STAR CHEF OPENS DRURY PLAZA HOTEL IN SANTA FE RESTAURANT
Santa Fe, N.M. — The Drury Plaza Hotel in Santa Fe is excited to announce award-winning chef John Rivera Sedlar as restaurateur of the hotel’s new restaurant ELOISA. ELOISA will open this fall on the main floor of the hotel. The restaurant will be open for lunch and dinner seven days a week and will serve Southwestern Latin fusion cuisine. Friendly, professional service will complement the great food and the comfortable, warm environment.
In creating this alliance, the Drury Plaza Hotel in Santa Fe puts ingenuity and innovation in modern Latin cuisine at the top of its agenda. Sedlar is one of Los Angeles’ most successful and best-loved chefs. He owns the sleek, pan-Latin fusion restaurant Rivera. He returns to his hometown of Santa Fe after four decades of pleasing diners in Los Angeles.
“Santa Fe has long been, and still is, the epicenter of the most flavorful, vibrant Southwestern foods found anywhere in the United States,” says Chef Sedlar. “I'm so looking forward to returning to the Santa Fe cocina to cook once again my own contemporary versions of the wonderful foods I first ate as a child in my grandmother's kitchen on Alto Street.”
“Chef Sedlar’s mastery of modern Latin cuisine and his Santa Fe roots make him a perfect fit for our restaurant,” says Tauseen Malik, Drury Plaza Hotel in Santa Fe General Manager. “His culinary vision and creativity will bring a fresh new outlook to the culinary landscape of Santa Fe.”
Sedlar was named “the Father of Modern Southwest Cuisine” by Gourmet magazine and has competed on Bravo’s Top Chef Masters. He guest-taught at the Culinary Institute of America and is the author of many cookbooks including “Modern Southwest Cuisine,” “Tamales,” and “The Tamale Poster.”
In 2011, Sedlar was named “Chef of the Year” by Esquire magazine and RIVERA restaurant was acclaimed as one of the nation’s “Best New Restaurants 2011.” Sedlar was recognized in the legendary Cook’s Magazine feature “Top 50 Who’s Who of Cooking in America,” and in Food & Wine magazine’s “Honor Roll of American Chefs.” He received the Silver Spoon Award from Food Arts Magazine. In addition, he served for 10 years as spokesman for Patrón tequila.
Sedlar was raised on bizcochitos, empanaditas, and tamales in the New Mexican kitchens of his mother, aunts, and his grandma Eloisa, who was a professional chef. His father moved to New Mexico to work for Los Alamos National Laboratory. His middle name, Rivera, comes from his mother's family, which has lived in northern New Mexico for centuries.
He grew up in Santa Fe and spent three years in the Spanish cities of Sevilla and Zaragoza. In 1973, he apprenticed himself to legendary French chef Jean Bertranou of L'Ermitage in Los Angeles and mastered classic techniques while evolving his own approach to cooking. Sedlar has traveled extensively throughout Mexico, Latin America, and Spain to study Latin food traditions, and he is also the creator and founder of the first Latino food museum in the United States, Museum Tamal.
Sedlar’s first restaurant, Saint Estephe, opened in 1980 and was named “among the very best in California, or even the West” by Bon Appétit magazine. At Saint Estephe, Sedlar combined his classical training with his love of New Mexico’s cuisine to create what he named Modern Southwest Cuisine, also the title of his first book. He continued to create delicious, innovative food at his next restaurants, first Bikini in 1991, and then Abiquiu in 1994, both in Santa Monica.
DRURY PLAZA HOTEL IN SANTA FE
The 182-room Drury Plaza Hotel in Santa Fe features all of the renowned amenities of Drury Hotels, as well as modern, spacious, light-filled rooms with stupendous views of the Santa Fe skies. Guests will enjoy relaxing at the rooftop bar by the pool with breathtaking views of the Sangre de Cristo Mountains; and shopping in the galleries around the property. The fully renovated buildings are steeped in history and surrounded by beautiful gardens and walkways.
Drury Hotels is a St. Louis-based, family-owned and operated hotel system with more than 130 hotels in 20 states from Arizona to the Carolinas and from Texas to Michigan. Brands include Drury Inn & Suites, Drury Inn, Drury Plaza Hotels, Drury Suites, Pear Tree Inn by Drury, as well as other hotels in the mid-priced hotel segment.
Drury Plaza Hotel in Santa Fe • 228 East Palace Avenue, Santa Fe, NM 87501 • 800-378-7946
The Drury Plaza Hotel in Santa Fe is a proud sponsor of The Santa Fe Opera, The Lensic Performing Arts Center and Pancakes on the Plaza.
Redefining hospitality in Santa Fe
www.druryplazasantafe.com
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Contact:
Jennifer Marshall
505-231-1776
jennifer@jmarshallplan.com
www.jmarshallplan.com
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