Stephen Jones: In-focus

At Susurros del Corazón, the setting does a lot of the work for you. Tucked between jungle-covered cliffs and a long stretch of beach, the resort leans into a slower, more open way of moving. It’s part surf retreat, part wellness escape, with an emphasis on good food and communal moments. Its ongoing Los Sabores de Susurros series brings in visiting chefs to cook alongside the in-house team, creating a kind of back-and-forth between different culinary perspectives.

During his weeklong residency, Woldy stepped into that rhythm naturally; taking over the beachside grill for open-fire dinners, hosting a more casual, shareable night at La Boquita, and leading a hands-on lumpia workshop that pulled guests a little closer into the process.

One morning, Woldy and I overlooked the sea at Casamilpa over breakfast to talk about his path from fashion to food, how his Filipino roots shape his cooking today, and what it means to step into a slower rhythm in Mexico.

Did you grow up in New York?

No, in California.

So your Spanish should be great.

You would think so, but I didn't take Spanish in school. My parents spoke some Spanish, but they’re Filipinos and obviously the Philippines was colonized by Spain, so there were influences of Spanish speaking. So it's a different language but there's some familiarity.

After I graduated, I worked in New York. I worked in fashion.

What were you doing in fashion?

So I worked at Elle. This was like a long time ago. And then I worked at Nylon.

How did you find cooking?

I've always had a love of cooking. Food was such an integral thing. I was raised primarily by my grandmother, she just was like a second mom to me and taught me a lot about Filipino cooking. 

So it was mostly Filipino food when you started cooking? 

Yeah, I think the most important memory I have of food is my dad. Every family gathering, he would make his signature goat soup. It’s a rich, tomato-based dish. He learned it in the Philippines and adapted it in LA. We’d go to a goat farm, pick out the goat, bring it home, and he’d cook it in the backyard over a wood fire.

It was a three-day process. The day before the gathering, he’d cook through the night. I don’t even know if he slept. I remember the smoke, the fire, the sizzling goat meat. He’d make one soup with the meat and another with the innards, using the entire animal.

After serving, he would save the head, and the next morning he’d eat it. That was the chef’s treat.'

How do you eat the head?

So there's pieces of meat in there. He would pick it off the bone and he would eat the tongue. 

Nothing went to waste.

Nothing went to waste. And that to me, as a kid living in LA, being first generation, I thought that was embarrassing. Most traditional American cooking is grilling outside, but he's making a stew outside. You don't see it all the time on television and your idea of grilling is hamburgers and hot dogs, but we had to stew.

I didn't appreciate it at the time, but now I can appreciate it. And now, cooking food here or in New York, I'm also pushing what my parents were eating, but modernizing it.

So you're working at Elle in fashion. At what point did cooking become a professional pursuit?

So when I moved to New York, I lived in a very small studio apartment that didn't allow me to cook a lot. And I lived in that apartment for four or five years.

But then I moved to Brooklyn. I got a bigger apartment, there's a full kitchen, and I started cooking again and thinking, Oh, I want to pursue this professionally. But I was still working full-time at this point, working for a fashion designer. So I was cooking for a designer, and then I'm also working full-time in visual merchandising, PR, a bunch of different things for this other designer. At the same time, I was assisting a stylist. All simultaneously. So it was all creative, but working different parts of my brain. When you're in New York, you're doing a bunch of different things trying to make a living.

But I wanted to start a catering company, and the reason why I wanted to go that route was to build a customer base, and then eventually open a restaurant. So that was the initial goal. So in 2016 I decided to quit working for the designer and build my catering company. And luckily, when you intern at magazines, you build friendships and connections. I would tell my friends, "I'm starting a catering company." And they were like, "Oh, could you do our press preview? Could you do these smaller events where they needed catering?"

One of my first clients was Christian Louboutin, and then I did an event for Celine. When you are in fashion, there's always catering. And so that was my first clientele I focused on because that's who I knew and the relationships that I had. And now, 10 years later, it's starting to diversify.

Do you think cooking for the fashion industry changed the way you were cooking? Did you feel like you had to adapt to people in the fashion industry more?

In the very beginning.

They were obviously watchful of what they ate, and so I understood their eating habits. So it was a way to be creative and figure out how to make something delicious based off of all these restrictions that they have. And also, when I was assisting a stylist and we would be in studios, we would see the catered food. So I was always observing what types of food are being presented and what they are not eating. When you're on set, you want something nourishing and fresh and not something heavy.

So a lot of your cooking was adapting to other people?

I think when I started cooking a lot more, obviously making it my full-time job, I got more comfortable in myself in terms of embracing my queerness, embracing my Filipino identity. And then I started to explore the food that I grew up eating, and then trying to fuse it in slowly, I didn't want to scare off anybody. So it was just a sprinkle here or a sprinkle there, and then started to evolve from there. So it's taken some time to get to that place where I'm there to educate because normal traditional brand dinners are pretty much safe.

Very safe. They don't want to piss anyone off, don't want to have anyone complaining.

So I'm hoping that when people do reach out to me and work with me, they know that I'm not doing an Alfredo and that I'm doing something completely different. And if they're not open to what I'm making, then…

It's not the client for you. How long is this residency?

It's only a week, but then I'm going to Columbia for another one evening dinner.

Have there been things here that have taught you anything?

They taught me to be chill. Chill and also the sense of camaraderie. The people that work here, everyone, they're embracing each other. And I feel like that's similar to what I do when I work with other people, is that I give them a hug.

I can imagine the kitchen culture is so different to New York.

Oh, very different. Obviously, primarily it's different because I don't speak the language.

But even as people, I mean, Mexicans are so warm and I think New York is…

I do have to say, when I work on things in New York, when I work with other chefs, there are some chefs who just take the initiative and then they don't consult me. And then it's not how I wanted it. And so why did you take the initiative?

Is that almost an ego thing?

Probably. Here, they ask me, "Oh, can you show me?” before they proceed to make sure that is exactly how I want it. And then it becomes more collaborative.

But there's also amazing things about New York.

I could imagine sous chefs there or just people in the kitchen there being so keen to get themselves ahead that they lose the collaborativeness and teamwork.

I feel like you learn people's personality in the kitchen and how they maneuver. Again, New York is competitive. Everybody is trying to do something, make something happen. And sometimes when you are in a place where there is the Head Chef, you just kind of have to be submissive because you have to follow directions and if you're not following directions, then you're just going to go sideways. 

And I feel like you don't last long in a kitchen. 

You don't last in a kitchen.

I've gotten back into cooking in the last year and a half, and it's so much nicer. It feels like such a nice ritual at the end of the day.

It is a nice ritual. I think that's part of why I don't do it.

I mean, when it's your job and you're doing it for work, it's a different thing.

It's interesting because often people say, "I really love cooking. I want to transition into doing full-time." Well, there's a difference. You're passionate about home cooking, but then when you turn it into your career, you either are going to love it or you're going to hate it.

I'm still doing it. I think I enjoy it and there are a lot more positive things that I enjoy. I obviously don't cook as much for myself.

What's your strategy when accepting jobs? Are you going to say yes no matter what and figure it out?

I'll just figure it out. I think that's always a challenge. I enjoy that part of it. It's like, I can cook anywhere.

Yeah. It must feel like everything's possible at this point. I mean, people have been cooking way before we had electricity and stuff.

Everything is possible.