Loving Latin
South of the equator ingredients get fused with local ones to create culinary masterpieces
Inventive fusions result when Latin meets Jewish greets Pan-Asian. Sometimes it works, as it does in the skilled hands of Rogelio Hererra. The fare at his restaurant, Alloy, is a blend and an attitude.
His cross-border culinary chops draw on his heritage, business partner Uri Heilik’s Jewish background, an the flavours of the pacific Rim. the suave result is way beyond fusion, and although it is rooted in authentic coking, Hererra’s food is posed on the lip of modern, with a long look back over one shoulder.
At age 39, Colombian-born Hererra has spent two decades in the kitchen and has been active on the Calgary scene for more than 10 years. “Cooking in Calgary with Latin ingredients is much better now than back then,” says Hererra. “Globalization, the numbers of Latin immigrants, producte from Colombia, Mexico, Brazil… it is incredible.”
