- Welcome to Atlanta, where the city's diversity is celebrated through its unique culinary landscape.

Today, our talented SCAD student, along with host Akila McConnell journey through a Spanish Caribbean, Latin American Fusion at Hector Santiago's restaurant La Metro diving into Latin American culture.

The students will take a trip to La Vaquita Market before joining Chef Hector to use a variety of ingredients for this integrated meal from the first bite to the last.

We're discovering the soul, the city one dish at a time.

This is chefATL.

- Wow.

It's nice to be outside.

- I know.

It's such a beautiful day.

- I really like the buildings, the architecture's really nice.

Hey, - How are you?

It's so good to meet.

Meet to you.

It's so nice to meet you.

So nice to meet you all.

Yeah, so nice to meet you all.

So excited to show you one of my favorite locations in the city, Ponce City Market.

So why don't we start heading in and I'll tell you a little bit about its history.

- I heard that like they have a lot of restaurant here.

- I've heard that too.

And I've been here before, so I'm excited.

But this actually was the old Sears Factory loft.

It's been converted into a really cool space and today I'm so excited.

I hope you all are excited too.

Yeah, - I'm so excited.

I've heard so many things about a super fun.

- Yes.

- So I've heard the food's great.

So I'm excited to get an early bite of LA Metro.

I think it's gonna be amazing.

Me too.

And Chef Hector Santiago.

- He's incredible.

- Our restaurant, we try to bring that experience of Latin America, sense of home.

Again, you know, you feel at home when you get in.

This, to me, the hospitality that we want to bring in to our restaurant, that's, it's not just service.

It's a part of hospitality.

- Oh, there, chef Hector.

Oh, - How are you?

Nice to see you.

How are you?

Nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you.

Nice to meet you.

Hector.

I see you guys came from a super pan side.

- Yes.

- We've been there now for 10 years at the market.

These are 10 year anniversary and we opening La Metro.

- Yeah, let's - Dig in.

- We want to try this.

- Please.

You know, we got a tostones, it depends where you are.

So we really love them with garlic.

- Yeah.

- That, you know, is one of those things that are going with tostones and that's just a garlic oil with fried garlic and literally just salt and olive oil.

And then this is an actual mofongo, right?

- Oh wow.

- So the mofongo, we take the plantain and we match it with garlic and a little bit of cilantro.

In my case, you know, we actually make it with tostones.

- Love it.

- We use, this gives us the crunch, it gives us the flavor of plantain.

And then we can have a vegetarian version like you're seeing right here.

And this version, we have tofu that had been smoked and then treated it with a little bit of tempura flour, deep fried to imitate the flavor of fried pork.

- Oh.

So - It It's a tofu chicharon - Love.

Love it.

Love that.

That's so clever.

Very, yeah.

- So clever.

And then we, we serve it with a tomato and coconut sauce.

- Yeah.

- A little bit of spicy round bread, tomato.

Really a flavor that reminds me of Puerto Rico.

- I feel like it's such a good combination with the plantain because it's like really soft, but we get the crunch.

- Oh, you put it on top.

Yeah.

And she's making her own dish.

- I'm so curious about, we are talking about mofongo, but I have read somewhere about a special sauce called sofrito.

- Yes.

So sofrito is a mixture of onion, pepper, and garlic.

Right.

And then tomato and the original one really being garlic and onion and sometimes a little something else.

But the original one, before they discovered America that they didn't have tomatoes or chiles.

And as it came in, in Latin America, it became onion, pepper, garlic that travel to Spain.

In Spain.

Nowadays sofrito will have onion, pepper, garlic, you know, and then from there you add tomato, tomatoes, sofrito.

You see it in Spain and Latin America.

- This is something that we tend not to think about, which is that tomatoes are indigenous, peppers are indigenous to Latin America.

You know, it was the Incans who really invented, you know, they cultivated these, they were master agriculturists.

