish I saw more creative ways of utilizing it, whether it’s for a sauce or a pickle or a soup.

One of my favorite things to eat in Portland is Clyde’s Prime Rib

One of my favorite places to eat Clyde’s Prime Rib, and they do it really well, plus their classic baked potato. You know exactly what you’re getting into when you walk in there.

Being a woman in any male-dominated industry will make you work twice as hard as your colleagues.

The worst experience I’ve ever had being the only female in a kitchen was the time that the chef referred to me as the girl and refused to learn my name for six months because he was convinced that I wasn’t going to make it in the kitchen.

The female experience in any workplace is that you have to genuinely try a little harder and work a little harder than your male counterparts, which is just an unfortunate thing about our society. I think it’s particularly rampant in kitchens, which always sucks.

Today, I’m just a lot more confident in my work and my ability. And I know my way around a kitchen really well. I never try to prove myself through what my resume says or my experiences. I only need to prove what my work ethic is. Because at the end of the day, I am not above the work, no matter what the work is.

It’s important to lift weights so that you can hold pans

I have carpal tunnel that I notice mostly when I’m sleeping, but when I’m working sauté, I’ll also notice it because I’m also doing a lot of pan work, so it’s constantly heavy in your hand, and then at the end of the shift it can feel pretty painful in my wrists.

To combat it, I lift weights because the stronger you are, the less likely you are to have those kinds of body pains. I feel like it helps to have general body strength, because the stronger you get in other places, the less you are compensating other places. Strength building is really important for staying at the top of your game, honestly.

The best thing you can do in a kitchen is get your mise en place dialed in

The most common mistake that can easily be avoided is the way that you set up your line and your mis en place. You should always put all the ingredients that go on one dish next to each other. It drives me crazy when line cooks put things far away from each other. There would be no point. If you need to put garlic and onions into a pan sauce, there would be no reason to put the onions on the right side and the garlic on the left side of their station.

Just keep yourself organized and clean because if your station is clean and you put things back exactly where they were, it becomes muscle memory instead of having to look for what you’re trying to make. It sounds obvious, but I think that when you get really, really good at it, it takes quite a long time of practicing every day to understand a station setup. It’s significantly easier for me now to walk into a kitchen in a space where I have never worked before and have no idea what is on the menu to be able to just look at the menu, see the items that I assume or think that I need, and then set it up in a way that’s gonna be practical.

The best advice I’ve gotten in my career is to learn how to work with people, not make them work for me.

I can learn how to manage people better than they can learn how to be managed by me. So I have to learn how you learn, I have to learn how to interact with you, and adapt to you more than I can expect you to adapt to me.

The worst advice that I’ve ever gotten is to put your head down and continue working somewhere that has a toxic or abusive environment in order to build your resumé.

When I’m learning a new cuisine, I watch videos of grandmas making food.

I read a lot about food history. I’m really interested in history, so it’s important to me to understand where things came from and maybe why they’re presented the way that they are, which helps me to understand the influence of their flavors in some ways.

I also watch a ton of videos where the grandmas prepare the food, someone who’s been making it their entire lives so that I can see exactly the way that they’re doing it and kind of mimic that process. I don’t specifically look for something with a recipe, or anybody who’s explaining the seasoning. I want to watch exactly what it is that they’re doing, even if they’re not explaining it because I can gain a lot from just visually comprehending how they’re toasting chiles, for example, or how they’re moving their hands when they wrap items like dumplings. So that’s the easiest way for me is to pay attention to the people who I know are experts and then take that in the direction that I need to.

There’s a noticeable difference between the staff at fine dining restaurants and Michelin-rated restaurants

I was really lucky to work in a Michelin-star restaurant because the environment was really wonderful. Other than the fact that we all worked a lot of hours, the team had a lot of camaraderie. Everyone who was there worked with such a sense of pride that’s hard to find in other places, especially in places that don’t have Michelin stars.

That’s because every single person who works in the back of the house of a Michelin-star restaurant is trying to become a chef that has a Michelin star. A lot of the times when you work at a place, even when it’s fine dining and it doesn’t have stars, people are sometimes just there because it was how life happened for them. Even if they’re extremely talented. But it’s not necessarily their dream to own a restaurant or to have a Michelin star. And so, at those places, I think it just takes a little bit more effort to keep your staff happy and wanting to continue to be there, and thrive to the best of their abilities.

If I could eat Cajun rice and beans for the rest of my life, I’d be happy.

My mom used to make Cajun food a lot when I was growing up. I spent some of my adolescent years in St. Louis, Missouri, so I experienced a lot of comfort Southern home cooking. She would make a Cajun beans and rice dish that was my favorite–specifically with Tony Chacheray’s, which is a Cajun seasoning. It was so simple, so filling, and amazing.

Anybody can do Michelin restaurants. It’s easy to get in. But you have to really want it in order to grow.

A lot of industry people have this thing… I’ve heard so many times people say they could never have what it takes to be in a Michelin restaurant. “They wouldn’t even let me sweep the floor there.” I’ve literally heard people in this industry say that. And every time I hear someone say that, I think to myself, well, I did it, and I did it when I was 18. And the reason why I did it was because I pursued it. And I just decided at that moment that actually, I can do anything I put my mind to.

So, if you really want to pursue Michelin, if you really want to work in a Michelin star restaurant, you can do it. And it’s relatively easy to get in. You just have to A) live with the consequences of that decision and B) decide if that is really, truly and honestly what you want before you give up the things that you have in order to do it.

