1. BIOGRAPHY
“Geno Bahena”, Born in 1965
Since his family specialized in dairy and beef production, he had the unique opportunity to see the hard
work and dedication be transformed into high quality foodstuffs. His family was justifiably proud of their
work and their meat and dairy products demanded premium prices.
Young Geno did the usual chores of a rancher’s son, and by age 12 had also been drawn to the kitchen.
He was so adept at helping his mother and grandmother prepare meals that soon hungry field hands came
to expect young Geno’s special touch. In high school he decided to study cuisine and dreamed of being a
chef.
Geno came to Chicago and enrolled at St. Augustine College. He still writes part of the text used by
students of the Professional Cooking program and counsels young, aspiring cooks.
After graduation in 1986, Geno came to the attention of Rick Bayless of the nationally acclaimed Frontera
Grill. His rise was nothing short of meteoric, as he rose from line cook to Sous-chef in little more than a
year. In 1989, he became managing Chef, second only to owner Bayless, winner of the coveted James
Beard Foundation “Chef of the Year” award.
Chef Bahena is passionate about the food of his native Mexico. He is a master juggler, preserving old
customs, yet staying on the cutting edge. In the kitchen he is adventurous and innovative, preparing
extraordinary food that departs from the Tex-Mex mainstream. He creates hearty,emphatically seasoned
dishes with well-balanced flavors.

2. In a feature article about him in the September 13th Chicago Sun Times, Oliva Wu said, “Bahena is a fast
making the little known cuisine of Guerrero his specialty, reinterpreting it with Bayless for Topolobampo
and in his own catering service”.
As a consultant, Chef Bahena was instrumental in developing the recipes for the Taco Bell Border Lights
campaign.
Indefatigable, Geno teaches,has catering service and quite remarkably has never missed a day of work, at
Frontera or his Own Restaurants Ixcapuzalco, Chilpancingo.
Geno’s interest in language and culture, matching food within classical music, led him through a career in
catering and teaching cooking classes--mostly centered on the foods of Mexico--paid for school and
gained him a reputation and satisfaction that surpassed what academics offered.
In 1987, the Rick Bayless family opened the colorful, vivacious Frontera Grill in Chicago and Geno
started in an entry level position for about 8 months, after which he was promoted to sous chef. After
working for three years as a sous chef,Geno became a managing chef at both restaurants,specializing in
contemporary regional Mexican cooking. In 1989 came the earthy, elegant Topolobampo, one of the
country’s only fine-dining Mexican restaurants. Both have been widely acclaimed, receiving awards and
distinctions from, among others, Conde Nast Traveler, Holiday Travel, International Herald Tribune,
Wine Spectator, Restaurants & Institutions (Ivy), Chicago, Zagat, local newspapers and trade journals.
Geno had a program on channel 50 called “Up and Running”, a 26-part television series; Teaching young
children ages 8 to 12 how to choose a better meal “Cooking Mexican” during which Geno dedicate
himself even more seriously to culinary research in Mexico. Over the last 13 years,and working with
Rick Bayless at Frontera grill Topolobampo restaurants for 12 1/2 years in Chicago, he traveled through
every state in Mexico, learning regional specialties made by local restaurants,market vendors and street
stall cooks.
Rick was chosen “Best New Chef of 1988” by Food and Wine magazine with Geno as his managing
Chef; in 1991 the James Beard Foundation voted him “Best American Chef Midwest”; in 1993, Chefs in
America proclaimed him Chicago’s best chef; and in 1995 he won the Farberware Millenium “Chef of the
Year” award given by the James Beard Foundation.
In addition to his role as managing and executive chef, Geno writes part of the test for young spring
students for St. Augustine College, has catering service, teaches cooking classes,his currently writing a
cook book, due out in the fall of 2013 from Scribers. He is a founding member and program chair for
Chefs Collaborative 2000 (an educational initiative of Old-ways Preservation and Exchange Trust,
working in areas of sustainable agriculture and traditional cooking), and a Padrino at the Mexican Fine
Arts Center Museum in Chicago. He is active in environmental issues, including the support of local
organic/sustainable farms, and in fund raising for many organizations, especially Share Our Strength, the
country’s largest hunger advocacy group.
Geno does an abundance of restaurant consulting, he teaches authentic Mexican cooking throughout the
United States,and he leads cooking at Ixcapuzalco and Chilpancingo, his classes and tours, and his
activities in environmental/social issues (even his passion for collecting Mexican folk and fine art) have

