wine & culinary arts festival

chefs

Andrea Villanueva
Young, talented and respected, Andrea Villanueva has come into her own with her current position as co-executive chef of Tides Riviera Maya Resort in Playa del Carmen, Mexico. La Marea, the resort's restaurant, features "Mayaterranean" cuisine which elegantly fuses contemporary interpretations of Mexican and Maya cuisines with Mediterranean influences. The menu offers an array of daily specials abundant in fresh seafood, meats and poultry, signature appetizers, an extensive ceviche menu and entrees. While additional, authentic dishes of Mexican and Maya origin explore the robust flavors of Yucatan's traditional culinary heritage such as achiote, chile, pumpkin, fresh lime and chaya.

A native of Queretaro, Mexico, Villanueva is a dedicated restaurant professional who became enamored with gastronomy at a very early age. Her interest in all aspects of cooking and restaurants - from peeling garlic and cleaning vegetables in her family home, to watching wait staff and restaurant chef's deliver the end result to the table - was addictive and Villanueva was hooked on cooking. Following high school, Andrea attended the Corbuse Institute in Queretaro, from which she earned an Associate's defree in Culinary Arts and landed a job at the nearby Club Regency of Jurica and then moved onto Restaurante Quinto Tango. During this period, Villanueva rotated through the kitchen, fine-tuning her skills at all stations. She would later go on to work at Hacienda Laborcilla's Philippe Moulin Restaurant.

In 2008, Villanueva decided to leave home and found herself in Playa del Carmen, where she had the good fortune to impress Tides Riviera Maya's talented chef Chef Cupertino Ortiz. Under Chef Cupertino's tutelage, Villanueva expanded her culinary repertoire and learned to believe in her own natural talent. A year later, Chef Mariana Perez became Tides Riviera Maya's executive chef and Villanueva was chosen as Perez's "right-hand" in the kitchen. When Chef Perez left the Tides a year later, Villanueva and co-chef Jetzabel Rojas were appointed as the Executive Chef team of Tides Riviera Maya or Chef de Partie.