Often in food media, we tend to focus on the success of a chef or restaurant. But what about their life before that? Daniel Castillo opened up to L.A. TACO Editor-in-Chief Javier Cabral about everything he had to overcome to become the current James Beard Award finalist, and how sometimes “the only journey is the one within (Rainer Mmaria Rilke).”
Growing up, I never quite felt like I fit in. Even though I look the way I do and my barbecue is inspired by my Californian and Mexican roots, I never spoke a lick of Spanish…to this day.
I was born and raised in Whittier. My family was a wild mix—my mom was half white, half Mexican, with roots that stretched from German blacksmiths to braceros. My dad was a low rider cholo from Westminster who ended up in prison for most of his life, leaving my mom to raise me alone. We were always living on the edge, with drug dealers that my dad owed a lot of money to showing up at our house. My mom sometimes had to give away my dad’s lowriders to keep us safe…