Photos by Angel Medina

My Secret To Great Hospitality
People have always praised me for being such a natural at hospitality. But the more therapy I do, the more I’m starting to question whether or not that’s really a good thing.

I’m looking more closely at the traits that make me such a natural:

Always putting on a happy face.
Always having empathy and understanding for whatever a guest is going through (even if what they’re going through is a chronic case of entitlementitis).
Having extremely high standards and almost obsessive attention to detail.
Being willing to step up, go above and beyond, and always “wipe my feet at the door.”

I remember getting the call one night — right before a busy dinner service — that someone I loved very much was dying. But it was so ingrained to leave my personal experience outside the restaurant that I didn’t let myself feel it. I plastered on a smile, shoved my own experience down, and went out to talk to strangers about which wine would pair best with their steak and how exactly they would like that steak cooked.

I know this is an extreme example. But I see that “skill” — the ability to turn down your own experience in favor of turning it on for guests — being praised and rewarded all over this industry.

The customer is always right, after all. And hospitality is all about making guests feel good. But it reinforces the idea that my emotional experience is secondary to yours. Or said different: that mine is too much… too much for the restaurant, these people, maybe even the world in general.

I’m not saying everyone in the restaurant industry struggles with people-pleasing, overachieving, codependent tendencies… but I am saying that I’ve seen it in every restaurant I’ve ever worked — across ages, genders, and personality types from Portland to Los Angeles to New York City. The people who really thrive in hospitality are often the ones who know how to put others’ needs ahead of their own.

The industry rewards that. Worse–it seems to depend on it.

I am only just now, at 37, starting to understand what the hell a boundary even is, much less what one looks like in my personal–or professional–life.

The Magic of Front Of House
Front of house people are empaths to the extreme. They can scan a room and sense tension before a guest can articulate it. They mirror and validate whatever discomfort a guest is expressing — even if it has nothing to do with them or even with the restaurant — and make it their job to fix that other person’s emotional state so that they walk out the door happy at the end of the night. If that sounds exhausting… it is.

I’ve never worked back of house, but I’ve worked very close with back of house for a very long time. To me, it looks different but feels similar. It looks like adrenaline junkies who can tough it out on the line for long hours in extreme conditions under extreme stress because that’s what the role seems to demand — pushing their bodies to the edge of exhaustion to prove their strength. And maybe their worth?

Because at some level, isn’t that what all of this is about? As humans, we all want to feel worthy of love, and that manifests differently in all our lives, either subconsciously or consciously.

That’s not inherently bad. And it clearly motivates these personality types to make restaurants function — and maybe even make them magical. But it’s also not inherently healthy.

So I’ve just been wondering what it looks like to be good to yourself and also good at this job.

On Running A Healthy Restaurant

If you figure it out before I do, let me know. I think a healthy restaurant has layers.

There’s the external layer of whether the restaurant — the business itself — is healthy. Is it breaking even? Covering its costs? Does it have a safety net if something goes wrong?

Then there’s whether or not it has a healthy relationship with its community. Is it serving its guests well? Are they leaving happy? Is it nourishing them both physically and emotionally?

And then there’s the internal health of the team, like we’ve been discussing. How are they doing? Do they feel seen, heard, supported, valued, fairly compensated, and like they’re working in an environment that doesn’t require quiet self-erasure?

At Arden, we strive for all three layers of this trifecta — as I know most independent restaurants do. No one at Arden works more than four days a week. We provide health care. We encourage vacations. We try to build systems that don’t rely on burnout.

But that feels increasingly more challenging. And my larger fear is that the restaurant itself model may be broken.

Gosh, this must be the most depressing interview ever, I’m sorry! But these are the thoughts that rattle around in the brain of a restaurant owner at 2am.

The Math isn’t Mathing

Margins in full-service restaurants have always been thin, but now they’re virtually nonexistent.

Traditionally, if you kept cost of goods below 25% and labor somewhere between 25–30%, and if operations ran around 30–35%, then at the end of the day you might land at a 10–15% profit margin. But that was a long time ago, when minimum wage was much lower (with employees working mostly for tips) and costs were much cheaper.

In 2026, with minimum wage over $16 an hour and the cost of health care going up every year (which we’ve always felt strongly about providing), labor is closer to 40–45% — and that’s with running incredibly lean: no host, bartender, runner, or busser — just servers and managers doing it all.

Add rising cost of goods — tariffs, inflation, supply chain fluctuations. Unless you’re a pizza place with very low ingredient costs, it’s nearly impossible to keep cost of goods under 30%.

Then factor in fixed operations, with rent still $35 per square foot in this city even though nearly half of the commercial storefronts sit empty. Then God forbid a fridge goes down in a slow month…Now achieving a 10% profit margin suddenly feels like winning the lottery!

I genuinely don’t understand how full-service restaurants are supposed to survive long term unless menu prices become shockingly high, a lower (tipped) minimum wage is reinstated, facility costs become subsidized, or somehow the cost of wine and eggs drops overnight.

If anyone figures it out, please let me know.

In the meantime, that’s what bars (with great hospitality!) are for.

On The Community of Hospitality

The longer I’m in this industry, the more deeply I appreciate the moments where I get to go out and be on the receiving end of great service.

I so value the effort that goes into creating spaces of warmth — where you can simply arrive, have your cup filled, feel attended to, and be taken care of. It’s chicken soup for the soul.

And as much therapy as I’ve just claimed we all need… there is something incredibly human about the experience of taking care of someone else, and being taken care of in return.

It’s Cool. We’ve Got This. Trust Me.

