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Leticia Nunez Highlight
It doesn’t matter where you come from, what stress you had that day, or how mad you are, you can put food on the table and everybody comes together. [In that moment], we all have something in common...it becomes about the food.
About Leticia
- Born and raised in Oaxaca, Mexico.
- Says that in her family, “it is all about the food”—she realized that food and cooking were her passions at 8 years old.
- Moved to the Napa Valley in California at the age of 17 where she began her career studying under the famed chef Thomas Keller at the world-renowned restaurant French Laundry.
- She got a job working as a wine pairing chef at Robert Mondavi Winery.
- Due to the competitive nature of the culinary industry, she dealt with a lot of negativity early in her career and faced people who doubted if she had what it took to be a chef.
- After she got married, she and her husband started opening several of their own restaurants in California and North Dakota.
- Moved to Las Vegas, NV—worked as a banquet chef for MGM and helped open Guy Fieri’s El Burro Borracho at Rio All-Suites Hotel and Casino.
- In 2012, she helped open the Bacchanal Buffet at Caesars Palace and is now their Executive Chef—she oversees 124 cooks and eight chefs preparing hundreds of dishes for over four thousand people a day.
