‘I lend a hand to others’: Ocean Prime chef creates opportunities in the kitchen

Eugenio Reyes grew up in a central Mexican town called Calderas, home to about 1,000 people. For a 16-year-old boy who dreamed of becoming a chemist, there were zero opportunities to help him pursue that path. To make matters worse, in 1996 the country was still suffering the after-effects of a severe financial crisis.

Meanwhile, the U.S. economy was booming, and Reyes resolved that the United States was his best chance to lead a better life.

“When someone is a hard worker,” his father had told him, “they can work wherever they want.” At the time, Reyes spoke no English, but he made his way to Columbus, Ohio, where the best job he could find was to become a dishwasher.

Today, Reyes is the executive chef of the $20 million Ocean Prime seafood and steakhouse four stories above the Las Vegas Strip. While he is not, strictly speaking a chemist, a case can be made that Reyes has done quite well in mixing the elements.

Paving the way

The dishwashers in the Ocean Prime kitchen are a reminder of the job Reyes did for seven months in Columbus nearly three decades ago. The cooks toss food in stainless steel pans, a reminder of how Reyes honed his skills at home while teaching himself the art of cooking.

Reyes now helps lead the process of hiring the diverse staff members who work in the kitchen and wait tables at the upscale restaurant. Such diversity is something he didn’t see when he first started working in the U.S.

“It’s a ladder that the whole world is climbing,” Reyes said in Spanish, recalling his own early days in the U.S. “If I go up, I lend a hand to others and I pull them up. And we keep doing that.”

In the kitchen Reyes sees those who want to persevere and others just there for a short amount of time, yet what they have in common is that they want a better life, he said. He tells his dishwashers and cooks that he once did the jobs they are doing and how important they are to the kitchen.

When Reyes started, he had no translated recipes or the kind of support that he sees today.

“I would like to see in a few years more Latinos occupying different positions, not just in the restaurants but in different categories,” Reyes said. “Although we’re growing there’s still not a sufficient amount [of diversity].”

He’s helped create the path for Latinos and others from diverse backgrounds to follow and potentially reach his position much quicker than he did.

The long, hot road

“I feel like the most difficult obstacle anyone has to face is to cross the border,” said Reyes, who currently is on a work permit as he strives toward becoming a citizen.

In 1996, Reyes’ parents paid half of the roughly $1,200 needed to hire a family friend to help Eugenio cross the border. The other half, Reyes would have to pay back himself from his earnings in the U.S. The problem was, he did not have a job waiting for him.

He soon found there were few positions for those who were undocumented, but he learned that construction and dishwasher jobs were open in Columbus, Ohio.

As a dishwasher, Reyes was now bringing in an income and he had enough spare time to pick up extra skills. He’d been impressed by what he’d seen in the kitchen, particularly the fiery blue-gold plume that rose whenever the cooks would expose oil to the open flame. The energy, urgency and creativity of the scene convinced him that he wanted to be a cook. He began studying at home, taking kitchen order tickets home to memorize cooking them over and over to see what worked best.

Within a year he took up different cooking positions. He started preparing salads, then became a fry cook, until a manager gave him a shot at becoming a line cook where he quickly learned how to refine his skills.

Reyes observed the chefs working their magic and tried to imitate them. In 2008 he was asked to become a sous chef, which meant he’d be on the path to be the first Latino executive chef in the company, something he never thought would happen.

Little by little, Reyes moved up from last sous chef in the kitchen to one of the two top sous chefs, and in Dallas, Texas he got his first chance to work as an executive chef , working a short time in Los Angeles before helping open the New York Ocean Prime.

“I’m moving again,” Reyes told his mom, who still lives in the small town. Rather than congratulate him, she told him to stop moving.

But to Reyes, an opportunity to work in New York as an executive chef was a one-of-a-kind opportunity. Nine years later he left New York to come to Las Vegas.

A trailblazer’s path

As the executive chef at Ocean Prime, Reyes opens his kitchen at 6:40 a.m., when restaurant workers accept deliveries and start prepping before the restaurant opens at noon. Some days Reyes will spend over 12 hours at the restaurant, sacrificing time he could spend with his 6-year-old.

Reyes hopes to eventually return to Columbus where his journey started and where he can live near his brother. When he does leave the Strip restaurant, his position will open up and offer another potential opportunity to add another executive chef of color.

“[Latinos] are people that fight for what we want,” Reyes said. “and people that are always going to want the best for our families.”

Contact Jimmy Romo at jromo@reviewjournal.com or call 702-383-0350. Follow @jimi_writes on X.