I would actually love to teach a class on the art of being served. That probably sounds douchey. But I didn’t realize until I worked in restaurants that there is not only an art to service; there’s also an art to being served.

So many guests come into restaurants wanting to help, which is beautiful and deeply appreciated. But often, people inadvertently make a service team’s job more difficult by doing small things they think are generous — stacking plates, handing things over mid-clear, moving glasses while they’re being filled, rearranging things so we can’t drop shared dishes.

It all comes from such a good place. But there are little things that, if people knew them, would help them not only support the service team but, more importantly, help them sit back, relax, and be fully pampered.

The only downside is that it might make you a more discerning guest over time. You’ll start to notice when things aren’t happening. But man, when I go somewhere that has truly great service, it feels so good. I walk out feeling rejuvenated.

And I’m not talking about snooty, white tablecloth, overly formal service. I’m talking about grounded, warm principles that carry from casual dining through fine dining — open arms, right of way, re-folded napkins, full water. If you don’t know what some of these things are, you’ll just have to come to my class.

As You Like It

There’s no higher praise for me than when someone says they felt taken care of.

Of course I love it when people compliment the food. Erik’s food is obviously amazing, and we are so very lucky to have him. But maybe because service is the domain I’m responsible for, I’m more highly attuned to it. When someone tells me they arrived feeling welcomed and left feeling restored, we’ve done our job.

Because really… isn’t that the whole point of a restaurant?

The word itself comes from the French verb restaurer — to restore. Restaurants were born from the idea of someone stepping away during the workday to take a load off, eat some bread, and fill their cup back up — literally and metaphorically — before returning to the stress of their day. It’s actually the same idea that inspired Arden’s name.

In Shakespeare’s As You Like It, the Forest of Arden is a haven where people escape the stress and corruption of court life. It’s a magical place where they slow down, live off the land, play music, write poetry in the trees, reconnect with themselves, and fall back in love with each other and the world around them.

Ironically, fleeing to Arden in the play was prompted by a tyrannical leader taking power and making everyone’s lives hell…

Last Thing I Wanna Say

The world is hurting right now. People are angry. Everything feels unjust, unfair, fury-inducing. We’re not only divided politically, but also disconnected physically. In this digital, screen-based world we’re starved for serotonin and hungry for real connection.

And I think this is what restaurants can offer to communities right now: they provide a brief but crucial escape from a chaotic world. They are where you can flee to fill your cup back up.

So it’s more important than ever that we figure out how to make them healthy!

Maybe that’s my point: go support your local restaurants. They need you. And frankly, we need them.

Okay. That’s my sermon. Thanks for listening. I’m going to go book a reservation somewhere I haven’t been to in a while.

See you there?

Photography by Angel Medina

We got to the Marfa checkpoint about an hour later. We rolled our windows down ahead of time and waved at the agent, letting him know we weren’t a threat. It sounds ridiculous, but we wanted to play it safe. The border patrol agent asked where we were coming from and where we were going. He was actually playful, suggesting we needed to go back to San Antonio for better tacos. We left without incident. As we did, we noticed a van with a trailer pulled over for secondary inspection.

Five minutes past the checkpoint, still five minutes from Marfa, a dark Chevy SUV was parked on the grass. The Texas State Trooper turned the lights on before we even passed. I didn’t think it was for us, but I pulled over just in case.

It was for us. Again.

“Oh hell no. What the fuck!” We said it together.

The trooper came up to the passenger side. The young Latina tipped her hat and said I was doing 77 in a 70. I knew my cruise control was at 71. I’d say we hadn’t even reached that—we were just pulling out of the checkpoint.

Officer Hernandez #16846 asked us similar questions as the ICE agents. But I didn’t get the same sense of distrust from her. I mentioned we were eating tacos and that Jose was the taco editor for Texas Monthly. She said she loved tacos.

“Only good people do,” Jose said, trying to lighten things. She kind of ignored it and asked for both our IDs. Again, no request for insurance or registration or any other paperwork.

She went back and ran our IDs. This time the check was quick. She handed them back and asked about tacos in Marfa. Jose mentioned La Muerta Taqueria. She’d never heard of it. She asked me to watch my speed. I thanked her.

“I didn’t even know this car could go faster than 75.”

Her smile was tight. She acknowledged the joke but wasn’t in a position to laugh. She left. Jose and I drove off, cruise control at 71 again. We finally reached La Muerta in Marfa, which was supposed to be open according to Google.

It was closed.

The drive to El Paso was uneventful. We did drive-bys of the Prada store outside Marfa and the dive bar in Valentine, both places I’d been to but not with Jose. We didn’t get out of the car. We were too nervous to park on the side of the road. As darkness came, we felt even more exposed. We both love Texas and we explore it constantly, but the cold front couldn’t chill our spirits like ICE had.

We replayed the scenes over and over. The Texas DPS Trooper likely got a request from her superiors to pull us over and check our IDs. My guess is the ICE agents couldn’t access our records for some reason and waited as long as possible, maybe hoping we’d make a desperate move. When we stayed in the car, they realized they needed to verify us differently. They kept Jose’s business card—I imagine they made calls to confirm he exists. My identity remained a mystery, so they had DPS pull me over.

I don’t think all three stops were coordinated. The sheriff in Sanderson seemed genuine, just following orders and policies. Another person doing his job, getting paid, likely with a family, in a region with few career options.

But all three experiences showed what mattered most to their authority: determining if someone was supposed to be here. I’m not even talking about citizenship. The real question was whether or not I belonged here.

