We recently connected with Chef Felipe Cuevas and have shared our conversation below.
Chef Felipe , thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. Can you talk to us about a risk you’ve taken – walk us through the story?
I believe that one of the biggest mistakes in life is being comfortable with the version of yourself that you are not happy with or knowing that you are capable of greatness and still deciding to settle and not push yourself to take that risk that’s keeping you from becoming great.
This can come to you in many forms, becoming a better father, a better chef, striving for greater health, being a better husband/wife, or in a million other forms that life has for all of us. In my case, it’s my chef career. Since I can remember as a child I’ve always loved the art of cooking, the idea of being a chef, learning cuisines from across the world, traveling and tasting flavors from everywhere, and seeing myself in a Food Network show or anything like it. All these at some point in my life were only dreams, ideas, thoughts, and goals that I thought sounded amazing but I would never put the effort to execute, or always had a great excuse in the back of my head to give me 100 reasons on why I couldn’t or shouldn’t do it. We as humans sometimes allow fear to translate into many different forms that cause us to shut down many ideas that might challenge us or make us uncomfortable.
I am here to tell you to embrace life and the opportunities it gives. Challenge yourself and put yourself in as many uncomfortable situations that might benefit your brand, your health, your pockets, and your overall well-being. I talk about this because I am living it, I was that person living in fear of failing, in fear of not being as good as I thought myself to be, and being the hardest critic of myself that kept stopping me from getting started.
Getting started is the hardest part but once u get there you’ll see how great it feels to take that first risk. After the first ones, it starts getting easier because you can see how good it looks to bring your thoughts and ideas to fruition and how good it feels to put your eggs in your own basket for a change.
My name is Felipe Cuevas and I am a self-taught private chef who has been lucky to have amazing friends and colleagues in the food industry who have at times taken the time to show me and teach me new skills, techniques, and etiquette. Along with an amazing mother who has had the patience to always share and teach me our family recipes and her way of cooking and a father who was a Chef overseeing restaurants in Los Angeles back in the late 80s and early 90s. I am a first-generation Mexican American working towards becoming a world-renowned Chef/restauranteur/world traveler. None of this would have started if I hadn’t taken that initial risk to follow my true passion and strive to be better each passing day.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
Cooking I can say runs in my blood, it’s something that I’ve always loved and enjoyed doing and being a part of. I always like to tell the story of how as a kid, instead of watching cartoons on the weekend and after school, I would always put on PBS and watch the cooking shows they would showcase back in the day which usually was Julia Childs and Martin yang. I Would always try to help my mom in the kitchen with prep and anything that allowed me to be next to her or my dad when they would cook because I knew I would always be able to taste and munch on whatever we were preparing or cooking. This curiosity about cooking followed me through my entire life. As the youngest of 3 siblings, every time we went to a restaurant I was always given the kid’s menu while my brother and sister would always get a grown-up menu, the funny part was that my eldest sister always knew as soon as the menu would drop I would swap her my kids menu for her adult menu and she would go ahead an order her chicken tenders, burger, or spaghetti while I would order the surf and turf medium rare filet with lobster tail and extra butter and baked potato on the side. Yes, I was not your typical kid and definitely not a picky eater. I had what I would now consider an elevated pallet for my age, and the thirst to learn and taste everything fine that the world had to offer.
As I grew older into my teens, I started to develop more and more skills in the kitchen, from cooking basic Mexican recipes, food I would see on TV shows, and random stuff I would crave, from breakfast to lunch and dinner. On top of that, I was always trying most hole-in-the-wall restaurants or pop-ups possible that I would come across.
Living in Los Angeles allowed me to have access to a melting pot of different foods and cultures throughout the city. I also had a job after school with my dad that allowed me to visit Los Angeles from north to south and east to west. I was lucky to try tons of street food, endless amounts of tacos, street pupusas, ceviches, BBQ, Korean food, Japanese food, Vietnamese, Thai, Guatemalan, Peruvian, Ecuadorian, African, Jamaican, Israeli, Palestinian, Jordanian, I can go on and on but you get the point. This opened my eyes to different styles of cooking, spices, and flavors but at the same time, it showed me how similar we all are. The world shares a ton of similar recipes, we just call it something different or add a few different ingredients but a lot of it has the same concept and idea at the end.
As time passed I grew older and so did my passion for cooking, traveling, and trying new flavors. I was able to visit a few countries in Asia including Northern and southern Vietnam where I got to try some of the best BBQ chicken wings cooked over an empty oil drum converted into a smoker/open fire grill smothered in a salty, sweet, and tangy fish sauce marinade with a side of Thai chili, lime, and white pepper dipping sauce. followed by the best pho in Hanoi in northern Vietnam on my way to Halong Bay. A few days later we touched base in Thailand where I truly witnessed the perfect shrimp pad Thai in between noisy motorbikes and the smell of gasoline. I don’t know how but that made every bite that much better coming from a street cart attached to the back of a tuk tuk. I was also able to taste some of the best Hainan chicken from a hawker stand in what I call the cleanest and safest country I’ve visited, the beautiful Singapore, and the best beef noodles in Taiwan. All of these experiences have taught me to love and respect food, tradition, all cultures, and especially the art of cooking and cooking as a profession.
