With over 20 years of experience, Chef Jaime Hernandez's love of food began in El Paso, Texas, in his mother's Sunday barbacoa de cabeza and his grandmother's slow-simmered mole. Those early flavors, paired with a childhood spent around street food, shaped the chef.

Jaime's path has taken him from demanding professional kitchens to running his own food truck during the pandemic, where he built a following one plate at a time. That journey led him to the Taco Rumble competition, where in July 2021 he took the belt, beating out chefs from Houston, Dallas, Austin, and San Antonio. His food truck also earned three mentions in Texas Monthly along the way.

His philosophy is simple: good food is, more often than not, simple food. At Zenita, that simplicity fuels something bold: a fearless fusion of Mexican and Asian flavors, where great cooking isn't about following a script — it's about writing a new one.

Now cooking inside the newly reimagined Aztec Hotel, in a building celebrating its 100th year, Jaime is helping write the next chapter of a San Antonio landmark, one plate at a time.