San Antonio chef to cook at the White House for Cinco de Mayo

Johnny Hernandez, chef and owner of La Gloria and other area restaurants. Johnny Hernandez, chef and owner of La Gloria and other area restaurants. Photo: Courtesy Johnny Hernandez Photo: Courtesy Johnny Hernandez Image 1 of / 23 Caption Close San Antonio chef to cook at the White House for Cinco de Mayo 1 / 23 Back to Gallery

Chef and restaurateur Johnny Hernandez will cook a special dinner at the White House for Cinco de Mayo, the Express-News has learned.

The details are still being worked out, and Hernandez is expected to finalize his menu later today.

“It’s a one of the highest accomplishments of my career,” he said. “I’m very excited to share the authenticity of Mexican cuisine with the White House and to bring the culture of San Antonio to a whole new place.”

Hernandez is the first San Antonio chef to serve as a guest chef at the White House. He joins a roster of guest chefs that includes Rick Bayless of Chicago, who cooked for a 2010 state dinner with the then-president of Mexico; and Maricel Presilla, a Cuban-born chef based in New Jersey and authority on Latin American cuisines, who cooked for President Obama’s “Fiesta Latina” in 2009.

Other celebrity chefs who have cooked at the White House include “Top Chef Masters” winner Marcus Samuelsson, Bobby Flay, Mario Batali, Emeril Lagasse, Guy Fieri of the Food Network, and Masaharu Morimoto, famed for his run as an Iron Chef.

Hernandez won’t be the first San Antonio chef to cook for Obama. Chef and restaurateur Jason Dady catered an Austin fundraiser 2014 that the president attended. And in 2010, Diana Barrios Treviño cooked puffy tacos for the Congressional Picnic on the South Lawn of the White House.

In addition, Don Strange Catering catered the Congressional Barbecue in 1990 and the Diplomatic Corps dinner at the White House that same year. The company also catered a dinner for President Obama two years ago at a private home in the Dominion.

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