Culinary Excellence
Marcela Valladolid
This Mexican-American Powerhouse is one of the most successful and passionate chefs in our country
Marcela Valladolid was born in San Diego, California. As a kid, she spent time in the kitchen with her family surrounded by great recipes and traditional Mexican dishes. Passion for cooking was in her DNA. After she finished school, Marcela began her culinary journey when she started working at her aunt’s cooking school in Baja, Mexico. It is there where she became devoted to culinary arts.
Marcela continued to follow her interest and then graduated from the Los Angeles Culinary Institute as a “Certified cook.” But her dream didn’t stop there, she then moved to Paris and was classically trained as a French Pastry Chef at the Ritz Escoffier Cooking School.
After her studies, she came back to San Diego and founded a catering company and also began teaching about cooking and culinary arts. Meanwhile, she remained inspired by her craft and started applying everything she learned in culinary school to all those traditional recipes that had been in her family for generations.
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Marcela took that fierce passion and knowledge and ran with, carving herself a place in the top food media, both television and print. Her first cooking show, named Relatos con Sabor was broadcasted on Discovery en Español and it aired in the United States and Latin America. She then became the host of her own show called Mexican Made Easy on the Food Network and later co-hosted another Food Network‘s show The Kitchen. Marcela became a very recognizable face on our screen from being a contributor in NBC’s The Today Show, and ABC’s The Chew to being a judge ‘On Throwdown! with Bobby Flay’ and ‘Best Baker in America’ and appearing on a New Year’s edition of Iron Chef America.
In addition to being on the screen, Marcela is also an author and writer. She has been an editor and recipe stylist for Bon Appétit magazine and written several books. She published:
- Fresh Mexico: 100 Simple Recipes for True Mexican Flavor”
- Mexican Made Easy
- Casa Marcela: Recipes and Food Stories of My Life in the Californias
Marcela lives in San Diego with her fiancé Philip, her boys Fausto and David, her dog Kongo.
