Chef
Jorge Vallejo
Head Chef & Co-Founder, Quintonil
- Discipline
- Chef
- Based in
- Mexico City, Mexico
Known for
- Co-founder and chef of Quintonil, pioneering modern Mexican cuisine
- Elevating local ingredients like quintonil herb, amaranth, and insects
- Sustainable practices and support for local producers
i. Biography
In Mexico City, Quintonil works in a contemporary Mexican register built around local ingredients, regional sourcing, and sustainability. Since 2012, chef-owner Jorge Vallejo has used the restaurant as the place where those concerns are tested in service rather than stated as decoration.
The Trajectory
Professional formation in haute cuisine, for Jorge Vallejo, came through Centro Culinario Ambrosía, followed by early kitchen work as a cook in a small, unnamed restaurant in Mexico City. That sequence matters in the trade: school provided the formal base, while the first restaurant work supplied the pace, repetition, and station discipline of a working kitchen. Cruise-ship cooking added scale and movement to the craft when Vallejo joined Princess Cruises in 2004. By 2009, the work returned to Mexico City at Pujol, where he served as a chef until 2011, placing him inside one of the city’s key contemporary Mexican kitchens during a period of close technical refinement. International exposure entered the record through a stint at Noma in Copenhagen, Denmark. In 2010, executive-chef responsibility followed at Restaurante Diana within the St. Regis Hotel in Mexico City, where Vallejo’s work moved from execution into kitchen leadership. The chef-owner model became the defining structure in 2012, when Jorge Vallejo opened Quintonil in Mexico City. The restaurant’s work centers Mexican heritage through contemporary cooking, with freshness, local ingredients, and sustainability as recurring constraints rather than loose branding.
Present Day
Contemporary Mexican cooking at Quintonil remains tied to ingredient quality, regional producers, and sustainability. Since 2012, Jorge Vallejo has continued to frame the restaurant around the relationship between gastronomy, culture, and environment, using Mexican ingredients as the basis for a current kitchen language.
Signature
Signature dishes include huauzontles with fresh cheese and tomato.
Standing
Peer and industry recognition has followed the restaurant’s sustained position in contemporary Mexican cooking. Jorge Vallejo received the Estrella Damm Chefs’ Choice Award in 2022; was added to the list of Mexico’s 300 most influential leaders in 2016; was named Chef of the Year in 2015; received the Premio Millesime México al Mejor Restaurante in 2015; was included among the personalities transforming Mexico in 2015; and was recognized as a Rising Star in 2014.
Profile updated July 2026
FAQ
Asked of Jorge
What does Jorge Vallejo currently do?
Jorge Vallejo is Executive Chef at Quintonil.
Where did Jorge Vallejo train or study?
Jorge Vallejo trained at Centro Culinario Ambrosía.
What recognition has Jorge Vallejo received?
Estrella Damm Chefs’ Choice Award (2022).
