The chef arrived in the United States at 17 years old with the dream of buying a motorcycle, but plans changed along the way and now he fuses Mexican, Italian and Greek food.
REDWOOD CITY. – Daniel Sánchez started as a taco maker in Mexico at age 13 and is now a chef who knows and fuses international dishes for his clients in the United States, both in his Mexican food truck and in his catering company.
In 1999, Daniel left his home in Guadalajara, Jalisco, Mexico, with the dream of buying a motorcycle to ride with his friends. However, after 24 years, he is still in the United States, where his home, his family, his career as an international chef, his business and his life are.
Daniel's first encounter with cooking was in Mexico when he was a teenager and worked in a taco shop, where he felt "like he wasn't working" since serving diners brought him joy and relaxation.
"I felt relaxed when I was working and there were a lot of people around, I forgot about certain problems I had and I just relaxed and felt comfortable, I didn't feel like I was working," the Mexican chef recalled his days as a taco maker in Mexico.
That experience gave him the skill to use knives, a situation that benefited him at age 17, when he had been washing dishes for two weeks at a Bay Area restaurant and one of his bosses asked him to cover for a coworker; Daniel completed the task in less than 20 minutes, which surprised the manager, since his coworkers did it in more than an hour and a half.
"Then they told me: 'Hey, you're not a dishwasher, you know how to use knives.' I was enthusiastic, I wasn't waiting for them to tell me what to do, I wanted to learn more," he said.
Within a few weeks of arriving in the United States, the Mexican was already in charge of preparing salads and learning how to make pizzas in his first job. Years passed and he became a cook, and then a chef: the person in charge of the kitchen, the menu, the cooks, and the creativity in the dishes.
The pride of being a Mexican chef
Daniel said that he became so interested in the culinary field that he worked for more than 10 years without stopping, which gave him the experience to professionally cook Italian, Mexican, Greek, Japanese, Mediterranean, American food, among other dishes from around the world.
He also confessed that he worked in around 12 different restaurants in the span of a year with the aim of learning about food and the techniques to prepare the dishes.
By acquiring knowledge empirically, Chef Sánchez said that he became in charge of several kitchens and projects, in addition to starting his own catering business in his spare time.
"I worked so hard that those who had gone to chef school didn't know what I knew," he said.
He added that around 2000, there were not so many Latinos in charge of kitchens, so he felt very proud to be a Mexican chef.
Daniel believes that migrants, especially Latinos, have fewer opportunities to be assigned to high-ranking positions, so he called on the community to prepare and "do better than others."
«Things sometimes seem like they are not so easy, but you have to insist and keep going, you have to prepare yourself as much as you can in the area you are working in and when they open a door for you, force that door. Even if you are tired, keep going and keep going; and even if you feel like you are not going anywhere, you will get there, little by little.»
The chef also admitted that when he travels to Mexico he likes to eat at street stalls "because they create flavor so quickly and I think that's one of the things I've learned, that you don't need a really fancy or big restaurant; if you know how to cook and balance flavors, you can make delicious food and I really like that."
Photos: Daniel Sanchez
The Foodtruck
Beef and vegan tacos, burritos, quesadillas and Greek salad are some of the foods offered Daniel's Kitchen, the food truck where Daniel Sánchez delights his customers in front of the Safeway, located on Woodside Avenue, in Redwood City.
This project came into his life after the pandemic, another food truck and a lot of experience in opening seven restaurants in California, where he checked and studied the market, created the menu and trained the kitchen staff.
After 10 years of working without vacations, Daniel left his stable job as a chef after a comment made by one of his bosses to belittle his work, which is when he decided to use his savings to buy his first food truck and grow his catering service.
«One of the owners told me: your work is
"Anyone here can do that. And that really offended me."
Daniel said he worked hard there, “as if it was his business and his money that he was looking after,” as he argued over prices with suppliers and always looked for the best deals for the restaurant.
The first food truck He was a Greek food chef and worked under the call of companies, but now he decided to combine his culinary knowledge to offer Mexican food and some Greek dishes with some changes, such as cauliflower or portobello tacos.
«Mexican food is a little bit m
more neutral, but what I did was add cauliflower tacos and vegan tacos with portobello, things that were a little different based on what I already worked on in Italian, Mexican and other cuisines.
The Mexican chef varied the flavors to create a fusion, which he described as "not so aggressive, but somewhat balanced and so my food is for people in general, not just Mediterranean or Greek food."
Sanchez confessed that he now has as My goal is to open a restaurant, make a brand, and package dressings and other culinary ingredients.
Photos: Emily Morales P360P
goals change
Daniel's main goal was to save money, return to Mexico and buy a motorcycle to ride with his friends on the streets of Guadalajara, Jalisco, where he is from and where he grew up without the economic opportunity to study.
"My life was nice, it was good, I didn't manage to graduate from primary school, but I've always liked studying. I don't think I had the opportunity because my father died when I was seven years old, I had to work and help the family a little, there wasn't that freedom to be able to study," she confessed.
As a teenager, his routine was to wake up and work from 9:00 to 18:00, with an hour of rest and lunch, go home to shower, and his student life was between 19:00 and 21:00; but this changed when he asked his brothers for money to buy the motorcycle and they answered that he had to earn the money, so Daniel arrived in the United States at the age of 17.
"They told me, 'Hey! Come here for a year, if you want, I'll pay for your trip, you come here, you get your money and you come back. 'The money is easy, really easy, you just come and that's it,' they said, and it wasn't true," the Mexican narrated.
Daniel Sánchez confessed that his first year in this country was depressed, he had the money, but he did not feel "free to feel at ease," and then he started to have friends, met a woman, and his plans changed when he found out he was going to be a father. Now he has two daughters: Daniela, 21, and Sofia, 18, of whom he is proud and to whom he instilled Mexican traditions, such as Day of the Dead. "Now I feel more at home, I feel more relaxed."
Get out of the comfort zone
The chef did not speak English when he arrived in the United States, but he became interested in the language upon his arrival and now communicates efficiently with his friends and acquaintances.
«I took a little notebook in my bag and when I didn't understand or didn't know what it was, I would write it down as it sounds in Spanish, nothing to do with how it's written in English, but when I read it it sounded correct and that's how I learned.»
Daniel also attended Sequoia Adult School, where he spent about 3 years. He also recalled that he would write down the words he wanted to say in a notebook and then read them in front of the manager when he wanted a day off.
"This was a way for me to be enthusiastic and try to learn something. I didn't want to stay in my comfort zone."
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