About Alex Stupak

Alex Stupak is the Chef and Co-Owner of the Empellón restaurant group based in New York City.

Born in Massachusetts, Alex became a scholar of the avant-garde and molecular gastronomy movements. He worked as the pastry chef at Clio in Boston with Ken Oringer, then at Alinea in Chicago with Grant Achatz, and subsequently at wd~50 in New York with Wylie Dufresne.

With earnest dedication to doing the unexpected, Alex pivoted away from pastry and these styles of cooking, choosing instead to adopt Mexican cuisine as a perpetual source of creative inspiration.

Alex opened Empellón Taqueria in Manhattan’s West Village and went on to open four more restaurants under the Empellón brand. His approach to cooking focuses on opposing the reductive way people often view different cuisines.

Alex was selected as one of Food & Wine’s Best New Chefs in 2013 and has since received multiple James Beard Foundation Awards nominations, including one for his 2015 book Tacos: Recipes and Provocations [Clarkson Potter].