Yara Herrera
Hellbender | Queens, NY
February 2025
As a high school student in California, Yara Herrera had plans to become a social worker. But, while taking a culinary arts class, she was motivated by her teacher’s stories about restaurants and decided to pursue a career in hospitality instead. Herrera enrolled in culinary school while also working full-time. After graduating, she got a job at Katsuya under Chef David Lespron, working the prep station and learning to adjust to the ebbs and flows of a professional kitchen. After three years at the Japanese restaurant, Herrera moved to Wolfgang Puck’s Spago in Beverly Hills before joining the team at Providence in 2016. Herrera felt at home in Rising Stars alum Michael Cimarusti’s intimate kitchen, forging strong relationships with her fellow cooks and with local farmers and fishmongers over the next two years.
Eager to take the next step in her career, Herrera left to help open Chef David Chang’s Majordōmo. When she started to feel disillusioned with the industry, Chang encouraged her to keep at it and offered her a job at Momofuku Ko in New York. Working under Chef Sean Gray, Herrera was reinvigorated by the city and the kitchen, eventually designing the menu for the restaurant’s bar. When the pandemic hit in 2020 and the restaurant closed, she pivoted and accepted her first chef de cuisine role at Xilonen in Brooklyn. She took the opportunity to tap into and explore her heritage, embracing the concept’s vegan, Mexican menu.
When the restaurant closed its doors, customers were still clamoring for Herrera's cooking, so she began popping up around the city, eventually finding her way to Rolo’s. There, she connected with Restaurateur Howard Kalachnikoff and Rising Stars alum Rafiq Salim, who later approached her about working together and running her own concept. In February 2024, they opened Hellbender Nighttime Café in Ridgewood. At the Mexican American bar and restaurant, now renamed Hellbender, Herrera champions Mexican products, bringing attention to native heirloom corn varietals and other traditional ingredients through a menu that is both familiar and unexpected with dishes like her watermelon salad with Tajín, lime zest, and a house-made chamoy.
