He started by washing dishes. Now he's up for a James Beard award.

Apr. 8—Eduardo Rodriguez remembers the early days when food started calling his name.

They began in Zacatecas, Mexico, where he is from and where his family owned a farm.

"They were cutting all the squash blossoms. They were cutting and preparing the food there in the field," he recalls. "Every person was sitting around, having a coffee or chamomile, like wild chamomile. ... We'd eat the rats on the farm."

They also ate grasshoppers and quail eggs, he said. They ate what they had.

"But when [my grandmother] was making it with all those herbs, oh my God, it was amazing," he said.

Rodriguez, 46, is no longer eating that "weird food," as he now jokingly calls it. Nor is he cooking it at his Santa Fe eatery, Zacatlán Restaurant.

His food, which features a fine dining flair with the plates representing edible art, does take concepts from his home country. He calls it a "south Mexico" style, with influences from his travels to other Mexican states such as Yucatán, Quintana Roo, Chiapas, Puebla and Oaxaca.

USA Today named Zacatlán a Top 10 new restaurant in the country in 2021. Condé Nast Traveler called Rodriguez's restaurant "one of the hottest tickets in town." The food website Eater named it among the 23 essential restaurants in Santa Fe. And, in 2022, it was named a semifinalist in the James Beard Awards for Best New Restaurant.

But the latest recognition may be Rodriguez's biggest yet.

Last week, he was named among the finalists for Best Chef Southwest in the James Beard Awards, an honor last won by Sazón chef Fernando Olea and, before that, Mark Kiffin of The Compound and Mark Miller of Coyote Cafe.

"It's in my soul," Rodriguez says of cooking. "Sometimes, you know, my wife, my sister will say, 'Hey, where are you going?' 'To the restaurant.' But it's my love, it's in my veins."

Humble beginnings

As a child, Rodriguez remembers spending a lot of time with his grandmother, Maria Rodriguez, who was the family cook.

He remembers her cooking moles, a traditional Mexican sauce similar to New Mexico's red chile in style though not in taste, for large events in their town. She also made rice and refried beans, common sides for Mexican dishes, for more than 600 people.

He also remembers his brother, Jose Rodriguez, who worked at Santa Fe's Coyote Cafe.

Eduardo Rodriguez said he felt the kitchen calling "when I saw him in the kitchen with all the line cooks and the chefs and all that energy."

Rodriguez worked for a couple of months washing dishes at Coyote Cafe and, eventually, moved to Santa Fe full time and began his ascent in the city's culinary world.

His first real job came at Geronimo, where he cleaned dishes. But that wasn't enough. Rodriguez wanted more, and that led to cutting meats and vegetables and eventually being mentored by the late Eric DiStefano.

"The chef at the time, he saw me and [said] 'I think you want to learn more,' " Rodriguez recalled. "I said, 'Yes. I don't want to be washing dishes all the time. I want to just learn from you and every single guy in the kitchen.' "

Years later, when DiStefano purchased Coyote Cafe with Quinn Stephenson, Rodriguez joined his mentor at the restaurant and worked his way up to executive chef after DiStefano died.

While happy with his role, Rodriguez still yearned for something of his own. And during the year that was the start of the coronavirus pandemic, he opened Zacatlán in a quaint, small space on Aztec Street.

At Zacatlán — which roughly means "the land where the grass grows high" in Nahuatl and pays homage to both Rodriguez's hometown and the city in Puebla, Mexico — he makes a variety of Mexican and Mexican-inspired dishes. That includes foods like moles and chiles rellenos. It also includes lamb shank barbacoa and fried red snapper.

He says he fillets the snapper and puts the meat and calabacitas back into the fish's frame after it's fried, which takes on a boat shape.

Kiffin, formerly of Coyote Cafe before Rodriguez began working under DiStefano, called Rodriguez and his restaurant "amazing."

"His little place, it's good. I'm so proud of him," Kiffin said.

Stephenson, who first met Rodriguez back when they both worked at Geronimo, said Rodriguez's compelling traits include his work ethic and his clear vision for what he wants to bring to the table.

"You've got to be a little a little crazy and a lot passionate to be in this industry," said Stephenson. "And I think when he named his restaurant Zacatlán, he had a really clear vision of what he wanted to do. I respected that. ... You can be a great chef and be well-rounded, but he's trying to accomplish something that has an identity, and I respect that about him."

Better a passion than a paper

Becoming a chef, Rodriguez says, typically takes formal training at culinary schools. That's something he doesn't have but doesn't necessarily crave, either.

It's his passion for cooking and the friends he's made at other restaurants, some of which have Michelin stars, that inspire him to keep going. A certificate is just an afterthought at this point.

"It's better to have a passion than to have a paper," he said.

His next step includes taking over the TerraCotta Wine Bistro with his brother Jose.

He speaks of cooking food, of owning restaurants, like a developer talking about the buildings they've built or plan to build, or like a doctor talking about the lives they've saved or will in the future.

He speaks of the long hours it takes to achieve a goal, a perfect dish. That's something he wants to continue doing.

Does that mean he'll keep cooking, keep creating dishes, well into the future?

"Oh, yeah," he said. "Oh, yeah."