And so to me, when I eat these foods, even with a vegetarian mofongo or any of the pinchos, you are really getting a taste of centuries of history.

You know, I mean, even with a vegetarian mofongo or any of the pinchos, this is centuries of history that you're tasting in one bite and it's delicious.

- You said with the original melting pot in a sense.

Right.

- So why did you start making Spanish food now?

- Hmm.

Because it tastes so good reality.

You know, I used to have a tapas restaurant and in there we cooked Latin American food for 12 years in a tapas format.

And you could see both the influence of Spain and the influence of all indigenous people and, and our culture coming back, you know, I'm getting a little older and we wanted to have a space that felt like you were in Madrid, you know, with that energy of the big city.

A place where everything com converged from Valencia Paella to pinchos from vast regions.

- I've seen these type of pinchos before and back at home, I usually do have this type, but I had never seen such a big variety.

Like I didn't know you could have so many different versions of pincho.

- You have two different versions.

The Gilda that are the original Pincho, this Gilda, usually we have something with a flavor of umami, something little spicy and something a little sour.

The original over here, it has anchovies, chilies and green olives.

Spain is a country where people like to socialize a lot, you know, so the leave work, they go for pinches to the vast region.

Especially you're gonna see, you know, a bar that is completely full.

You know, 20 different versions of it.

You know, literally now that's the pincho culture.

Now in Latin America, it has become more of a kebab.

This we do at a restaurant, at the battery pinchos with hanger steak.

You know, so deep flavor of of that.

We love that deep flavor of meat.

Like you're gonna see a lot of churrasco and that this in Spanish will be entraña.

It's the type of churrasco.

- And this is true Latin American cuisine because it's, there are no plantains in Spain, you know?

You know, speaking of that, - We've had, like you said, African culture, Latin American culture, Spanish culture, - The Hispanic.

- How do you manage to always bring so much cultural diversity to your restaurants?

- The whole idea, you know, study it and leave it.

You know, I really like to go to Latin America and I always say there's 27 countries.

I only been to 15 so far.

So I still have a lot of work to do.

But we wanna bring that flavor.

I want to taste the food over there.

So when I bring it in has a authentic flavor, we are gonna do a paella as well Oh, and we're gonna do it again.

We taste it today, Spain and Latin America.

And now we're going to like Spain, Valencia, old school with a little edition, no matter what of tomato, you're gonna find dishes in here that have a more influence from the south of Spain.

So that's what we wanted to bring to.

- And that's La Metro, just a mix of all the cultures and all the culture - Of Latino, of Spain.

You know, we're trying to really adapt the mentality that they have in Spain of food that is from the area.

You're gonna see a little bit of something southern, because we're in the south.

I've been in the south now for 30 years.

So - Yeah.

- So my blood already, and I love the food of the South.

- Mm.

That hyper locality is exactly, so it's so important in Spanish - Cuisine.

No, totally.

- And how - Do you recreate that here?

Like how do you get ingredients that will allow you to recreate something like what they do in - Spain?

You know, every, even a big city, you have different markets and that's where people are going to, that's what they grabbing.

And what you grab in there is what's in the area for the most part.

But I do search a lot.

The, the, you know, I go up before highway, I go up to Laquita up.

- Is that mean the little cow?

- Yeah, they call it the little cow because there is a big billboard that has a cow on it.

Right?

So it's penland, I guess it was the name back in the day.

And it had been come into a center of Latin American foods nowadays.

Yeah.

So you go up there and Latino American culture is, I mean, you don't think, I mean, Georgia, where am I?

You know, - This la vaquita has everything Can we go there?

Like, I wanna see it.

I wanna see, - I seen you guys who take a field trip.

- Yes.

Yeah.

Yes.

It could be nice.

And also I want to see plantain as well.

I've never seen it before.

I'll show you.

Oh, really?

I'll show you.

Yeah.

- I will say that 20 years ago we didn't have as much of an influx of that product.

