When Rodolfo Cuadros first began dating his wife, he wanted to share his culinary skills with her family. The catch? They were vegan. That forced Cuadros to rethink his relationship with meat and cooking, and it gradually reshaped how he ate: “After years of eating like that, you start to look at vegetables in different ways.”
That viewpoint, married with his deep knowledge of Latin American food, influences the restaurants Cuadros has been rapidly opening since 2019, when he debuted Amaru. In 2021, he added Bloom Plant Based Kitchen, followed by Lil Amaru in Time Out Market in 2022. Don Bucio’s Taqueria and Bloom Sushi Counter at XMarket launched in 2023.
Amaru (1904 W. North Ave., Bucktown) is not plant based, but it allowed Cuadros to begin creating his take on Latin food. It tells the story of his growing up Hispanic and American and taps influences from West Africa, Spain, the Caribbean, and South America. Case in point: octopus with poblano Sriracha sauce paired with spicy Spanish-style potatoes. While Amaru is centered on slow cooking, Lil Amaru (916 W. Fulton Market, West Loop) focuses on the “crispy, crunchy, salty beauty of Latin American street food,” like Cuban sandwiches and fried rockfish tacos. It, too, reflects Cuadros’s upbringing.
Born in New York, he spent most of his childhood in Colombia before returning to the United States in his teens. He first worked as a dishwasher, but as his English improved, so did his status in the kitchen. And when he began working for Miami chef Douglas Rodriguez (a.k.a. the Godfather of Nuevo Latino Cuisine), Cuadros found his calling. “For the first time, I could see myself in what I was cooking,” he says. “It was validation that my culture mattered.”
Cuadros brought that lesson to Chicago, heading up the kitchen at Carnivale for six years before teaming up with business partner Brett Lander. The duo was mulling how to grow beyond Amaru when the pandemic hit. “I wanted to slowly introduce people to vegetables,” Cuadros says. “But the pandemic forced us to think that if this is something we believe in, then we have to go all in.”
They did, starting with Bloom (1559 N. Milwaukee Ave., Wicker Park), where Cuadros serves daikon bulgogi and yuca gnocchi. Gustavo Ocampo, Cuadros’s Carnivale sous chef, joined for the takeout-only Don Bucio’s (2763 N. Milwaukee Ave., Logan Square), where they’re filling made-to-order tortillas with guajillo-braised jackfruit “birria.” And at Bloom Sushi (804 W. Montrose Ave., Uptown), Latin-Japanese mash-ups include seaweed salad with cactus and cilantro.
Cuadros’s forward-thinking cuisine has garnered praise — he was a 2022 James Beard semifinalist for best chef in the Great Lakes region and earned a Michelin Bib Gourmand for Bloom. So what’s next? “I’d like to slow down,” he says. “Our kids are getting older, and we want to make sure we don’t miss it all in the pursuit of the American dream.”