By Jorge Rennella
Cambalache is an Argentine idiom that means exchange, sharing and helping each other. “Yes, the name applies to our restaurant,” says Teresa Razo, manager of Cambalache Argentine & Italian Grill in Fountain Valley, California. “Through Argentine and Italian food and our Mexican origin, we make a culinary cultural exchange in the palates and emotions of our clients and friends; and at the same time we share our profits by helping the community.”
Leo and Teresa Razo founded the restaurant four months ago. “This new business will help us share successes and profits with the community,” Razo says.
Razo had a successful career as a manager at a major corporation before deciding to jump into the restaurant industry. “I had a dream, I wanted to grow and help, but I was afraid to leave the security that my good job gave me,” says Razo. “But the fixed office hours, to which I was subject, did not allow me to develop further.”
Eventually, though, she made the tough decision leave her job to begin to realize her dreams of “owning my time, creating new business and generating greater profits for us and helping others.”
Her first step was to join the staff of Villa Roma Restaurant in Laguna Hills, California, where her husband, award-winning Chef Leo Razo, is a partner and co-founder with Victor Moya.
Razo, although born in Laguna Beach, says she feels very united to Jalisco because “in my childhood we went every year to spend long vacations to Ocotlán.” And her husband was born in Villa Garcia Marquez (El Tarengo) Jalisco, the town her parents came from.
“My husband comes from a small ranch,” Razo says. “He came as a very young boy to Santa Ana, California, to work. We already knew each other because I always went to Ocotlan. We got married in California.”
Chef Razo worked in Italian restaurants and later partnered to found Villa Roma. The
Chef Leo Razo
Chef Leo Razo
couple has two children, Luis and Emiliano, respectively 10 and 7 years old.
Chef Razo has participated in the prestigious “OC Chef's Table” at Disneyland's Gran California Hotel. In his latest participation, he helped raise $1 million for the Illumination Foundation, which helps break the cycle of the homeless. In addition, the chef participates annually in several competitions in Spain, Mexico, and Argentina.
Cambalache specializes in Italian and Argentine dishes, and some people wonder how to combine those cuisines, the chef says. “This is when I have to explain and inform that a large part of Argentine cuisine has Italian influence in pastas, salads, pizzas, olives, use of spices, sauces, bread, among others.”
However, the meats and their special cuts are very Argentine. Very Argentinean are also dishes such as the famous Argentine grill, entraña, empanadas, and others.
“The dishes Cambalache sells the most are the parrilladas, entraña and empanadas argentinas,” says Chef Razo.
Teresa Razo's parents came from Ocotlan to California looking for a better future. "My mother brought me in her stomach to be born here in the U.S.. I was born in Laguna Beach, California and I am an only child. Every Summer, as soon as I left school, in June, my dad would take the car and we would drive to Ocotlán. We stayed a month or more; Dad sold the car there and we flew back to California.”
Razo says she will never forget those wonderful childhood trips to Ocotlan, through US and Mexican highways with mom and dad. They passed through towns, cities and ranches, all mixed in a number of emotional brush strokes. With her little face stuck to the glass, like a photographic lens, she noticed the objects and people.
Teresa Razo's father died when she was only 10 years old.
“As a child, my father told me stories and sayings, teaching me and preparing me for life. We stopped in different places; as our trip progressed, we visited different friends. My father took me to nice and expensive places, but also to poor and humble places so that we could learn, know and appreciate what poverty is, life on the ranch, having to bathe with cold water in a tub; learn to value everything; and I enjoyed it very much, while I was learning.”
Razo says her father’s lessons helps her appreciate her employees better.
“Everyone comes from different places. Some from very small towns, or other cultures. These trips with my parents helped me to appreciate them not only as workers, but also as human beings.”
Razo says that when a new employee arrives, “I try to know him more; I talk to them, learn where they come from….We not only know people through words, but also through behaviors, actions, signals, situations.”
For example, Razo says she had an employee who started coming in late. The manager was fed up, but “I told him that this routine of being late was a sign that something was happening to that person and that we should talk to her to help her. We talked to her and we learned that she had a very difficult situation: her mother was sick and she took care of her, as well as having two jobs. I helped her, adjusted her schedule and solved the problem, she did not arrive late any more.”
Razo sees in the restaurant community great opportunities to grow and develop as an individual, family and community.
“I had a dream, I wanted to grow and help, but I was afraid to leave the comfort zone where I was in my good job as manager of a major company, until I overcame my fears, and started down the path of business success.”
Jorge Rennella is a regular contributor to el Restaurante. Reach him at jorge@restmex.com