About Rick

Chef Rick Bayless is the culinary legend responsible for spicing up America’s collective palette  with his sprawling culinary empire. But to call him a culinary legend would be unfair to his long list of other interests and accomplishments, themselves enough to fill a lifetime. For Rick, however, these were all tributaries that would fuse to create the whitewater rapids of his remarkable journey.

So where did this hero’s journey begin? Well, like most heroes, it began in a crucible. More accurately, two crucibles: the Hickory House and the Bayless House. Let’s start with the latter. Home life was hard for Rick and his siblings Skip and LuAnn. Some icons credit their parents with nurturing their ambition. Rick clawed his way to success in spite of, not because of, his parents, who often rolled their eyes at his lofty ambitions.

But his parents would learn early on what the rest of the world had yet to discover. This guy would not take no for an answer. For him, it was binary. Either a hard pass or “rip out the stop signs on your way to your destination” go.

At 14, he convinced his family to travel to Mexico – their first vacation via airplane – and arriving at their Mexico City hotel, in his words, felt like coming home. The connection was immediate and would inspire a deep dive into the culture that would define his brand. The love affair was on.

Meanwhile, Rick and his brother Skip would join their dad John at the family’s BBQ restaurant Hickory House in Oklahoma City, cleaning tables, then slicing vegetables. Skip hated it. Rick loved it. But even so, he wasn’t prepared to run the place. Yet run it he did – at the tender age of 16, with his mom, when his father became disabled. For those who don’t know, the restaurant business is hard. Long hours, slim margins, and an often fickle clientele make for brutally long and stressful days. But, Rick saw how good food, served well, can be an emotional experience, and he embraced the Hickory House crucible, which would in turn begin to forge his passion for cooking and ignite the flame that burns to this very day. 

After wrapping up his undergrad at University of Oklahoma and getting a master’s in linguistics from the University of Michigan (where he also met his future wife Deann), Rick was in the middle of a PhD in anthropological linguistics, when his life took an unexpected turn. So, he followed his gut – quite literally – into the culinary world. 

And so, two tributaries – the love of Mexican culture and the love of cuisine – fused into one.

As a rising expert in the world of Mexican cuisine, it wasn’t long before Rick found himself hosting the 26-part PBS television series Cooking Mexican. Shot in a studio, the show wasn’t immersive enough for Rick’s quest for authenticity, however, and he and Deann decamped for Mexico, spending over six years on culinary research that culminated with the 1987 cookbook Authentic Mexican, which took the world by storm. Countless other award winning cookbooks later, Rick got his dream of a culinary show adequately authentic for his demanding taste, hosting Mexico: One Plate at a Time, which would go on to be nominated for multiple Daytime Emmys.

But Rick never took his eye off the prize of sweeping people off their feet with authentic cuisine. In 1987, Rick and Deann opened the 60-seat Frontera Grill in Chicago, following it just two years later with Topolobampo, Chicago’s first Mexican fine dining restaurant which would go on earn and maintain a Michelin star every year from the guide’s 2011 arrival in Chicago. Both restaurants have also won the James Beard Foundation’s Outstanding Restaurant Award, an unprecedented accomplishment for side by side restaurants. Topolobampo’s opening completed another story arc for Rick - when, as a young kid, he saved up money to take a bus to a high-end French restaurant just to experience the magic of fine dining. He was now the magician.

His magic caught the eye of another ambitious Chicagoan, Barack Obama, and in 2010, Rick was called to DC to prepare the state dinner in honor of Mexico’s then-president Felipe Calderon. A few months later, President Obama had dinner at Topolobampo. Unfortunately for Rick, US Navy chefs had to plate the president’s food.

Now, these culinary escapades are enough to fill a lifetime, but the man for whom a beach vacation is too relaxing, well he has a few other, shall we say, pursuits.

For anyone who’s ever worked the back of the house or has seen a few episodes of the Bear, you know that the restaurant kitchen is not for the faint of heart. But Rick glides through the kitchen with such grace that you might mistake him for a dancer. Well, you would not be wrong. After participating in the first annual Dancing with Chicago Celebrities charity event and winning first place, Rick was hooked and being the tenacious overachiever he is, has trained at the Arthur Murray Dance center for years.

He’s also a yogi who can do the splits. Why mention this? Because learning how to do the splits takes commitment (it took Rick a decade), and his Anusara style of yoga is something he describes as “long hold, until you want to scream” yoga. That sounds about right for the man who’s been pulling out stop signs his whole life.
And just as the kitchen is a type of symphony, music has also shared Rick’s life stage, with classical piano lessons a part of his life for over a decade.

But the soul of it all, for Rick, is the moment when a diner takes a bite of the food that took years of research and dedication, closes her eyes, and is transported to another world – perhaps to the streets of Mexico City where young Rick first fell in love with the culture, and perhaps to the small town of Puebla or Oaxaca, where the smells from street stalls permeate the ancient streets.

And now, in 2024, Rick can check another goal off his bucket list. On March 21, Frontera Grill turns 37, matching the iconic 37-year run of his parents’ Hickory House. Fittingly, Mayor Johnson is declaring March 21, 2024 Rick Bayless Day, underscoring Rick’s impact not just on the city of Chicago but the nation’s culinary landscape.

Now, if the culinary experience is his soul, then Deann and daughter Lanie are his heart – the former, the family’s moral compass and the latter, the light that shines in a way that Rick never could have imagined as a kid growing up in the Bayless House crucible. And, following in her father’s footsteps – or perhaps, leaving her own footsteps – Lanie teamed up with her dad to publish Rick and Lanie’s Excellent Kitchen Adventures in 2004. In 2019, Lanie, a burgeoning cocktail impresario, stepped up to the plate herself, opening Bar Sotano under Frontera Grill.

Finally, the tributaries – food, art, experience, community, family – have joined to combine into the raging river of Rick’s life. 

So, shall we call this a happy ending? Well, not if the chef has anything to do with it. If you ask him, the journey is far from over. In fact, the next course is just getting plated.