Tucson chef Maria Mazon makes it into the top 5, but remains behind in the search for “Top Chef” | short Tucson restaurant news

Tucson chef Maria Mazon (left) takes advice from celebrity chef Tom Colicchio during the show that led to her elimination.

David Moir, bravo

Restaurant Wars is the most coveted of the “Top Chef” challenges, Mazon said.

“To win the W in Restaurant Wars, I can go next,” she said of the episode that aired on May 22nd.

“Top Chef Portland” was the latest of Mazon’s national spotlight moments. She has appeared on the Travel Channel, Food Network and Cooking Channel since 2017 and has been featured in the New York Times, New York Magazine and USA Today.

But the nominee for the James Beard Award 2020 called her “Top Chef” run “one of the best experiences of my life”.

“And I’m not just saying that because I’ve been on TV,” said Mazon. “That I was allowed to experience something like this during a pandemic? And then I met beautiful, beautiful people. I’ve laughed, I’ve cried. Everything I needed in 2020, I got everything. “

Mazon, who writes a cookbook drawing on her recipes at the 11-year-old restaurant and new recipes exploring her Sonoran culinary heritage, said “Top Chef Portland” showed “who I was as a chef and a person. ”

“I cook with my heart and I’m a crybaby and I suppose so,” she said.

Boca Taco y Tequila Chef and owner Maria Mazon, left, is hugged by fellow “Top Chef Portland” competitors after being in 11th place.

David Moir, bravo

The show also taught her some valuable personal lessons, from building her confidence in her kitchen skills to demonstrating that at work and at home with her wife, Lily, a Tucson firefighter, she “decelerates and takes care of yourself Smell roses “has to have 12-year-old son, Rene.

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