And now we, we do through the farmer's markets, through the specialty markets.

Eventually more people moved in here.

Farmer's markets started carrying more stuff.

Now I can find man things before I had to search.

Nowadays I can find almost anything.

You know, sourcing was the thing is that I would go once or twice a week and just go up to befor highway, stopping every shop time to find the products, you know?

- Yeah.

- Trying to find our, let's say we call it a, that's the flavor of Puerto Rico, you know, right there.

When I smell that, I'm like, whoa, I'm home.

You know?

- So, so let's, so this is excellent segue.

So you left Puerto Rico, and what year did you leave and why did you leave?

- Know?

I, I finished college.

I was going for business degree.

Really?

I was studying managing accounting.

And, and, and throughout that I worked in restaurants.

So I applied for culinary institute and Culinary Institute accept me.

And that was, you know, like the best and like, okay, - I'm - Going there.

- Right.

- And so that's, I came to study.

I never left.

Really?

I didn't come to stay.

Yeah.

I came to study and I wanted to go back to Puerto Rico.

And when I graduated, a friend of mine, my best friend called me.

I said, Hey, I'm moving to New York.

And I'm like, alright, let's move to New York.

- Well, I mean, you moved to New York, and now when you're in New York, at what point did you start to connect with your Latin American heritage?

- I, I grew up in Puerto Rico and in like Spanish.

Right.

But because we're part of America or United States, right.

We also American - You are American.

Absolutely.

- Like we look at telenovelas and stuff like that, that are from Mexico and Argentina and all that.

We had that culture on us.

But when we travel, we usually travel here.

Yeah.

Right.

So the only place I've been before then when I moved here was Dominican Republic and Venezuela.

Besides, I never really had that connection.

Very, you know, one-to-one with Latin American cultures and other cultures.

So when I got here at a school, I had friends from Panama, Colombia, Dominican friends.

I was about the only Puerto Rican at the time in school.

So I started meeting all these different Latin American cultures, and we started cooking together - Too.

- You know, he cooks his Colombian food.

I cooked my Puerto Rican food, - Right.

- And really started falling in, in, in love with Latino America, even though I was in New York City, you - Know?

Mm.

- And you know, New York being so multicultural, - Right.

And there - In a sense, I felt at home.

- So how do you learn to cook foods other than what you grew up with - Right.

- In Puerto Rico?

And create that sense of authenticity, - You know, research, research, research, you know, experiencing as much as possible.

Back in New York, I used to go a lot to Chinatown and watch, watch, watch.

You know, when I, my first trip to Peru, I really wanted to see how they made ceviche over there.

So when I go to my, my friends send me out to, to, to eat, I'll be in the kitchen watching, watching, watching, you know.

And at the same time I be in the market watching, you know, an old lady or an old person in there that done it forever.

So I try to go different levels, you know, from like the street to like a restaurant, to like a chef restaurant, you know, to see how everybody treated that product and learn from that, you know, and try it and research.

I mean, I usually do a lot of research before I leave to the country, and then I go and try to hit those places, you know?

- Yeah.

And, and it, it makes a huge difference, right?

So hold that thought.

Let's do some rapid fire.

You ready?

- All right, let's see.

- Ready?

Okay.

See - Blue - All.

No, that wasn't a question.

That wasn't a question at all.

Okay.

Tostones or amarillos - Tostones.

- Sweet or salty?

- Salty - Peruvian or Mexican food?

I know I just asked you, which is your favorite child?

That's a terrible question for me to ask.

- Both.

They're so big of a cuisine, both of them.

There's so much to it.

- Venezuelan arepas or Colombian arepas.

- Woo.

You know, I will say that I can, I never been to Colombia, you know, in a restaurant here.

- Yeah.

- I prefer Venezuela.

- Okay.

Street food or fine dining.

- I think both of you know, my mood in a sense.

Every day it's street food.

