Mikel Alonso

The Path

Formal culinary discipline in Alonso’s career begins with training at Universidad Pública del País Vasco. That foundation supports a professional record built across authored kitchens, advisory roles and restaurant ownership, with technique treated as structure rather than ornament. As Head Chef at Tezka, Mikel Alonso worked inside a demanding kitchen role where consistency, command and plate logic had to hold service after service. Mentorship entered the public record in 2018, when Alonso was mentor, Central America and Caribbean region at S.Pellegrino Young Chef 2018 (2018). The role matters in trade terms because it places judgment, framing and the development of younger cooks alongside restaurant work. It also matches a career shaped by exchange: between Basque, Spanish and Mexican references; between chefs and teams; and between inherited forms and contemporary technique. Multiple current roles show a practice distributed across dining rooms, education and advisory work. Mikel Alonso is founder; chef-owner of Restaurante Biko (since 2007), chef-owner of Lur (since 2016), and chef advisor of Restaurante Cocina de Autor, Hotel Grand Velas All Suites & Spa Resort. The through-line is not a single room but a recognizable method: cross-cultural cooking built through restraint, authorship and collaboration.

The Work Today

Basque-Mexican cooking is central at Restaurante Biko (Mexico City, Mexico), where Alonso is founder and chef-owner. The work is not a matter of placing references side by side; it depends on balance, sequencing and technique so that each source remains legible on the plate. Advisory work at Cocina de Autor in the Riviera Maya places that method inside a team format. The menu blends Basque and Spanish cuisine with traditional Mexican gastronomy, using high-quality ingredients, seasonal delicacies and contemporary techniques. In that setting, authorship is partly collective: Mikel Alonso’s role is tied to partnerships, shared standards and the refinement required when several hands carry one culinary idea. Education and new restaurant projects extend the same craft questions beyond service. In El Paso, Texas, Alonso heads Culinary Institute of Southwest University and is founder and co-creator of Culinary Institute by Southwest University. In Austin, Texas, he founded Mexta, a restaurant tied to Contemporary Mexican cuisine. These roles keep the focus on transmission: how tradition is taught, how technique clarifies, and how a cuisine can carry more than one accent without losing its center. A concrete example of the cooking appears in the KLM World Business Class menu created by Chef Mikel Alonso for flights departing from Mexico City in July: crab gratin with termidor sauce, mature cheese cream and fried artichokes. The description gives the working logic plainly: crab for sweetness, sauce for depth, mature cheese cream for density, and fried artichokes for contrast.

Signature

Fideuá is listed among Mikel Alonso’s signature dishes. The form signals a rooted reference handled through a personal kitchen vocabulary: familiar enough to carry lineage, flexible enough to show the cook’s decisions.

In Their Words “I couldn’t follow my dream of being a chemical engineer so I decided to follow a path full of life and logic.” “The logic only became clear when I realised I had always been involved with cooking as part of my heritage.”

Acclaim

Recognition for Mikel Alonso includes Premio San Pascual Bailón por sus logros y entrega a la gastronomía (2010) and Medalla Anáhuac a la excelencia en la trayectoria gastronómica (2008). The honors mark a body of work built through restaurants, mentorship, education and sustained attention to the meeting point between Basque, Spanish and Mexican culinary traditions.