We stopped in Van Horn where Highway 54 meets Interstate 10. Walking in and seeing three Texas State Troopers laughing over coffee was jarring. Their joy seemed as far away as the 115 miles we had left to El Paso.

Jose and I got to the hotel and checked in. What usually ends with tacos and drinks was cut down to just walking across the parking lot to Track One. Double double wings and spicy lemon pepper tenders were actually good, either because we were hungry or because tacos—any Latino meal—felt too obvious after being targeted for being brown.

We went back to the hotel to end the day.

I fell asleep exhausted. Mentally from driving almost 15 hours. Physically from my six-foot frame trapped in a small hybrid. Spiritually from the day’s toll.

I woke up once at night. The day’s events played immediately in my mind.

I went back to sleep.

I woke up in the morning and felt it all again. I cried. All the weight came down at once. I felt like a coward—I should have stood up. I cried because I was here, yet some kind of survivor’s guilt gripped me after making it past officials three times. I cried because the first news I read that morning was about a five-year-old Minneapolis boy, Liam Ramos, held in a Texas detention center. I saw him in me—his blue hat on his golden tan face, the same color as my cheeks in my first communion photos 30 years ago. I remembered pictures I looked at this past summer when I went back to my family home after a viral video showed a little Latina girl screaming for her dad, begging people that her dad was a hard worker who wouldn’t hurt anyone, pleading for police to let him come home. I saw myself in her, and now in Liam. It was clearer now because I didn’t just look like them. I am them. I got caught in the immigration system too, no matter how temporary.

I cried. Not because of what happened exactly, but because of how close it felt to something worse. Because surviving had started to feel like the goal.

Jose and I went to eat burritos that morning. We tried to move on after I posted my stories on social media and he posted a video. We tried to keep going with the day.

It was too much.

We decided to cancel the day and head to Café Piro across from the Socorro Mission, southeast of El Paso. We’d find our friends, security, community. Gabe and Melissa Padilla greeted us. Chef Gabe hugged me as I cried. Hours of tears and frustration and pain for mi gente. We met our mutual friend Enrique Lozano, then my friend Gaby Velasquez at Taqueria Elemi.

Community didn’t fix what happened. It didn’t need to. It just held us.

Jose and I are privileged to do what we do. Many of our friends are. I’ll be okay. My problems are often just inconveniences—real, but not life or death. I understood that evening at Elemi’s that I was much closer to harm than I should be, than anyone should be. What was distant on social media and news reports, on my phone or TV, was now in range. The spectrum of trauma stretches like the Texas plains, from a simple exchange of information to getting roughed up, to being detained, to a fate I’d rather not say.

Jose and I live charmed lives. We know that. But for a moment out there, charm didn’t matter.

Only compliance did. Only luck.

I survived West Texas.

That shouldn’t feel like an accomplishment.

But sometimes, surviving is all that’s left to carry home.

Halfway through writing this at 11:30 AM MST on Saturday, January 24, 2026, in El Paso, my Apple News notification went off. “A man was shot and killed by federal agents in Minneapolis amid Trump administration’s immigration crackdown, officials said.”

I teared up reading the caption but I didn’t open it.

I kept writing.

Five hours after I started and finished my first draft, I opened my phone. Minutes later an NPR video showing the murder of Alex Pretti by ICE agents in Minneapolis’ Whittier neighborhood came across my Instagram feed.

I put my phone on DND and crawled into my hotel bed.

Rodrigo Bravo Jr. has contributed to various performs (Texas Monthly, James Beard Foundation, etc.) on food content & cultural pieces. He is a certified mediator in the state of Texas and a co-parenting coach/consultant. He is also executive producer and CPC (Chief Pusher of Cultura) at Nuestra Palabra, a non-profit Latino book and art platform, based out of Houston, Texas. Rodrigo is currently writing his debut novel, How To Make Queso Fresco, a book about his mom, love, and the mythification of women’s suffering.

“Why do you need to see my ID?”

The ICE agent and I stared at each other.

José R. Ralat is the taco editor at Texas Monthly; he and I have been traveling together for years, putting over 30,000 miles on the road throughout Texas to look for tacos. Really, we’re looking for culture–nuestra cultura–the people and stories that get overlooked.

El Paso has become our yearly kickoff trip. This year we wanted to document lost missions for a piece Jose is working on, which meant going farther out from Interstate 10 than usual.

We left San Antonio heading west through Boerne, the early morning fog settling over the hills. The landscape got even hillier as we approached Brackettville, with more valleys and curves through the mist until the sun dried everything out in Del Rio.

We make stops along the way–it’s one of the luxuries of working and traveling. We stopped at Highway 90 where it crosses the Pecos River. There’s an old abandoned section of the highway that runs under the tallest bridge in Texas, a continuous deck truss from 1957 that spans the length of a football field. We backtracked to the Amistad National Recreation Area looking for a way to access the old road. That led us to meet Jack Johnson, a park ranger who gave us an impromptu tour. As we left, I told him:

“I’m not trying to be political, but I’m so happy to see you. You’re an asset to the National Park Service, and with everything going on, I’m glad you’re still here.”

Everything is political, though.

US Highway 90 is usually empty. I kept hitting the rumble strips as I drove. What really stood out this time, however, were the Customs and Border Patrol vehicles, so many of them crossing the roads and the desert. I joked with Jose about making a video where we’d record three-second clips of each vehicle we passed and edit them together with DJ Khaled saying “ANOTHER ONE!” after every sighting.

It seemed harmless.

