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Key Takeaways
- From floods to fryer fires, Herrera learned that success comes with stress.
- Drawing from her Mexican American roots, Herrera created Hellbender as both a celebration and a rebellion, blending creativity, confidence and chaos into one of New York’s most exciting new restaurants.
- Herrera discovered what kind of leader she didn’t want to be while working in intense kitchens.
Yara Herrera didn’t grow up dreaming of becoming a chef. “I wish I could say I grew up cooking with my grandma,” she says. “But honestly, I just kind of stumbled into it.”
That stumble turned into something bigger when she took a cooking class in high school whose teacher shared unfiltered stories about restaurant life. “She’d talk about people yelling, cutting themselves, crying,” Herrera remembers. “And I thought, Wow, that sounds like something I really want to do someday.”
The class gave her a taste of both order and chaos. Recipes had structure. Results came quickly. “Next thing you know, I’m signing up for culinary school,” she tells Restaurant Influencers host Shawn Walchef.
From there, Herrera began learning from two of the most demanding chefs in the business. First came Wolfgang Puck, then David Chang. Both tested her limits and taught her lessons that would one day shape her own restaurant, Hellbender.
“It was just like TV,” she says of her job with Puck. “Everyone’s yelling at you. You’re an idiot. And everyone seemed to like it, which was the crazier part.”
As the saucier, she made stock from 100 pounds of bones every day. “I had to finesse the butchers to help me, bringing them treats,” she says, “until I got caught. Then I got yelled at for getting help.” The experience was tough but transformative. “I learned how to hold my own,” she says.
When she joined Chang’s first Los Angeles opening with the Momofuku team, she was ready for the challenge. “He asked who could make a French omelet, and everyone raised their hand,” she says. “Then he asked who would bet their car on it, and about half the hands went down. Then he said, ‘Who’s going to make one for me right now?’, and it was just three of us.”
She laughs, remembering it. “He hated my omelet,” she says. “But it taught me a lot. You can’t fake confidence in this industry.”
Those early years under Puck and Chang built her resilience and sharpened her instincts. They also gave her something more valuable: the confidence to lead her own kitchen. When it came time to open Hellbender in Queens, Herrera knew exactly how she wanted it to feel: loud, fearless and completely her own.
Related: He Was Tens of Thousands in Debt When He Opened His Business. Now, He Has 27 Locations.
Pressure is a privilege
When Hellbender opened, Herrera finally had a restaurant that reflected her. On opening night, though, everything that could go wrong did. “I leaned over the fryer and dropped my two Sharpies and my pen into the oil,” she says. “We were straining fryer oil before even firing a ticket.”
The night didn’t get much easier. “We set the salamander on fire at one point,” Herrera says, laughing. “There were so many little things going wrong, you just had to laugh about it.”
That chaos introduced a new kind of pressure that forced Herrera to keep adapting. “You start out thinking inwardly,” she says. “You love cilantro, so you think everyone loves cilantro. Then you realize it’s not just about you. The restaurant finds its own voice.”
Related: He Left His Cubicle to Start a Business With ‘No Plan B.’ Now He Has 10 Restaurants.
Hellbender began as a cocktail bar with a small food menu, but soon evolved into a full restaurant centered on Mexican American cooking. The New York Times awarded it two stars, calling it “a beacon for inspired Mexican-American food.” Esquire named it one of the Best New Restaurants of 2024, and Herrera earned a StarChefs Rising Stars Award.
The success came with pressure, but Herrera sees that as a privilege. “Everything wants to go wrong,” she says. “The plumbing, the permits, the upstairs neighbors flooding you, it’s endless. But I remind myself that pressure is a privilege. If I put myself in this position, it’s because I can handle it.”
Related: This Former ‘Simpsons’ Showrunner Sampled 200 Foods in 24 Hours — Then Came Back For More
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Key Takeaways
- From floods to fryer fires, Herrera learned that success comes with stress.
- Drawing from her Mexican American roots, Herrera created Hellbender as both a celebration and a rebellion, blending creativity, confidence and chaos into one of New York’s most exciting new restaurants.
- Herrera discovered what kind of leader she didn’t want to be while working in intense kitchens.
Yara Herrera didn’t grow up dreaming of becoming a chef. “I wish I could say I grew up cooking with my grandma,” she says. “But honestly, I just kind of stumbled into it.”
That stumble turned into something bigger when she took a cooking class in high school whose teacher shared unfiltered stories about restaurant life. “She’d talk about people yelling, cutting themselves, crying,” Herrera remembers. “And I thought, Wow, that sounds like something I really want to do someday.”
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