Meet Alejandro Rodriguez-Garcia | Co-Chef/Owner Dos Caras

We had the good fortune of connecting with Alejandro Rodriguez-Garcia and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Alejandro, other than deciding to work for yourself, what else do you think played a pivotal role in your story?
Al- one of the most important shifts in my mentality was to broaden my scope of work. Working in a kitchen has always been about improving recipes, or work flow, but to be able to lift your eyes off of the day to day, and ask yourself the questions like: “where am I taking this business, what am I doing for my employees. Asking What are the steps I need to creat the kitchen I want, the business I want. A broad perspective will take away the limits of the mundane and the monotony, it gives an invitation to more opportunities and requires you to think about different perspectives and ways to improve.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
Looking back at my childhood I started cooking to help my mom out for dinner time, when she was away I would cook for my siblings. I loved the combination of ingredients and smells. I familiarized myself with scents and flavors and taught myself what combinations work and why my mom’s food was so delicious. Paying attention to ingredients and how they work in harmony together and how every cuisine uses ingredients to make their food unique. Tomatoes and herbs with garlic can be prepared so many different way to make it unique. Throughout my career unknowingly I took steps to learn and be able to create new flavors. Now in my career having so many techniques and knowledgeI try and express those flavors that excited me and that are so engrained in my memory. The simplest like my mom’s beans that are just cooked with bayleaf and salt to accentuate the vegetal qualities of pintos, paired with burned arbole chiles that give that vegetal quality a little smoke and pepperiness. Or making something complex like our salsa macha negra that integrate black garlic a flavor I was intrigued by in culinary school. Dos Caras has been a form of expression of my childhood memories, my moms, and grandmothers cooking along with other food memories from my own career. The need to express and always improve, and now simplify our dishes to give a more clear interaction of flavors is where I am taking our food. I think to my mom and grandmother when they cook and how they learned by trail and error and just how simply they cooked. In my career I’ve taken so much from my food and realized the simpler the better food is and it then evokes memories for people who often say this is the best thing I’ve ever ate or this reminds me of something my maternal guardians would make me.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
La Cemita Poblano located in the flea market at eighth and federal, they have some unique flavors that remind me of being Mexico. Their taco árabe is one of my favorites. I also like le Reyna de sur a Oaxacan concept off of Morrison Road they do the most authentic barbacoa in town along with other Oaxacan foods. Convivio is one of my favorite cafes in town it’s a woman owned Latinx cafes featuring Guatemalan coffee and food items. Vivi and Kristen are my good friends and they’ve know us when we were both popping up.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
One of my mentors along the way was Silvia MCA allow she is the owner of Nidos Backyard in Oakland. Chef turned business owner I saw her take on the challenges of Covid with a staff of 20. She taught me to formulate menu, and service style, as well as how to staff and source events and community engagements for her business. She fought so hard and now has one of the most community engaged profitable outdoor restaurant spaces in Oakland. Her vision was clear and allowed her to make decisions according to viability of that vision.