“Tacos have always brought me joy,” says Edgar Rico, executive chef and coowner of Nixta Taqueria in East Austin. Originally from the Central Valley of California, Rico grew up with a passion for cooking and was already writing recipes in kindergarten. “I loved watching and assisting my mom in the kitchen,” Rico remembers. “Then, it became deeper and deeper, particularly with food television of the ’90s, watching the shows of Alton Brown and others on the Food Network.” In 2022, Rico won the James Beard Award for Emerging Chef, in 2023 he was named one of Food & Wine’s Best New Chefs, and he’s cooked for a president and a pop star.
Rico attended The Culinary Institute of America in New York before spending six years in Los Angeles, some