3. been documented in most major newspapers,periodicals and trade journals. All said, Geno, your
paintings, your staff and food are wonderful.
BACKGROUND
Geno’s First Restaurant Overview
Generoso Bahena offers a taste of his passion for Mexico in Chicago at the dressier Ixcapuzalco and the
casualTepatulco restaurant. Ixcapuzalco (100 seats,and a separate private party room), features a
biweekly changing menu is warm and comfortable, and offers a changing menu of Mexican celebratory
dishes, game and little known regional specialties, grilled dishes, moles and learned over the last 23 years
from cooks in all the States and corners of Mexico. Tepatulco restaurant,adjacent to the dining room
vibrant and boisterous, the tonier sibling party room (220 seats),Both dining rooms bring alive the
vitality of Mexico--earthy, colorful and replete with museum-quality Mexican folk and fine art, by
internationally known (muralist, sculptor, and painter Oscar Romero, Antone Jacobs and Executive Chef
Geno Bahena). Both feature beautiful ingredients served lovingly and simply with the strong flavor of
tradition.
Ixcapuzalco and Chilpancingo were restaurants of family tradition as well. The families of the 35 staff are
woven into the everyday fabric of the restaurants’ life, as are the guests, purveyors and friends, who join
in at the baptisms and birthdays who sometimes get to tag along on the yearly staff culinary sojourns to
Mexico.
The restaurants put into practice their social and environmental commitments, organizing and
participating in fund-raisers for hunger relief organizations (primarily Share Our Strength and Meals on
Wheels), Chefs Collaborative 2000, Cabrini Greens (a local inner-city organic gardening project) and the
Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum. Dishes are crafted in good part from local ingredients raised using
sustainable practices. As well as wine-and-food-pairing evenings, each year brings a new festival
featuring regional cooks from Mexico and cooking classes to share his passion and creativity of
traditional flavors, cooking techniques with chiles, historical menus, even authentic dishes that echo
modem nutritional directives.
Restaurant History, Awards and Distinctions
Ixcapuzalco and Chilpancingo have led the way in a national awakening to the breadth and refinement of
authentic Mexican cooking. In April of 1999, almost coinciding with the publication of his book A Taste
of Elegance from the Heart of Mexico coming out at the beginning of year2012, opened his small, casual
storefront eatery. Responding to the acclaim and enormous popularity of Ixcapuzalco, in February of
2000, Bahena opened Tepatulco in Lincoln park storefront, to offer diners. The full range of regional
celebratory dishes little known out side their home lands. Through their dedication to contemporary
authenticity, yearly regional festivals and on-going cooking classes,Ixcapuzalco and Chilpancingo, naw
Tepatulco remain the most recognized influence on Mexican cooking in the United States and throughout
the world.
In addition to uniform acclaim from local and national press, Ixcapuzalco and Chilpancingo received the
invitation to celebrate the coveted passport anniversary of saveur magazine in New York City. 1999 two
months after he open Pat Bruno, writing for the Sun times, selected Ixcapuzalco as the best casual-elegant

4. restaurant 2 ½ stars. The Chicago Tribune as a Mexican Culinary joy ride. Thursday, October 28,1999 the
New York Times call Ixcapuzalco Mexican Flamboyant, by Dennis Ray Wheaton, Good Eating
Magazine one of the top new restaurants in the America, and is the first ethnic restaurant to receive 2¼
stars (out of 3) from Chicago magazine. The restaurants’ small wine list has received the Award of
Excellence
Media Comments
Dennis Ray Wheaton in the New York Times called Ixcapuzalco “the most elegant and serious Mexican
restaurant in the country,” liking the “bright, clean-tasting dishes filled with the earthy flavors of
Mexico.” Japan the Hoteres: “Rarely have I seen a Chef who can create such harmony of flavors and
textures... Bahena’s genius is that he doesn’t paralyze your palate or use spice or pepper as camouflage
for realflavor.” Lauren Malloy in conscious dining magazine was taken with the “great handmade
tortillas.” Chicago magazine said, 25 best restaurants in Chicago “the Bahena’s passion for the cuisine is
evident in their attention to detail,” they embrace “a philosophy emphasizing quality, authenticity, and a
cooking style that radiates spunky, complicated, intense flavors.” Bon Appetite characterizes Chef
Bahena by saying that he “approaches everything about Mexican cuisine--from tomatoes on--with a
scholar’s mind set and a missionary’s zeal.”
Molly O’Neil, in her feature for the New York Times magazine, proclaims: “there’s nothing even
remotely similar to the Ixcapuzalco and Chilpancingo anywhere else in America.” Olivia Wu call Chef
Geno, his fast making and reinterpreting the Un known cuisine from the state of Guerrero in an article
about low fat for Chicago Sun times USA today “the best Mexican restaurants in America.” Ixcapuzalco
among America’s top 50 restaurants,saying we offer the “best Mexican food I’ve had outside Mexico.”
BACKGROUNDER
After studying, traveling and eating His way through the 32 States of Mexico, Geno Bahena set a goal to
make a grassroots exploration of the country’s rich regional cooking. In 1987, he began traveling, recipe
testing and writing. He explored the country state by state town by town to see what folks were eating in
markets, in small family-owned restaurants and from the street vendors, he visited severalspots in order
to shop at the open-air markets and learn from the vendors. They made appointments to get in on pig
slaughtering, to talk to cheese makers,which remain him about his groin up in his ranch to visit factories
and walk through the growing fields. All in all, hi travel by bus, driving, and by helicopter crisscrossing
Mexico, to learn the treasures that are set forth in A Taste of Elegance from the Heart of Mexico.
A Taste of Elegance from the Heart of Mexico it will become a classic book. It’ll offer the American
aficionado the best from each state or region of the country. It’s a book that joins the fundamentals of the
Mexican kitchen with the culture that discovered and created them. It’s a book that tells more than the
rudimentary how-to; each recipe begins with a verbal snapshot of Mexico’s culinary culture and history,
then colors in the details with notes on serving, important techniques, authentic ingredients (and their
substitutes), plus traditional (as well as contemporary) variations.
This book will be available beginning of year 2016 all-clad has publish some recipes from my future
book. They say that is “...one of the greatest contributions to the Mexican table imaginable.”
To be continued HOLY MOLE! Ole…. http://www.mojadogrill.com