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Mexican Metamorphosis at La Olla
The owners of La Olla, Marcelino and Elena Hernandez, recently decided that their restaurant on Brainerd Road needed a change, an evolution of sorts. They wanted to find that something that would make them stand head and shoulders above their competition.
That something turned out to be a someone—namely, Chef Eric Saenz. Transformation is what Chef Saenz does. Much acclaimed in his field, he has worked in fine restaurants around the world, and now offers his services to owners of establishments who, like Marcelino and Elena, want to up the ante in terms of what their restaurants offer to their surrounding communities.
The first thing Saenz did when he came to La Olla was to empty out the freezer. “We now use absolutely NO frozen product. We don’t have a big truck coming in from Atlanta. All our product is now either bought fresh from local markets, or imported directly from Mexico,” he relates. One of the reasons for that is the chef’s desire to achieve a truly Mexican style of cooking, as elusive as that may be.
