Chef Carlos Garza heads the kitchen at one of Chicago’s biggest and most recognizable restaurants — Carnivale, where a towering mural adorns the side of the West Loop restaurant perched over the Kennedy Expressway. Garza said Carnivale’s pan-Latin menu reflects the way he thinks about food — a connecting of cultures.
“I love the food I make because it connects culture,” Garza said. “It connects people. It connects the roots of wherever you’re coming from. Every time you throw something on a hot pan, it’s like music for your ears. You just start feeling and hearing, like, ‘sssshhhh’ and you throw some wine on it and the flame, the sound changes, it's just what I love.”
Chef Garza on Consistency
“When I’ve got to change the menu, I start thinking about how it’s going to be on the plate. I’m going to start putting pieces together just in [my] mind. How many ingredients are there? Four or five? So that means there are going to be four or five steps. So with those four or five steps, now I have to think about the production in … Carnivale, which is a big restaurant. If I get 10 orders of this plate, how [am I] going to train these cooks to make it the same way as I want, and the 10 guys that are going to order that dish are going to have the same consistency, the same presentation and the same flavors, from No. 1 to No. 10?”
Chef Garza on Leadership
“When you first start cooking in a restaurant as a new chef, you have to earn the respect from cooks. Before becoming a good chef, you have to become a really good cook. That’s how you get the connection more with your cooks because it works in a better way to talk to them, to show them. That’s when you earn their respect and when they know then you are able to manage and guide a team. As our general manager one time said, it’s like you’re a captain, and you are basically dealing with a boatload of pirates. They’re not easy to manage.”
Chef Garza on Chicago
“It’s more like a Chicago thing, that once you find a dish that you like in a certain restaurant, you don’t want to change. You just want to have the same dish all the time, and it’s got to be the same all the time. I do the same thing. I like to explore and learn and try different things. But when it comes to satisfying my soul, I go to the place that I know I’m going to eat that dish and it’s just going to feed my soul. And that's exactly what I deliver — that promise to do that — cooking great food and satisfy your soul, and you feel like completely, your tank is filled.”
Chef Garza on the Pass
“Mark Mendez is a veteran in this industry — very passionate about his cooking, very connected with farmers. Every time he cooks, I see that he just loves to be behind the line, throwing the chicken or steak or lamb, whatever, and I feel very inspired.”
