Today we’d like to introduce you to Adriel Montes.
Adriel, we appreciate you taking the time to share your story with us today. Where does your story begin?
I started off washing dishes with my mom and her catering company in Lake Elsinore, CA.
She decided to go into the restaurant business the next few years and I decided to go to college and was line cooking on the weekends.
Once I got close to graduating, I decided to wanted to be a chef and pursue this career instead of what I was going for in college, which was psychology.
I was addicted to cooking. I felt like I got in during the good years right before television and social media really changed the landscape of the culinary world of cooks today. It was all about grinding as hard as you could and the goal was to gain as much knowledge and skills as one devour. I was in love with cooking and I became really good at it mostly because it was all I ever thought about. 14 hour days and going home and reading cookbooks like a textbook till I would fall asleep. Taking notes and the drive to get better everyday is key. But trust me it wasn’t an easy rodeo get to where I am now. Many nights questioning if the low pay and many hours were going to be worth it It in the end.
I feel like a lot of cooks now days want balance and no pressure. But those are the things that made me the chef I am today. Controlled chaos, code, and pressure is a recipe for success in my book.
During this time, I decided to find kitchens that we’re doing things that I wanted to learn whether it be fish and meat butchery, fresh pasta, fermentation, or live fire cooking. I’ve tried to put as many notches on my belt as I could, ultimately to be the best well rounded chef one could be. I cooked on the East coast, the South, and West coast in high end cocktail bars, chef driven restaurants, catering companies, resorts, hotels, corporate cafe, luxury deep sea fishing charters, private chef work, and most recently my own business, Eye of RA Hot Sauce.
I began Eye of RA Hot Sauce in 2022. It was a great small business that focused on crafted fresh pepper blends and charred flavor.
This was a way for me to get out of being a full time chef which was really demanding for a guy trying to be a family man.
I was challenged to step outside my comfort zone in both work and personal life and try something completely new. It was a fantastic experience, but once my son was born I put the hot sauce on the back burner.
Now after 20 years of being in the food and hospitality business and a father of a toddler, I’ve stepped into a more stable part of the industry.
Currently, I’m the chef at UNT for their flagship restaurant, Avesta in Union Hall. It’s a great concept serving higher-end meals at a value price. It’s open to the public and definitely a hidden gem.
It’s a great position that allows me to still be creative and showcase my craft without burning out.
My main current focus is getting my small business back up and running here in Denton, Texas.
I would like to start a small chef popup here in Denton while bottling up some more hot sauce. But I’m very new to this area and have a lot of work to do to make some connections. So reach out if you are wanna collaborate!
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
It’s been a struggle for real!
Here is something I wrote back in 2011.
It’s addicting. That moment when you’re in the fire, but flowing like water. Your team and yourself are operating a complex machine. A kitchen. A world of food, fire, steel and iron.A messy, confusing, fast-paced, hazardous situation that is challenging,
problematic, and stressful. Its a job that never feels just like a job, its battle. Prepared and executed battle. This is all behind the scenes too. So the worst part of it all, nobody gets to see you do it. Best part of all, you are a vital member of a craft and crew. How do you take food and turn it into magic and money? Well that is our job: Line Cooks. We execute the dishes of Chef. Everyday we come together and go behind the scenes and create. Chef has a vision, but we get to create it. A line cook is the last front of what you eat…the last few hands that make it happen.
We take ingredients: clean, cut, cook, and combine them to create something new just for you. Our work is to feed you: Feed your desire, feed your fulfillment, feed your senses. It is something critical…It’s something delicious. It’s something exhausting…its something delightful. It’s something with an expectation…and it still surprises me everyday.
Yeah, I don’t get paid very much, yeah, I don’t get weekends off, yeah, I work more than I’m suppose to, and yeah I come home beat up, tired, hungry and smell of grease, smoke, and sweat. You start to sink into the kitchen life, therefore the rest of the world starts to fade away. This is a job that comes with a harsh lifestyle: one that offers you up as a misfit of society. You will miss everything. BuIilding relationships will be your worst feature. Social skills dwindle, and you will cope with copious amounts of alcohol and drugs late into the night. Sacrifice is a cook’s demon. What is it all for then? Personal satisfaction is all you get when developing your craft. Its satisfaction that I just accomplished a job that most can’t handle. It’s also the beautiful satisfaction of battling out challenges on the daily with your team. It is there, where all of you are on point: your temps, your timing, your communication, and carefully planned movements and after 6-8 hours of hardcore service, you look at the clock and say “what just happened?”
I just conquered…that’s all I know.
and I’m a cook on a line, and that is alI I do.
Thanks for sharing that. So, maybe next you can tell us a bit more about your work?
What sets me apart from other chefs in definitely in my style of teaching new cooks how to cook.
I go by a very odd mixture of philosophy and science and is definitely not recipe based and answering the question why we do things the way we do.
You know how Miles Davis says the silence and space between the notes is just as important?
Well that’s how I look at food, except water is the sound/space between everything and if you pay attention to the water, it will show you how to cook food properly.
What are your plans for the future?
I’m looking to start a popup here in Denton, TX
I don’t want to release the concept yet, but I’m looking for chef connections in the area. Hit me up!
