Yesterday, Daniela Soto-Innes announced that she was leaving the restaurants Cosme and Atla, the New York restaurants she opened with Enrique Olvera and where she made her name. In an Instagram post announcing the news, Soto-Innes writes that her last day will be December 20, and that “it has been an honor to represent my country and [she] will continue to do so in all future endeavors.” She will remain involved in Elio at the Wynn Las Vegas. The statement does not mention Damian or Ditroit, the two Los Angeles restaurants she and Olvera opened in October, but a rep for the restaurants confirms she will no longer be involved. Since 2018, Soto-Innes has been with the chef Blaine Wetzel, who runs the Willows Inn on Lummi Island in Washington, and the two have talked about relocating to Los Angeles.
The relentlessly energetic Soto-Innes opened Cosme after seven years of working under Olvera, arguably the best known Mexican chef outside of Mexico, as well as one of the fine-dining world’s most famous chefs. She experienced a swift rise to fame in the restaurant, for dishes like her cornhusk meringue. That dessert was an early example of one that everyone who could go had to Instagram, and Eater called it, within two years, “an NYC dessert icon.” In 2016, a year after Cosme opened, she won the James Beard Foundation’s Rising Star Chef Award, and she has since been showered with accolades by the media: Food & Wine deemed her “one of the world’s best chefs,” while the New York Times called her “one of the most exciting chefs working today.”
This post has been updated with more information about Damian and Ditroit.