But you know, having a meal and a great restaurant with the chef taking everything in consideration, the staff, the place, it's just, to me, it's, it's a whole thing of fine dining.

What it is, the experience.

It's not just the food, it's experience.

You know?

- How do you build community in your work and in your life?

- You know, for us always started in the kitchen, you know, it's like most of my cooks are Latinos, you know?

And the fact that we can cook similarly, so it's easier to teach 'em and to get the authentic flavor that I want, But also because I want to give them the best opportunity.

You know?

It's like, it's not easy to get good opportunities, right?

It's not easy to grow in our business.

Always been very hard.

So it's, I have taken people that have hired us, dishwasher, like I started and teach 'em, teach 'em, teach 'em.

They have become sous chef, you know?

And now they have a better life.

And when I came here, I really found this huge community of other Latin American people that have similar experience, but different.

So that, that to me, that common experience of literally being colonized with the same people in a sense, right?

- Yeah.

- You know, it's like when I come to, to the states and you meet somebody from Colombia, Venezuela, Panama, I will feel like we're brothers.

You know?

I really started feeling like a sense of this bigger community.

When I see my dad, 50% is Latino, I'm like, you know, and I'm proud of that.

You know, that's, we want to cook for them.

You know?

That's, especially now that there's such a big community of all over Latin America in, in, in here.

I, I want people to come and feel at home, you know?

So that, that sense of home you feel at home when you get in this, to me, the hospitality that we want to bring in to our restaurant, I always say to my staff, you say if Latino American people come in and feel at home, and the rest of the people come in and feel like vacation, we're good.

- That's, - That's, - That's the of here we're trying to create, right?

- So yesterday we went and had that amazing paella wasnt that so good.

Oh, oh yeah.

So good.

Amazing.

So delicious.

And now you're gonna make paella for us today, right?

Chef Hector.

- Today we're actually taking this to a more, what I call almost like a paella it has everything on it.

And they're gonna get some olive oil to start heating up and people you don't mind, I'm gonna get you to dice up a chorizo, okay?

Chorizo made out of pork, pork fat, obviously garlic and a spice very similar to our adobo.

Basically like a rub.

And what we do with that is that we take the flavors of one country and put it all together in one seasoning.

So we got Puerto Rican adobo, Cuban adobo, the Spanish adobo.

I have my adobo.

- Do you make your own adobo?

- Yes.

- So this is, yes.

Is this your adobo that's from El super pond or from LA - Metro?

From both.

I like to use chicken wings that I blanch ahead on the oven.

That way it just cooks faster.

That's one of the things that I'm doing.

This is a one pot dish.

You know the whole thing.

You don't need multiple pots.

I mean, I gonna use this just because I have it in here.

And for the magic of tv.

And we're gonna put that in here.

This a broth, you can just buy.

So this a mixture of chicken stock with shrimp shells and clam juice.

So the flavors in there that we want, what we're gonna do next is that we're gonna add our rice.

So Maria, you or Yeah, go ahead.

- Just throw - It in there.

Just throw it in there.

- All right.

- Put it around.

Yes.

Just like that.

This is a step that is not necessarily always used in Spain.

Okay.

In Spain, a lot of times they will add the broth first and the rice later.

But in Latin America we like to toast our, our rice.

So again, because this is a little different, you know, this is almost like what we would call arroz con marisco, but it has a lot other stuff.

We want to see how the rice start turning a little kind of white like that.

We start picking up really arromatic flavor.

So, so now that it's toasting, we're gonna add our spice mixes.

And the first is that I like to add my Spanish.

You see this?

We want to toast very lightly because we don't want to burn the spices.

We just want them to see how it's coloring the rice and not just coloring.

It's important.

All the great flavor.

And then - We're gonna put a little bit of the there that's like $5 of saffron.

And you think I'm joking, I'm not.

- We're gonna do their clams.

I mean the muscles, if I had clams, I'll add them now too.

