Celebrating Mexican Coastal Cuisine with Hugo Ortega

Mexico City-born chef Hugo Ortega rang in 2014 with the opening of Caracol, named for the caracoles (Spanish for sea snails) he was enchanted with when he visited Mexico while researching his first book Hugo Ortega’s Street Food of Mexico. The chef’s latest venture is part of a four-restaurant family co-owned with his wife, Tracy Vaught. The new seafood dining experience on Post Oak in Houston’s Galleria neighborhood joins the pair’s trio of long-successful restaurants Backstreet Café, Hugo’s, and Prego.

Just over three decades ago, Vaught traded geology for gastronomy when her map-making position with Conoco made her crave a change in careers. Searching for something more social, she found her calling in the restaurant business and opened the Backstreet Café in 1983 with her uncle as partner.

The following year, without a job or contacts in the U.S., Ortega, the eldest of eight children, immigrated to Houston with a cousin and a friend in search of the American dream. Armed with sheer determination and little knowledge of the language, he managed to find work as a busboy, dishwasher, and office cleaner to make ends meet as he worked at improving his English.

Juggling two jobs, he decided to stay in Houston when his travel companions headed westward to California. Then, fate intervened in 1986: President Ronald Reagan signed the Immigration Reform and Control Act (IRCA) allowing him to apply for permanent residency and unexpected unemployment led Ortega to Backstreet Café, where a mutual friend introduced him to Vaught. Through his combination of positive attitude, diligence, and eagerness to learn every post in the kitchen, Ortega showed his professional potential. Vaught offered to enroll him at Houston Community College in the Culinary Arts program and promoted him to the kitchen at Prego.

As a graduate from culinary school in 1992, he took the helm as chef at Backstreet Café. Then, after working so well side-by-side over the years, the two discovered their recipe for success went beyond the kitchen and married in 1994. Ortega became a U.S. citizen in 1996 and they later had a daughter, Sophia Elizabeth. The two toasted the Backstreet Café’s 30th anniversary by publishing a second cookbook at the end of 2013, Backstreet Kitchen: Seasonal Recipes from Our Neighborhood Café.

With close to a dozen years since opening the upscale Mexican eatery Hugo’s in a restored art-deco era building at 1600 Westheimer in Houston’s Montrose neighborhood he counts two guest chef appearances at the James Beard House in New York City to his credit. Again inspired, the ever-passionate Ortega was prepared to realize the inspiring seafood dishes stateside that he’d encountered in Veracruz and the Yucatán Peninsula while traveling with his wife and brother, pastry chef Ruben Ortega.

Ortega’s culinary tour of the 16 Mexican coastal cities from the Caribbean Sea to the Gulf of Mexico is complemented with regionally-inspired décor right down to the attendants’ apparel: Oaxacan shirts are donned by waiters and bartenders while busboys and food runners wear colorful red sashes and traditional Mexican guayabera – embroidered shirts also known as Mexican wedding shirts. In the dining room, voracious diners get a visual treat as appellation and fresh Gulf oysters get shucked-to-order at the sprawling oyster bar, fired in the custom domed wood-burning oven or served raw at your tableside.

Beyond authentic coastal flavor, sustainability is a focus of the menu at the restaurant, “Caracol is committed to responsible sourcing, we must be good stewards of our waters and the life that comes from it,” Ortega said.

If your travels won’t be taking you to Houston just yet, Ortega offered an impressive seafood appetizer to serve your guests, no matter where in the world that may be.

Petalos de Huachinango (Petals of Red Snapper)

• 4 ounces red snapper, thinly sliced
• 1 English cucumber, cut into ribbons
• 4 cilantro leaves plus more for garnish
• 2 ounces tangerine juice
• 2 ounces lime juice
• 1 tablespoon tangerine marmalade
• 1 teaspoon extra virgin olive oil
• 3 tangerine or orange Segments
• 1 tablespoon Salsa bruja veg (micro jalapeño, micro red onion, micro white onion, cilantro, ambray onions)
• sea salt to taste

Get the full recipe.