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Eat This Week: Sweet Basil Sous Chef Maria Busato Wins Colorado Chef of the Year Award

 


Maria Busato, sous chef at Sweet Basil, received the Colorado Chef of the Year 2020 award from the Colorado Restaurant Association, leading commercial organization in the catering industry. Nominated by her colleagues at Sweet Basil, Busato is honored to receive this honor, which is a nod to her resilience in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic.

I didn’t sit there when everything was closed and in quarantine. I created the at-home meal kits so that people could taste the sweet basil at home, she said.

Originally from Brazil, Busato came to Vail 10 years ago to pursue his culinary dream. After a few years in Washington state, she returned and accepted a position with Sweet Basil. From there she had the opportunity to work as a sous chef at Mountain Standards and then returned to Sweet Basil to work there as a sous chef.



The Vail Daily spoke with Busato about his culinary career, his favorite cooking shows and what it means to receive this award. Below are edited excerpts from that conversation.

Maria Busato, Sous Chef at Sweet Basil, has been in her current position for a year and a half and has been with the company since 2017.
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Vail Daily: Tell me a bit about your dining experience and how you ended up with Sweet Basil.



Maria Busato: All my life, I have always cooked with my mother at home, ate in restaurants and watched cooking shows. I am from Brazil. Food has always been a part of everything in my life. It has helped me a lot to shape myself. I decided to go to environmental engineering school, a lot because, you know, I wanted to please my parents. And then after about two or three years in engineering school, I was like, no, that’s it. I convinced my grandmother to pay for my cooking school in Brazil. I went to culinary school in the evening, then found a job in the restaurant business in the morning. I spent about two years doing this. And then, the opportunity presented itself for me to travel abroad.

VD: So that’s where Vail comes in.

MB: I had never seen snow in my life. I had no idea what life in the mountains would be like. It was something very exciting, because I was 20 years old and I was ready to leave Brazil and be a little more independent. I moved directly to Vail, exactly 10 years ago. I lived the ski bum life for two years. I fell in love with it. I was also able to enter Colorado Mountain Colleges Sustainable Cooking Program. So like environmental engineering, and the culinary school I did in Brazil.

VD: You had no idea CMC was doing this, of course, when you moved here.

MB: No idea. But I liked it so much here. Thank goodness my family supported me. After I graduated, I moved to Eastern Washington State. I helped run a farm-to-table restaurant there, Black Cypress. The owner was helping me shape my career as a chef, who at that time was a cook. A fairly experienced cook, but I didn’t have the management skills. And it’s those years that helped shape that. I was planning my whole menu with several different farmers, organically and sustainably. We would help plant everything during the harvest. It was really, really cool to have that. I stayed there for about three years.

VD: But you finally came back to Vail.

MB: I missed it so much: my friends, the lifestyle. I was very picky when I came back to Vail. I will choose the best restaurant. It was the off season, so I went knocking on the door and pretty much told my story. I applied on the spot and they hired me. So I took the job of cook, I worked in basil as a cook for about a year. And then the opportunity presented itself and I moved to Mountain Standard. It was time to become that leader again. I loved working there. The food is amazing. I was able to really grow in my role there until the opportunity presented itself for Basil and they needed a sous chef. I’ve been there for a year and a half now, and in both restaurants since 2017.

Originally from Brazil, Busato enjoys cooking comforting meals at home for his friends and family.
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VD: Obviously it’s probably great to be back in Vail, but one thing I’ve learned about you and the other local chefs I’ve talked about is that travel is a precious part of the chef’s life.

MB: Oh, 100%. I always tried to take the time to go to new places to get new influences. I have learned throughout my life that traveling and experiencing and seeing new cultures and eating food or just going out to eat is what shapes your journey.

VD: What are some of the places you have traveled and what are the most memorable meals you have had in those places?

MB: One of the first that comes to mind was on Lummi Island outside of Seattle. They had this little restaurant called the Willows Inn. I was there about eight years ago and made their tasting menu, which was 17-18 courses or something. About five years after that meal, they won the award for the best restaurant in the United States. The chef helped open Noma in Copenhagen. It was an incredible meal. And of course in Brazil if you’ve traveled to a small seaside town on the coast and passed this tiny little restaurant, they can serve the best seafood and the best meal in the world. And then of course, you know, traveling to London and Paris, seeing the markets, eating in places like The Savoy in London. Travel has a lot to do with the quality of the places where my food can take me. Right before I moved to the United States, my mother took my sister and I to Chile. We had an experience in the middle of the salt marshes of the Atacama Desert. They pretty much serve a full meal in the middle of the saltworks. Experiences like the one I remember are pretty, pretty amazing.

VD: Earlier you mentioned that you like to watch cooking shows. Do you have any favorites?

MB: Oh my God, I have so many. I grew up watching, like all my life. I grew up watching Jamie Oliver and the mad Gordon Ramsey.

VD: Is that why you went to the Savoy?

MB: Yes.

VD: It’s great.

MB: My mother had Julia Child videotapes.

Busato has seen a lot of films about butcher’s cooking techniques, but “Chef” and “Ratatouille,” she says, are correct.
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VD: Back to the reward. I mean, it must be really rewarding to have come out of engineering school, to forge a new path, 10 years later, you live in a new country, working as a sous chef. How do you feel?

MB: I think this award shows all the history, love, passion, hours and hours and hours of work. And it helped me a lot to get here. To see to see this, and to see Colorado Chef of the Year and my name below. It is so gratifying. It’s incredible. It’s always like I need to pinch myself. I hardly have words to describe, I am so grateful.

VD: Is this something that you ever dreamed was in the realm of the possible when you started your culinary career?

MB: No never. I am a very passionate person. My life always followed my passion. It was following dreams, having fun and loving life, right? Cooking comes 100% straight because food makes you feel good. It is such a heartwarming thing to anyone in the world. I never asked for a single raise in my life, because I was just happy to cook and do it. It comes from the bottom of my heart to give people something and make them super happy.

VD: It seems like, even before the award, cooking isn’t something you do for people’s recognition, it’s something you do to make people happy.

MB: Yes 100%, it is and always has been. It comes naturally to me. Yeah, whatever you can cook and just do it. I’m not sure if you’ve heard or seen the movie Chocolate, it’s one of my favorite food movies of all time. Anyway, there is a stage with around 10-15 people sitting around the table. And when they cook the meal, its slow-mo, people happily eat it, enjoying the moment and looking at each other and filling their faces like this carnal moment. I live for this passion to see people being so happy and eating food.



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