On Oct. 22, Celebrity chef Jonathan Zaragoza paid a visit to Northwestern, serving students a taste of his world-renowned cooking as part of a pop-up event at Allison Dining Hall.
If you’re from Chicago, there’s a good chance you’re familiar with Birrieria Zaragoza, the now-iconic institution with locations in Archer Heights and Uptown. Since his parents opened the restaurant in 2007, the spot has been cooking up birria, a Mexican slow-cooked goat dish from Jalisco. Zaragoza served as the restaurant’s executive chef up until this year, when he stepped down to focus on cultivating his career as a celebrity chef and culinary influencer.
Now, Zaragoza’s influence has gone far beyond the walls of the birrieria. He’s surpassed the 100,000 follower mark on TikTok and YouTube, and boasts over 300,000 followers on Instagram.
During his event at Northwestern, I got the chance to have a fantastic conversation with Zaragoza, where he spoke about his work, his culinary inspirations, and even let us have the inside scoop on an upcoming project.
SPOON: So Chef Zaragoza, do you get to do events like this a lot, or is this a new thing for you — these pop-up events?
CHEF ZARAGOZA: I’ve been working with (Compass Group) since I was 27. So in 2017, I started working with them, and over COVID, we designed a K-12 program called Global Eats, and I was one of the chefs part of it. So from there, we’ve been doing events since I started working with them. So we do a lot of events all over, it can be K-12 or college.
SPOON: For a lot of people here, is this their first time trying your food?
ZARAGOZA: Yeah, that’s what’s cool about it. I talked to a lot of you guys in line, and it’s like, “oh, I’ve never had tacos.” A couple people had never had tacos before.
SPOON: Really?
ZARAGOZA: Yeah. It’s like, “What? What do you mean you’ve never had a taco?” But yeah, a lot of these students, it’s their first time having Mexican food, and first time having my food. It’s been really, really cool to see that.
SPOON: When did you start cooking?
ZARAGOZA: I started cooking when I was 12, and that was the first time I learned how to make my family’s birria recipe. We started in our backyard on the south side of Chicago, and my job as a 12-year-old was to man the oven. So at 6 p.m. on Friday night, I’d put wood in there and keep that lit until midnight when my dad would put the goat meat in the oven, close it, then I’d wake up at 6 a.m. at 12 (years old) to take the goat out of the oven. We’d marinate it, roast it, and that’s how the restaurant started.
SPOON: Did you take over your parents’ restaurant?
ZARAGOZA: I was always a part of Birrieria Zaragoza. I left this year. It’s my first year in my career of cooking where I haven’t run a restaurant or been involved with one. But yeah, I was involved with Birrieria from its inception to when I left in early 2025.
SPOON: How have you been spending your time now?
ZARAGOZA: This year has been focused on content creation, growing all the channels. So, like, Instagram, TikTok, they do pretty well, but YouTube’s my favorite community to be a part of. We just hit 100K (subscribers) on YouTube this year. It’s really cool. I never thought I’d do socials like this — I grew up in restaurants. But it’s been a lot of fun.
SPOON: Do you get to travel a lot as part of the work you do with Compass or your YouTube channel?
ZARAGOZA: Yeah, man. We get to travel a lot. I was just in upstate New York shooting a YouTube video for a turkey hunting trip with my buddy, who is a Michelin star chef, has a property upstate, just came back. And then from there, I went to L.A. I just got back from L.A. for work as well. But I’m afforded the luxury of travel and getting to meet new people all the time. I think my story is a testament to, you know, I’m from the South of Chicago. I never thought I’d see Milwaukee. And now I’m afforded the luxury to be able to travel and touch different parts of the country and share my food. It’s been rad.
SPOON: What are your plans for the future? Just keep traveling, keep making content?
ZARAGOZA: Yeah, keep growing the communities. Like I said, YouTube and stuff, and exploring those partnerships. I think you’re getting the scoop on this, by the way, but I’m working on a cookbook. That’s your scoop.
SPOON: Woah, thats awesome.
ZARAGOZA: I’m going to partner up with America’s Test Kitchen and be a contributor there, editor-in-residence there. I love writing, I love telling stories, and I love to know the scoop. So I think writing a book gives you that, affords you that privilege to be able to tell that story. So, yeah, I’m excited for the book.
SPOON: Are these recipes that you’ve come up with yourself, or are these old family recipes that you’re sharing with the community?
ZARAGOZA: A little column A, a little column B. I cook food that’s been cooked by women in Mexico for centuries, so none of this food is really mine; it’s an expression of the food. But my mom makes the beans really well, and I take that and I do it my own way. It’s an expression of you.
SPOON: So, the quesabirria. I always thought that was an older thing, but I’ve been told that it’s a newer food. What’s the scoop on quesabirria?
ZARAGOZA: Quesabirria, I hadn’t seen it until we (Birrieria Zaragoza) did it in like 2007.
SPOON: So you kind of pioneered it?
ZARAGOZA: I don’t want to say that, but I didn’t see it before. So the story goes, my uncle came in, and he was on his lunch break, and he said, “I want birria, but I don’t have time for it. Just throw some in a quesadilla, and then double it and put some mole in it.” And we did that, and then a customer saw him, and it started going that way. It’s funny because the restaurant has been around for 18 years now. And I could always tell the new birria eaters from the old-school by the way they ordered. Your generation will be like, “Let me get a quesabirria and a consomé.” And the old-school Mexicans will say, “Let me get a birria the old-school way.”
SPOON: I think it’s got to be the social media aspect of it. I think TikTok has popularized the quesabirria so much, it’s like everyone wants to try it.
ZARAGOZA: Yeah, and that’s the thing. I think as a business owner, if you’re not seeing these trends and adapting to them, you gotta do it. Because nobody’s wrong. It’s delicious, it’s objectively delicious, that way of eating the birria.
SPOON: The theme for our upcoming Spoon Magazine issue is “Sauce.” So, in regard to the consomé that goes with the birria, what do you think people like about it so much?
ZARAGOZA: What I love about the consomé at the family restaurant is it’s different from a lot of other birrias. And what you’ll find in a lot of your research on Mexican food is that it’s super regional. And I’m not even talking city to city, state to state. I’m talking next-door neighbor to next-door neighbor. Our consomé is completely vegan. It’s fermented tomatoes and spices, so what it does for the birria that’s roasted in lard is it brightens it up. So you get the savoriness and fattiness from the goat, and that consomé just cuts through that, and all the spices that are in the molé of the goat kind of get compounded by the sauce that’s beautifully acidic and bright.
SPOON: The last thing I’d want to ask you is, are there any restaurants in the Chicago area, or foods in general, that you’ve been inspired by lately?
ZARAGOZA: Yes, always. And I’ll send you my Chicago list for restaurants. Everywhere you go in this city, you don’t have to leave Chicago to eat around the world. If you head down Devon, you have some of the best, world-class Indian and Pakistani food. And then if you go to La Villita and you go down 26th street, it’s Little Mexico, and it’s so regional there. I get inspired by my city all the time. And I’m so proud. On my YouTube channel, people get excited when I mention Chicago. I wear it as a badge of honor. I love being from this city, and I’m inspired all the time by it.
If you’re interested in seeing more of where Jonathan Zaragoza’s inspiration comes from, check out this map of all of his favorite spots in Chicago.
For cooking tutorials and other food content, make sure to check out Zaragoza’s YouTube, Instagram, and TikTok channels.