Burrowing Into Fine Dining
Underground Chef Efrain Cuevas takes haute cuisine to new depths
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After his extensive shopping trips, he packs giant grocery bags and boxes into the back of his reddish delivery-sized 1997 Chevy Astro van and drives to his house in Hyde Park. There, he huddles with his sous chef for the night. Cuevas finds assistant chefs through culinary circles, word of mouth, or the Internet. All the prep-work takes place in the kitchen of his house.
The sous chef assists Cuevas as he slices, dices, chops, juliennes, minces, shreds, chiffonades everything for that evening’s meal. He cuts all fish or meat to portion size, mixes ingredients to make sauces, and marinades his meats.
At around 2:00 p.m., Cuevas and his sous chef put all the food into plastic bins and stack them in the delivery van. Then they drive to the venue—typically a space with a kitchen that’s tiny and falling apart.
When Cuevas enters the kitchen he immediately sets up his “mise en place,” or workstation. He sections off counter-space by courses. When there isn’t enough counter-space (and there usually isn’t), he uses boxes, chairs, sheets of plywood, or the tops of washing machines. Sometimes, he confesses, they run into problems.
In February, a grease fire broke out in a tiny kitchen in Wicker Park. Cuevas was broiling fish in plenty of butter, using non-industrial aluminum foil pans. “You’re supposed to use hotel pans for something like that—stainless steel, deep pans. But a foil pan, as soon as it gets a hole, you’re gonna have butter all over the place,” says Cuevas. “So I had two of my pans leaking butter all over the oven, and it caught fire.” He laughs, visibly embarrassed by the incident. “There was smoke everywhere, all through the kitchen.”
“The food was fine, though,” he says defensively. Unfortunately, a camera crew from the local FOX evening news showed up to cover that night’s event and caught the entire mishap on camera. “I didn’t even realize they were right there!” Cuevas exclaims.
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Cuevas entered the culinary arts relatively late in his career. A Chicago native of Mexican descent, he was born and raised in Aurora. He started out at the Community College of Aurora but transferred to the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign after four years. Just like any other college student living on his own, he started cooking out of necessity. He taught himself the basics from cookbooks, calling his mom every now and then for help. After a while, he found ways to add flare to simple dishes. He played around with basic entrees, like chicken fajitas, until they became complex in taste and elegant in appearance. He derived immense pleasure from pairing complementary flavors and experimenting with unfamiliar combinations of ingredients.
Cuevas’s friends gained the most from his newfound skills. He started hosting dinner parties. Friends contributed money, and Cuevas would try out new concoctions, using his guests as guinea pigs.
