This week, Ira spoke with Award-winning chefs Susan Feniger & Mary Sue Milliken, who just opened their first stand alone and drive-thru concept of their BBQ Mexicana in the Las Vegas valley. In this episode of “Talk About Las Vegas With Ira,” Susan and Mary Sue talk about their long careers in the culinary world; how they first met in a restaurant kitchen and realized how both of them were dedicated to their careers; how they developed their idea for BBQ Mexicana, which blends Mexican and traditional southern flavors, crafted with organic, seasonal, and fresh ingredients; how the first stand alone and drive-thru concept included quick and casual food made to order; why people look at restaurants as entertainment; how executive chef Mike Minor came up with the idea of fusing Mexican and BBQ and introducing the BBQ Smoker; and therir plans for the future.
Mary Sue Milliken and Susan Feniger are James Beard and Julia Child award-winning chefs, cookbook authors, media personalities, and entrepreneurs. The chefs may be best known for SOCALO, Alice B., BBQ Mexicana, Pacha Mamas, and Border Grill restaurants, catering, and food trucks in Los Angeles and Las Vegas.
Trail blazers from the get-go, the culinary grads (Susan from Culinary Institute of America in New York and Mary Sue from Washburne Culinary Institute in Chicago) met in 1978 at Le Perroquet, one of Chicago's best French restaurants, as the first women to break into the all-male kitchen. Serious about food and ready for new territory, they both struck out for new adventures--Feniger went on to work for Wolfgang Puck at Ma Maison in L.A. and then honed her skills at L'Oasis, a three-star restaurant on the French Riviera, and Milliken went on to chef at the woman-owned two-Michelin-star Restaurant D’Olypme in Paris--knowing even then that they would work together some day.
"Some day" became 1981, when Feniger and Milliken teamed up to open City Café, and changed the culinary landscape of Los Angeles forever by introducing eclectic dishes from around the world. In 1985, the pair found further acclaim with CITY Restaurant, and captured the hearts of Angelenos with the debut of Border Grill, a small, forty seat “taco stand,” evidenced by a James Beard Award the same year.
Now with multiple restaurants, food trucks, and a full-service events and catering business, the chef duo continue breaking barriers as female restaurateurs in a male-dominated industry, pioneering sustainability initiatives and developing their culinary offerings into cookbooks, radio and tv shows, and quick service spin-offs BBQ Mexicana and Pacha Mamas in Las Vegas, and their Santa Monica restaurant SOCALO, a California canteen and Mexican pub. Most recently, the chefs have been collaborating on opening new restaurants including BBQ Mexicana in Las Vegas and Alice B., an all-new restaurant at Living Out, in Palm Springs.
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