When people ask me, Chef! What’s your favorite dish to cook, or what do you know how to cook best? I used to be confused by their question. I would think that something was wrong with me because I didn’t have “One” main dish that I could answer that question with. But the reality is that I can cook a ton of different styles of food, from different parts of the world, some traditional, some more fusion, and sometimes some that can be considered totally berzerk but that’s the beauty of being a chef, the fact that u can be as innovative as you want or as far as you are willing to go with an idea or recipe.
I know I can cook some amazing Italian food, Middle Eastern, Asian, Peruvian, Central American, and many others. But my true passion is showcasing traditional Mexican cuisine, ancestral recipes and elevating them to a fine dining level, and showing that Mexican food can also be up there with the finest French dishes and cuisines. So what do I cook you ask? I choose to cook an elevated version of our Mexican cuisine, but I am also available to cook anything else your mind, soul, and stomach might desire.
I can be hired for private coursed dinners, family style feasts, special events, buffet style, and I also put together elevated fine dining experiences throughout California and soon the world where I sell seats that include a 5-8 course tasting menu paired with amazing cocktails and or wines inside some of Los Angeles top properties and listings. These dinners allow me to play around with recipes and ideas and bring them to the plate for you and your friends to try. Tastings start anywhere from $125-$495 per person depending on how extravagant the dishes or ingredients get. Buffet-style or family-style catering can start from $35-$250 per person also depending on what you want to serve your guests and the type of experience you are looking for. My go-to saying is always “You let me know how fancy you want to get”.
Aside from my chef career I also have an extensive background in Operations, event management, marketing, and consulting. So I also offer not just to prepare the menu and food for your event but I can also set up your entire event/experience from A-Z. From finding you the perfect venue, with the perfect layouts, Creating and curating a bar program, staging, talent, music, entertainment, craft bartenders, and a lot more. Being able to provide a full experience for someone is always the goal. When someone books a private chef is because you want a personalized experience catered to you, your guest, and your idea. I am here to help you bring it to life.
What do you think helped you build your reputation within your market?
The Chef industry is a small world, everyone knows everyone for the most part, and or has mutual colleagues or friends who know one another. Being genuine about who you are takes you far in this industry. Knowing your strengths and weaknesses and being open to learning from someone who knows more or specializes in something specific like a particular cuisine, and being grateful for the time that they take to teach you should not be taken for granted. Be open to suggestions, opinions, and feedback no matter if it’s great or not. You’re only going to get better if you learn from your mistakes. Some people will always tell you that you’re doing great even when you’re not because they think that’s what you want to hear, a true colleague, friend, or partner will tell you the truth. If it’s great it’s great if it’s not a true friend will tell you where you need to improve or their true opinion of your dish, plating, or overall execution. We cannot be afraid of becoming better and mistakes are just opportunities to learn and not repeat the same mistake again and again.
The one piece of advice I would give myself if I were reading this as an outsider would be to make sure that I am my own biggest investor in myself, my goals, and my ideas. Stop working to build someone else’s dream when you know you have your own to build, and if you need to build someone else’s while u set up the structure to build your own then do so but don’t get comfortable and settle, always keep your eye on the price and remember to invest in you.
and lastly, be consistent, consistency is the key to most success, and in my personal opinion is what makes the difference in making it and not making it. Were all going to have bad days, bad weeks, months, even years. Maybe your concept didn’t work the first time or the second or the third, and then it finally launches and works out for you the fourth time. Now imagine if you had quit the second or third time, you would not be where you are now. Stay focused and make consistency a must not an option.
How did you build your audience on social media?
Social media has a vast amount of free platforms where you can showcase your work, your art, and your talents. But growing your followers and engagement can be difficult, confusing, stressful, and sometimes downright hard. I am a big believer in organically growing your engagement and followers. I think buying followers is a joke and a scam to you and your real followers, stay patient and consistent and it will come. I still do not have 100k, 50k, 25k, or even 5k yet, but it’s heading that way. some things that helped me grow my organic following and engagement were influencer marketing and collaborations.
One of my first projects was a meal prep company called Eat Like Fresh Meals, I started with about 10 followers, and in less than 3 months I had over 5,ooo followers all because I reached out to a few influencers that I was friends with and offered to feed them weekly with my meal preps in exchange for marketing content and stories of them eating my food. One of them posted, another one saw, they reached out and my influencer marketing list grew extensively. There are many influencers out there that are willing to help if you just ask, or if you give them an offer that makes sense to them. In my case, I made great food and they wanted to try it, their content took me from cooking 100 meals a week to 500-700 meals a week, and engagement and orders growing daily to the point that I had to start hiring staff to help me prep, plate and deliver my meals. If you do not have a product to exchange for services or the influencer is too big also put aside a marketing budget that can be allocated to promos and repost of your content. Meme pages are also a great tool, these pages make their money off paid promos and u can get story reposts for as low as $15 and some bigger accounts for up to $500-$1000 for reels and collaborations.
But the most important things are content, content, and more content. this circles back to what I mentioned earlier about consistency, this is key to building anything. Be aware of what you want your storytelling to consist of, sharpen up your editing skills, or download some apps that can help create and edit videos, reels, and anything like that. Another option is to hire local editors to help you film and edit your content if your budget permits it, if not you can go on Fiver and find similar editors for a fraction of the price that are based in other countries, but I always suggest working local.
Contact Info:
- Instagram: @ChefFelipeCuevas
- Other: For bookings or questions contact me at (310)866-7110 & [email protected]
Image Credits
Devin Berko
Jonathan Lozoya