On our way to Marfa we passed through Sanderson, Texas. The small town of 700 is basically a leftover from when it was a railroad outpost. There’s a Kerrs Hardware with two metal dinosaurs out front. That’s where I pulled over after a Terrell County Sheriff turned his lights on.

The sheriff was dressed in military-style gear—multiple round holders, various munitions, a stun gun. He came up to the passenger window.

“Hey man, I pulled you over because you were doing 35. It’s a 30-mph zone.”

I’ve been pulled over twice in all the trips Jose and I have done. Neither time for speeding. Five miles over seemed strict.

“You got your driver’s license?”

I handed it to him. He asked a couple basic questions about where we were going. He seemed curious. He was tall, husky, his skin a burnt caramel color like my cousins who work HVAC, the sun toasting them from long days outside. He reminded me of my family when they ask about my travels.

He said he’d be right back—he was going to check if I had any warrants. Strangely, he didn’t ask for insurance and registration.

He came back and handed me my license. As he reached out I noticed heavy black ink on his dark brown skin. The tattoo came to a point and had either a year or some type of numerals.

“Here ya go man. If you stay here till later, you should check out the elk. They have these huge elk that cross the highway. Gorgeous, but be careful.” He followed up with something about how the Texas deer warning signs really feature elk.

The encounter was strange—how excited he was to share this Texas trivia. It reminded me of my cousins explaining deer hunting terms I immediately forgot.

I put my ID back in my wallet. We left toward Marathon, then Alpine, then Marfa.

The cold front Google kept warning me about hadn’t arrived. It was 71 degrees when we got to Marfa. We stopped at the Blackwell School National Historic Site–Jose took notes and pictures–then headed to Presidio, an hour away, where we’d pass through Shafter to see the next ghost town.

Five miles out of Marfa, we passed the US Customs Border Patrol checkpoint. I pulled up the coordinates for our next stop and happened to see the CBP Google Reviews page. Ten reviews, all five stars. I thought it was funny that an inspection station would have such a good rating. I said to myself: “ANOTHER ONE.”

The Shafter Ghost Town was what we expected–bleak, empty, falling apart. The church nearby only opens a couple times a month. The ruins were well-kept, as far as ruins go. You could tell where the walls and rooms had been. Except for the FUTURE MOBILE HOME PARK graffiti spray-painted on the old adobe.

We drove on. Car transport companies dotted the highway with hundreds of early 2000s vehicles lined up. Ojinaga and Presidio didn’t seem like major transport hubs, but the demand must be there.

Our actual destination was northwest at a road marker for the Ochoa Cemetery. Jose will write about the history, but this small memorial sits in the middle of nowhere. Mountains to the north, the Rio Grande to the south. It’s been forgotten. We took pictures, said the names out loud. All the Ochoas were inside a protected fence. Liandrita Garsia was buried outside it—just a pile of rocks with a cross on top. Her name and years: 1927–1928.

Even with the sun still out, the place felt heavy. We knew this road wasn’t used much and the cemetery even less. But we had our pictures, our notes. We’d share these stories.

We still had to drive to the actual GPS coordinates—the cemetery came earlier than expected. As we got near the pin on the map, there was a road marker going the other way. One of those common brown highway signs indicating the shrine. The coordinates were for the sign itself, not the cemetery. We doubled back. As we did, an ICE vehicle passed us.

We’d noticed several ICE patrols in Presidio. We paused to take a picture of the sign. The truck stopped about a quarter mile away. Then it turned around as we left.

We drove south along 170, heading back to Presidio and on to Marfa. It was the only route. The truck gained ground. When we stopped at the intersection with Highway 67, the truck was right behind us.

We turned left on 67.

The ICE agents turned left.

I thought they might be tailing us, but with so much patrol activity, I figured it was just another route they were working. We passed the Cho-K Two Auto Salvage, the name a Spanglish version of ‘choque,’ Spanish for ‘crash.’ Fitting for all the wrecked cars there.

We’d just left Presidio city limits when the ICE agents pulled us over.

The agents got out calmly. Before asking questions, one told me to roll down all the windows. He looked inside—luggage, San Antonio Spurs hats, backpacks, a case of water bottles, a spare tire. He couldn’t have been more than 25. He had the same features as my mom. My mom’s family name is Charre, a bloodline that goes back to the 1600s. Maybe he was French descent too.

He asked where we were going.

“We’re headed back to Marfa.”

“What were you doing in Presidio?”

“We went to a cemetery. Have you heard of the Ochoa cemetery? It’s on that road we were on.”

He stared at me.

“We’re doing a story on lost missions and cemeteries and—”

“Why did you double back?”

“Double back? You mean—”

“Yeah, you pulled off the road over there—”

“To take a picture of the road sign. I can show you on my phone if you’d like.”

“But you pulled over again. Why did you pull over twice?”

“We pulled over once to see the cemetery where the marker is, then a second time to take a picture of the other road sign. We pull over all the time to photograph Texas Historical Markers.”

I almost asked if exploring Texas history was illegal now, but I didn’t.

“Where are you headed to now?”

The repeated question hung in the air. I’d already told him. Jose and I could feel this wasn’t a simple question. This was an interrogation looking for inconsistencies. His partner, a young Latina, never spoke but stood guard on the passenger side.

“Marfa, like I said. Then we’re headed to El Paso.”

“Where in El Paso?”

“Where?”

“Yeah, where are you staying?”

“A hotel? I’m sure it’s the Fairfield. Jose is a Marriott—look, we’re doing a story and eating tacos along the way—”

“Tacos? You’re eating tacos? Where?”

