“Coming back to the hotel world has been very refreshing, especially because Emma is run by people who are really in love with the craft of what we do,” said Lopez, 50. Credit: Jaime Monzon

When Geronimo Lopez hired on in September as executive chef at the Pearl’s Hotel Emma, the move represented a homecoming of sorts.

While many San Antonio foodies came to know the chef through his Asian-Peruvian fusion restaurant Botika, which closed this summer, he spent decades cooking at hotels and resorts worldwide with stops in Mexico, Hawaii and Croatia, among other places.

Lopez, who originally hails from Caracas, Venezuela, will oversee Emma’s Supper restaurant, Sternewirth bar and Larder coffee shop along with the hotel’s banquets. He comes on board as Emma basks in the distinction of being one of just three Texas hotels to win Michelin’s coveted Two Key rating.

During a recent conversation, Lopez reflected on the changes he’s ushering in at Emma, his efforts to promote nutritious food and the continuing influence of San Antonio’s Culinary Institute of America campus, a place where he once taught. We also discussed his training as a boxer and what he wants to leave behind as a legacy.

How does your training as a boxer reflect your mindset in the kitchen and your approach to the culinary profession?

Well, first of all, on a personal level, it keeps me sane — the sweating, the fact that boxing is such a mental game, that you have to be very accurate on what you’re doing. And it keeps me very calm. It gives me purpose in the day when I’m doing something. Boxing, it’s a way of life. You understand that in this world you have to make your calculations, and sometimes you’re going to get punished by making certain decisions [while] sometimes you’re going to reap rewards by taking risks. So, there’s that part. I think a lot of people think chefs are supposed to be these cranky people that yell, and that’s not the way things work anymore. I’m definitely not that type of chef. So, boxing helps me keep sane and do my plans ahead.

Botika very much reflected your upbringing in Caracas, which has a multicultural food scene. You were instrumental in introducing a fusion of Latin American and Asian flavors to many San Antonio diners.

Thank you.

Can you talk a little bit about how that side of your cooking and your culinary life will be reflected in your new job at Emma?

So, look, my first job … was in a French restaurant that at the time was called Le Gazebo. And it was run by a French chef — a very traditional French chef — who was classically trained. So, even though I was in Caracas, my first love and my first influences in the culinary world were just classic French training. But, obviously, because the chef was in Venezuela, he was also doing some fusions where he started using a lot of our ingredients with French technique, and he developed some fantastic dishes that had mango and different types of bananas or other local flavors. Venezuela was well known for chocolate, rum, vanilla, coffee, so he started incorporating all those flavors into his cooking. And that really influences me a lot.

And, now, when I was presented with the challenge of coming to Emma and doing Emma as a culinary destination, I think about it in the same way, where I want to present a cuisine that is very classical and well accomplished in terms of technique and product, but also, for sure, there’s going to be bits and ideas that you’re going to see that are going to reflect what is my upbringing and what is my experiences. Not only from Venezuela but also from Mexico, my time in Mexico, and even my time in the islands.

What’s the biggest challenge as you jump from having singular focus on one restaurant, Botika, to Emma, where you have multiple food concepts under one roof?

On the contrary of what people may think, it has been refreshing. If you look at my history, I was a hotel chef for the longest time, and Botika and the [Culinary Institute of America] were kind of like a changing of direction that I did, and that I’m very proud of. But the reality is that I’m very used to hotels. So coming back to the hotel world has been very refreshing, especially because Emma is run by people who are really in love with the craft of what we do. And I’ve been so well received and so well supported so far that I find myself thinking 100% all the time, during the day, about food and about how I’m going to do different things.

And when you are a restaurant owner, as I was, sometimes the reality of the restaurant owner is everything but cooking. So, I had to deal with a lot of the stuff that the restaurant needed, and I did that because it was my place. But I must say that I like being back in a position where I have a team that supports me, and then I can really focus on cooking.

Supper at Hotel Emma is one of several concepts Lopez now oversees. Credit: Courtesy Photo / Hotel Emma

Do you want to change the way people view the kind of food experience they can have in a hotel?

Absolutely. I think it is not only me, I think there’s a whole — I don’t want to call it a trend — but there’s a whole realization in hotels, especially luxury hotels, that we need to do food that is better and more approachable for the general public than what hotel food is generally known for. Because we want … people to think of Supper at Emma like a standalone restaurant that lives in a hotel. I don’t know if I explain myself well, but what I want to say is that we want people to think of Supper as their restaurant that lives in Emma, not as their hotel restaurant.

