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 more restaurants under the Empellón brand, including a midtown flagship. 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].