“Jose and I are doing stories for Texas Monthly. Jose is Texas Monthly’s taco Editor. We go around eating tacos.”

Jose jumped in. “Yes, we’re on assignment. Do you want my business card?” He already had it in his hand.

The agent took it quickly. “Yes, that’s good. Let me also get both of your IDs.”

“Why do you need to see my ID?”

***

The ICE agent and I stared at each other.

I backtracked immediately.

“Never mind. Here.”

The agent took my ID and Jose’s, along with his business card. The pair walked back to their truck, closed the doors. We waited.

We sat there. I tried to play some songs. Jose texted his wife. I checked my phone. I looked at our surroundings. Purple cactus dotted the landscape. A fire hydrant stood alone, bright red, like it knew it was lost. A vehicle pulled into the home across the street. Jose and I discussed how expensive that fire hydrant must have been to install this far from anything.

We waited for 30 minutes. Our anxiety grew with each minute. “What’s taking so long?” turned into “Are they waiting for us to get out and ask them?” which turned into “What will they find?” “What did they find?” “Are they looking at my child support records?” “Did I return that library book?” “Are they looking at my social media?” “Are they confusing me with my father?”

The ICE truck doors opened. The agents walked up, one on each side of the car. The agent handed me both our IDs, without Jose’s card, and said, “Thanks, you’re good.”

The agents walked off. The whole thing left me thinking, “What the fuck?” All that buildup, all that adrenaline and anxiety, only to be let out like an untied balloon.

We drove off. I put the cruise control on 71, making sure there was no chance we’d be pulled over for speeding. Seat belts on, we continued through the West Texas mountains, still trying to enjoy ourselves despite the second police encounter.

“Oh my God, look at the landscape. That sunset. How the mountains look like they’re floating!”

Jose took out his phone and started taking pictures. The mountains did look like they were lifting off the plains. We played some songs, including an instrumental I love that remixes a Souls of Mischief song with a New York boom-bap style. We still had our spirit.

Tune in next week to read part two of this story.

Rodrigo Bravo Jr. has contributed to various performs (Texas Monthly, James Beard Foundation, etc.) on food content & cultural pieces. He is a certified mediator in the state of Texas and a co-parenting coach/consultant. He is also executive producer and CPC (Chief Pusher of Cultura) at Nuestra Palabra, a non-profit Latino book and art platform, based out of Houston, Texas. Rodrigo is currently writing his debut novel, How To Make Queso Fresco, a book about his mom, love, and the mythification of women’s suffering.

There’s a specific kind of magic that happens when Tiquette Bramlett talks about wine. Not the kind that leans on points or vintage charts or the reverence of Napa terroir—though she knows all of that, deeply. It’s the magic of translation. Of taking something that’s been wrapped in exclusivity and unwrapping it, gently, so everyone in the room can see what’s actually there.

“Wine doesn’t need validation,” she tells me. “It needs translation.”

Tiquette Bramlett is the founder of Henderson Ave Wines, a canned wine brand inspired by the Bay Area street that raised her. She’s also a north star for what hospitality looks like when it’s done with intention—rooted in care, built on presence, and grounded in the belief that community isn’t a strategy. It’s something you show up for.

She grew up in California, in a family where being first was a given. Her grandfather, her grandmother, her parents—they were the ones who walked into rooms where they weren’t expected and stayed anyway. That legacy shaped her. Not just the grit of it, but the unapologetic nature of taking up space.

“I’m here—so what are you going to do?” she says, describing her approach to stepping into the predominantly white, male-dominated wine industry. “You can’t push me out. You don’t get to dictate that.”

It’s not combative. It’s matter-of-fact. And it’s working.

- Angel Medina, Editor

On Marcona Almonds.
You know what I see on almost every charcuterie board?
Marcona almonds.
And honestly—I wish I didn’t.

First of all, nut allergies are real. That alone should be enough to reconsider the default.

But second—and this is the bigger thing—I’m always thinking: we could do better.
There are so many things that are simple palate cleansers, just as easy, and way more interesting.

And yet somehow, the almonds always become the signature. Like they’re mandatory. Like the board isn’t complete without them.

And I want to be clear—
No… actually, never mind.

Yes.
I am saying they don’t belong on the board.

On Napa
Look—I’m from California. I’ll always have love for Cali.

But with respect… Napa is overrated.
I said it.

And the reason I say that isn’t because Napa isn’t good—it’s just that we’ve gotten so hung up on the “name” that we overlook other places doing incredibly distinctive, world-class work.

Take Traverse City, Michigan.
That region is building something really exciting in its own right. They’ve got vineyards benefitting from a cool-climate that’s ideal for grapes like Riesling, Chardonnay, Pinot Gris, Pinot Noir, and Cabernet Franc—and now wineries are crafting wines that stand on their own, from crisp whites to elegant reds.

They’re not trying to be Napa.
They’re doing their own thing—with a sense of place, a collaborative spirit, and a terroir-driven identity that’s only just starting to get the attention it deserves.

And I think that deserves more love.

On Experimentation (in wine)
Experimentation is the most important part of the winemaking process—at least to me.

One of the most magical things about watching winemakers work is seeing their curiosity come to life.
Watching them take this raw thing—this fruit—and ask, What if?

It’s about paying attention to what Mother Nature gives you…
And then seeing what kind of magic you can make with it.

But it’s also about honoring the questions winemakers have always wanted to ask.
The risks they’ve wanted to take.
The ideas they’ve been holding onto.

That curiosity?
That’s where the magic lives.

