10 Thoughts: Homaro Cantu

Homaro Cantu is the chef/owner of Chicago-based Moto and Ing restaurants, and the chairman/founder of Cantu Designs.

1. One thing you don’t know about me is that I pull pranks on my employees all the time.
 
2. If I could trade places with one chef it would be Nathan Mhyrvold (the author of Modernist Cuisine: The Art & Science of Cooking). I want his food lab, so I’m building one.

3. One of my most memorable meals was at Taillevant in Paris with my wife on our honeymoon. Eight years later I went with Chris Jones and it was just as spectacular,  just not romantic. The service is perhaps the best in the world. They have a server to do everything, and five master sommeliers to open anything.

4. If there was no pizza, I’d have no reason to live.

5. My go-to drink is iced coffee; just coffee over ice.

6. If I were on death row my last meal would be my wife’s homemade pizza.

7. My worst culinary creation was the first dish that my first fine dining chef/boss asked me to cook for him. It was part of my tryout to make him anything I wanted. It was overcooked prawns with brown rice. The rice was half cooked, un-seasoned and the prawns were raw. He hired me because I begged him to work for free.

8. If I could change one thing about me it would be to drop 10 pounds.

9. My favorite junk food is Chinese food at Lao Szechuan in Chicago.

10. If I wasn’t a restaurant operator, I’d love to be a research and development director.