And you know, we actually gonna cook them, overcook them on purpose.

So we're gonna do it here.

Now you see how I put the saffron here before, right?

So now we're gonna add a little bit of the hot.

Yeah, - My mom did the same thing.

- Yeah.

- 'cause she wants every drops of the sauce and ingredients inside a pot.

- See how it turns.

Actually again, I like, I like saffron.

I'm gonna add a little bit more.

So you want to put it in here so it loses it, it turns its color.

You can also, some people will take it and blend it.

You get more color out of it.

- And that's where they used to call it colorante, right?

- Yeah.

- It gives color.

- Exactly.

Now one thing I gotta count on is that the shrimp gonna put out liquid.

So I added some liquid before, but not maybe a smudge because green's gonna put, they're gonna put out liquid.

Now I'm gonna finish it with the green.

I use this what call or green beans.

It's more popular in Latin America than over there.

They would use something like a lima beam and then picky peppers.

These are peppers from Spain.

And these also get slightly smoked.

They get charred and then they get peeled at the end.

I'm gonna put a half this by touch.

A little bit of lime oil, lime and garlic just to give it the Caribbean, you know, see through see kinda action at the end.

So, but just basically don't, we're gonna test it.

Okay.

Easiest way to say check the charra is to like scrape it out a little bit and if it holds, it means that we got a cross, right?

Mm.

See the cross in there?

That's what we're looking for.

Yeah.

In the bottom.

Okay.

All right guys.

So everybody got their own paella now.

I'm gonna finish it with some aioli or that garlic mayonaise in a sense Okay.

You like to put a little bit of dot, make it pretty, you know, we also eat with our eyes A little bit oily.

You guys can do your - Own.

- This is gonna give you a garlicy creamy.

- So this - Where - The artistic size comes out.

There you go.

Do you have any memories of your first time cooking?

- Yes, definitely.

I would say that my first, first time cooking was when I used to go back from school and I would bring my sister and my brother and you know, the three of us were starving and like, what's in the pantry?

Let's do something.

And then my, all my neighborhood friends would come over all 20 strong.

And I remember making pizza for first time.

I did it with a, a biscuit flour and I didn't tell anybody I cooked it with it.

So - It's proteins.

So do you mix this after you - Boom eat like that right in?

Yeah.

Okay.

- That's so good.

- Salud.

- I love the pepper in here.

That's, it's so like adding that little bit of like pungency, it's so tasty.

- The rice, like rich and flavorful.

Like all the ingredients like in the rice right now.

Yeah.

And also I really love the crust really crunchy - And at the same time it's also very creamy.

So I feel like the paellas that I've had before are a little bit drier with the grain.

You can feel the texture of the grain.

This one almost melts in your mouth where it becomes a blend of all the flavors altogether.

So that's amazing.

- I think it's interesting that you mentioned like comfort food and how even if you're not used to certain foods, it can still give you that comfort.

- Yeah, - This is my first time trying it, but growing up in the south it gives me that feeling of the shrimp and grits.

- Yeah, - Just the softness, but also - Helping you rise or something like That's so good.

Right - Chef?

This is absolutely incredible.

And you know, seeing LA Metro and seeing this evolution of this incredible restaurant and your evolution in Atlanta, you've done so much already to bring Latin American cuisine to the city.

So are you done?

Is there more?

What is the future?

- Me?

Its about - People for chef.

- If we have the right people, we keep on going.

- Right?

And on that same note, as a cheers to the future and as a thank you to you for showing us how to make this amazing dish, actually have a little bit of something for you.

Yes.

Too much.

Thank you very much.

Thank you so much.

- Thank you.

So to use this, I know you put like something like that, right?

This is what we call.

- Yeah.

- Thank you guys very much.

You're welcome.

Thank you for inviting me.

I had a great time.

You guys are great students and thank you for having me here.

- Thank you.

- Next time you guys cook for me.