Advice for Young Black Professionals in Wine
You don’t hold space for anyone who tells you that you can’t do something.
Curiosity will always be rewarded in this industry.
Ask questions. Stay curious.

And when someone tells you, “You can’t do this,” or “You don’t belong here,” you have to learn how to turn that volume down—and stay locked in on your goal. On where you’re going.

There are people in this community who will reward your curiosity.
Sometimes you just have to dig a little deeper to find them—but trust me, we’re out here.

And one more thing—just because someone looks like you doesn’t mean they support your vision. So stay open about who you learn from, who you connect with, and who you build alongside.

Because sometimes the most unexpected person will open the biggest door.

But also… as my grandfather would say fuck ‘em and feed ‘em fish.

Fried Chicken & Champagne
It’s perfect.
Everything about it.

You’ve got the salt, the fat, the acid, a little sweetness—and if you want, a little heat.
It hits every note.

Just give me some hot fried chicken and a glass of champagne, and I’m set.
That’s it.
That’s the pairing.

Trust me.

Exclusivity Is A Lazy Form Of Hospitality.
Hospitality is about being in service to someone—not being a servant, but being in service.

Real hospitality anticipates the needs of the person in front of you.

Lazy hospitality does the opposite.
It waits for people to self-select out.
It lets them feel like the experience isn’t for them.

And when you do that, you deny them the opportunity to learn, to grow, to participate.
Because if someone feels judged, rushed, or invisible—they’re not coming back.

Consumers today aren’t asking for much.
They want to learn.
They want to feel included.
They want to feel like they’re allowed at the table.

I would much rather someone leave curious—wanting to come back—than leave thinking, Why would I ever tell someone to go there?

I think about this a lot with Oregon, especially Portland. We do so many things beautifully—but I still hear stories where someone says, “I’ll never go back.”

That breaks my heart.
Because that’s a missed opportunity.

Our job in hospitality is to say:
You can come exactly as you are.
Be here. Be present. Sit with us.

Wine doesn’t need more awards. It needs more context.
Most people aren’t walking into your space hoping for a soil lecture or a history lesson from the 1970s.

They want you.
Right now. In the present.

So how do we meet them there?
How do we translate instead of validate.
Because wine doesn’t need more points.
It doesn’t need more trophies.

It needs context.
It needs storytelling.
It needs invitation.

Wine doesn’t need validation.
It needs translation.

Community Is Not a Marketing Strategy.
Community means care, continuity, and accountability.
And the moment you only show up when you’re launching something, selling something, or needing visibility—you’ve turned people into a tactic.

Real community shows up when there’s nothing to gain.
When it doesn’t serve you.
When someone just wants you present.

That’s the real ROI.

Because later, people remember:
They showed up when I had nothing to give them.

Not to sell me something.
Not to pitch me.

Just to be there.

You Don’t Need Permission To Create The Space You’re Looking For.
We spend so much time waiting for the green light.
From mentors. From gatekeepers. From someone “official.”

But there’s real power in deciding:
I’m going to do it anyway.

That’s grit.

And in doing so, you learn what you’re capable of.
Where you need help.
Where you still get to grow.

There’s real beauty in just taking the step.

The Challenge Of Being a Black Woman In A White, Male-Dominated Industry
Being an entrepreneur means learning something new every day.
Your business evolves. You evolve.

And being a Black woman in this industry adds layers.
There are assumptions the moment I walk in the door—about who I am, how I’ll show up, what I bring.

Then I sit down, and we start talking.
And there’s always that moment where it clicks:
I’m not impressed by status. I’m interested in people.

That shifts the dynamic.

I come from people who were often the first.
My grandparents. My parents.

So I show up unapologetically.
I’m here. What are we going to do with that?

On SOHO House Portland, And Sauna Etiquette
Soho House is layered—like everything else.

The networking? Incredible.
The community? Unmatched.
It’s also great market research—I get to hear what people are curious about in real time.

But there’s a duality.

Some people are there for connection.
Some are there for the status.

And those are very different intentions.

And now—quick PSA for the co-ed sauna.

Rule number one:
Do not scoot closer to a woman when she walks in and it’s just the two of you.

Rule number two:
Yes, you can say hello.
But read the room.
If we’re decompressing—let us decompress.

And rule number three:
This is not the place for “You come here often?”

Just be cool, bro.

Photos by Angel Medina

In this first installment of Humble Kitchen, we sit down with Olivia Bartruff, a pastry chef and culinary director who speaks about kitchens the way they actually function. (and not the way they’re mythologized).

Our conversation moves through power, gender, leadership, and care. We talk about confidence that gets misread, tenderness that still holds people accountable, and the quiet discipline required to run a kitchen without fear. Olivia reflects on bodies, trust, mental health, collaboration, and the emotional toll of small business ownership; alongside the life-giving act of making pastry.

What we’ve learned:
A kitchen is a test of power, trust, and how you speak when something goes wrong.

Subscribe now

Women In Leadership Roles
I always tell our female employees — especially as they move into managerial positions — that men will often act like they know better than you, not necessarily because they do know better, but because they speak with the confidence that they’re correct. That confidence doesn’t mean they know more than you.
Hold your ground.

On Being “Too Much”
I don’t think I’ve ever been called “too much” necessarily, but I’ve been called intimidating a lot. I realized pretty early into my teens that being intimidating was good. I took it to mean I was being seen as someone to contend with, not as an object of sex or even affection

Mimicking The Old Guard, or, Performing Masculinity
The very notion of “masculine” or “feminine” styles of leadership is restrictive. That said, using the stereotypical definitions of those terms, I think of female leadership as leaving room for tenderness. It’s the ability to see the person in front of you and to sympathize with what they’re going through without excusing their behavior. It means meeting people where they are while still upholding the requirements of the job.