So, if somebody’s a resident or somebody’s visiting San Antonio, but they didn’t stay in Hotel Emma, you would still like Supper to be a destination for them?

Absolutely. For sure. It makes me really happy, actually, when we are there, say on a weekend, and people come in just for brunch or just for dinner or having drinks. Because that’s the purpose of Emma: to be that hub, a place where the community can gather and have a great time without necessarily having to stay there.

Can you point to changes you have undertaken to make Supper that kind of destination?

Absolutely. So, right now our goal is to narrow down or [put] more focus on the identity of Supper and Emma. And we are going to be focusing a lot more on seasonality in our region, the good array of product and the craftsmanship that we see in and around San Antonio, from Iberico pork to fantastic beef programs to all the produce that comes from the Rio Grande. So, what I want to do is really have Supper reflect the place and the culture that we have in San Antonio.

You traveled a lot as a chef, worked in a number of locations. Could you talk about how that experience moving from place to place continues to influence your views on food?

There’s two things that I always say are very inspiring to me. One is conversations and eating at other chefs’ restaurants. I love doing that — picking the mind of other chefs is always very inspiring. But the other is traveling and getting to know different cultures, different ingredients, different ways to approach an ingredient that we might not be familiar with. And when you travel to places like Mexico, which is so rich culturally, and any [individual location] within Mexico, every time you travel, you’re going to discover something different. It’s the same with Asia. There’s going to be all kinds of different flavor profiles that you’re going to experience depending on where you go. I treasure the opportunity to travel anytime I can.

What’s the thing you’d like to be remembered for about how you changed how people in San Antonio think about food?

I would love San Antonians to understand that the small businesses are the fabric of a culture, and that we as a community need to support the people that are doing the hard work of trying to survive in a mom-and-pop situation. I have nothing against the big chains of restaurants. I do have, let’s just say, apprehension towards fast food. But my apprehension is not about flavor. My apprehension is about nutrition. I would love San Antonians to have a hunger to understand where the food comes from and the effort that it takes for a small restaurant to survive in any city, much more in a city that is plagued with so many chains of fast food and empty-calorie food.

So, my goal and the work that we are doing in several organizations here in San Antonio is for the kids, especially the youth, to understand more about food, about where it comes from, about trying to learn the basics of cuisine. If it was up to me, I would make every single high school in San Antonio teach basic culinary skills so that people can make a simple rice, an omelet, make some fries, make some steak and discover the joy of cooking at home. It’s better flavor, and it’s cheaper.

You mentioned that you’re involved in organizations that are trying to raise awareness about nutrition and eating. Could you mention some of those?

Yeah. The biggest one would be the San Antonio Food Bank, of which I am, with other chefs, part of the culinary committee. And our goal is to not only help raise money for the amazing labor that the food bank does here in South Texas, but also … to communicate with the people that are out there the possibilities that they have. We understand that San Antonio has many food deserts. We want to bring fresh produce to these people. We want to bring recipes. We want to bring the opportunity to taste different types of meat, like a game or venison, or teach them how to cook so that they are not limited to opening a can or heating something in a microwave.

For us, the goal is … to educate the teens, educate the adults and the people in general that there is another way of feeding yourself. It doesn’t have to be frozen food, doesn’t have to be pre-packaged or canned food. You can cook for yourself. And it’s a fantastic therapy, it’s very anti-stress when you’re cooking at home and for your family. So, we want people to understand that cooking is, in many ways, especially for me as a Latino, cooking is the center of the house. The kitchen is where everything happens. So, I am very supportive of that idea.

Chef Dossier: Geronimo Lopez

Age: 50

Family: Married with two kids, 13 and 7

Years in the industry: 33

First job in the business: “I was a steward — washing dishes, cleaning, helping peel potatoes. Anything that the chef needed.”

Most influential book: The Culinary Guide by Auguste Escoffier. “Back in the day, it was the Bible from which all cooks were to learn the basics.”

Hobbies: Boxing and training others in the sport

Food he can’t do without: Chocolate. “I come from Venezuela, so I need to have chocolate in any shape or form at least once a day. It’s something that I grew up with, and in my house it was a staple food. So, whether it is breakfast, lunch, dinner, it’s not a snack for us. Chocolate is life, it’s food, it’s sustaining.”

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This article appears in Dec 11-17, 2024.

Sanford Nowlin is editor-in-chief of the San Antonio Current. He holds degrees from Trinity University and the University of Texas at San Antonio, and his work has been featured in Salon, Alternet, Creative...