[ad_1]
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) – He’s not even 40, but he’s already made a name for himself on the Indianapolis food scene.
In fact, he became one of Indy’s top five chefs, with a special mission in mind. News 8’s David Williams introduces us to a chef who is making waves, one cut at a time.
Chef Carlos Salazar originally had no intention of going into the culinary field. But someone very close to him said something that convinced him to change his career path.
At first, 36-year-old Salazar didn’t even think about cooking. He wanted to be an accountant.
“I was sitting in a bar. She was my friend at one time, but now my wife. I told him, ‘I don’t think I’ll be happy to be in the office for the rest of my life.’ She said to me: ‘Why don’t you go to culinary school?’ I said, ‘This is weird.’ She said to me, “You always liked to cook for us in high school,” Salazar said.
He fell in love with cooking. He started cooking professionally in 2006 and has made his way into restaurants. He even opened his own restaurant, Rook, with a business partner and ran it for seven years. Tower closed due to the pandemic.
“When I opened Rook, it was one of those things where I wanted to challenge the community. I wanted to show them techniques. I wanted to show them flavors. I wanted to show them combinations of ingredients that we haven’t seen or heard, ”said Salazar.
In February 2020, he opened his new concept, Small dumplings, to Fishermen’s test kitchen.
Then, 30 days later, the COVID-19 pandemic hit central Indiana.
“I stayed open to feed the community. I know we still needed food. We were allowed to do take-out, a delivery service, ”said Salazar.
It was a struggle.
“There were days when everything was dark, sitting all alone. Quite depressed. What’s going on, what’s going to happen? Throw out food every day, ”Salazar said.
Over the months, his family and the community helped him find his way back. He left the Philippines for Indiana at the age of 8 and grew up in Westfield. He wants to take people on an adventure through his food.
“You want them to feel that we have worked hard there to make this ingredient or that dish. I want them to feel it took me three days to make this sauce. Or we made this wrapper for the dumplings – we didn’t just buy it. We’re back out there rolling it to order, ”said Salazar.
And that’s exactly what it does: one dish at a time. He plans to open a Lil ‘Dumplings noodle bar at Bottleworks in Indianapolis in September.
[ad_2]
Source link