I’ve found that when people feel seen and are given kindness alongside clear expectations, they usually rise to those expectations. And, at the very least, they leave without deep ill will because you, as leadership, didn’t let your discomfort with their struggles make you unnecessarily harsh or blame-oriented.
That, to me, is feminine leadership.

The Abusive Genius Chef. Trope or Reality?
I think the celebration of the abusive genius chef is mostly disappearing (with the glaring exception of The Bear).
Problematic behavior gets noticed quicker now and addressed faster. In some cases, chefs have been taken down who maybe weren’t even necessarily abusive, but were caught under the broader umbrella of toxic work environments.

The people rising in the industry now have a different set of values. They’re interested in teamwork and collaboration, not domination or their own monomaniacal ego-driven vision that is executed at the expense of those around them.
Those are the chefs who will eventually lead – and who have already started to lead – America’s preeminent kitchens.

Give Your Teammates the Benefit of the Doubt
If you trust someone enough to be in your kitchen, that means you should believe they have good intentions. If you get to the point where you fundamentally cannot believe that about them, then they no longer have a place in your kitchen.
If you keep that person, that’s when it actually becomes a toxic work environment.

On How to Behave
If you cannot speak to people properly, you are the one who has no business being there – not them – no matter how badly they fucked up.

Kindness is Not the Same as Being Agreeable
I think we’re often guilty of mistaking kindness for what’s easy.
We tell people what they want to hear; we give slack where it isn’t helpful; we sacrifice our own well-being, or that of the business, or that of the team, for what we think in the moment is to the benefit of others.
That’s a fallacy.
We’re not being kind in those moments. We’re being nice: we are doing what is easy and calling it kindness.

Curiosity is the Only Innovator
I think if you are approaching innovation with the goal of making something innovative you are doing it out of insecurity. You are only able to stumble upon something innovative when you are being curious.

This Stress is Going to Kill You
The job of pastry chef is only life-giving.
Restaurant ownership, however, is aging. For some people (or maybe just idiots like us) it comes with constant financial insecurity. That insecurity strains relationships. It erodes your sense of self-worth. It makes it harder to feel capable of managing your own life. It means letting people down constantly. It means letting yourself down constantly.
And it makes it hard to look anyone in the eye.

Food as Desire
I have always found food to be sexy. Anyone who has had the privilege of eating real food – ripened perfectly, cooked well, picked off the vine – feels this inherently. That kind of food hits all of our pleasure centers: visual, olfactory, gustation, and even auditory as we chew and crunch.

Fried chicken that drips grease down our hands; a little too hot to hold. Crispy chips that drown out the sound of our own thoughts as we crunch them by the fistful. Pliable dough that presses back softly into our palms as we knead it, binding gluten networks to make moist, pillowy chew. The first apple you’ve ever had that tastes like flowers and honey instead of the mealy, mildewy sweet styrofoam you’ve had before. Summer peaches still warm from the tree that leave sticky residue in your beard. Bliss. It may be that nothing can consume your senses with pleasure in the way good food does.

Run, You Cunt!
I think anyone who has employees or manages people has a responsibility to take care of themselves so we can take care of others. Or at least not make their day worse
So I try to get enough sleep and I try to exercise. That’s about it.
Your staff, more than you realize, can pick up on micro changes in your presence. Early on, I had someone quit and tell me that one of the main reasons they were leaving was they didn’t know what mood I would come in with. That’s one of the hardest and most important things anyone has ever told me. From that point on, I made sure to take a breath before I walked inside and to show up even-keel (as often as possible) so no one ever feels like they have to walk on eggshells around me.

Why Are You Wearing Heels to Work
I usually wear Birkenstocks. The leather ones. You can clean them, polish them, get them resoled. Sometimes I wear the Doc Marten’s work boots (never regular docs).
I’ve never understood how chefs wear clogs. It’s like wearing high heels your entire shift.

On Feeding Yourself Something Other Than Smucker’s Uncrustables
If I’m home I make weird snacks. Last night we had spinach salad, an apple with gouda, and popcorn.
My partner and I go out sometimes on Mondays and Tuesdays, but almost always to the same places: Luce, Lovely’s Fifty Fifty, and Yama Sushi. We have enough going on that the comfort of what we know is what we crave. Plus, most restaurants operate the same days we do.

Living a Dream
When República made it into Bon Appétit’s list of the ten best new restaurants in the US, I felt like a child. There was a photo of me in it and a photo of my dessert.
I have read Bon Appétit since I was little and it felt like a far away impossibility. Being in it felt surreal.

Salt is Flavor, but You Already Knew That, Sort Of
I think pastry chefs, in general, under-salt. Professional bakers aren’t guilty of this because they stick to their trusted baker’s ratios, but pastry chefs chronically under-salt their doughs and bases.
No salt = no flavor. Everyone knows this to be the case in savory cooking, but it still gets left behind in pastry. You can have the best donut in the world, but if you didn’t put enough salt in the dough, it’s a bad donut.

If You Are Going to Be a Drunk, Be a Bitter Drunk
I almost always get a Black Manhattan. If I were rich I don’t know what whiskey I would drink, but because I’m not, I usually go for Three Monkeys scotch or Rittenhouse Rye. Bourbon makes it too sweet with the Averna.

Photos by Angel Medina