About Harold Villarosa & Beto Ortiz
Harold Villarosa is a Filipino-born, South Bronx-raised chef whose career spans some of the most demanding and creative kitchens in the world. He got his first food job at McDonald’s on 34th Street at 16 and built a career that led to a personal invitation from René Redzepi to cook at Noma in Copenhagen — then ranked the number one restaurant in the world. He has also cooked at Aquavit, Batard, and Per Se in New York. Villarosa founded the Insurgo Project, a community-based nonprofit that teaches food justice, culinary skills, and entrepreneurship to inner-city youth in low-income neighborhoods. He has been featured on Bon Appétit and named New Yorker of the Week by NY1. At the time of this recording he was opening Oko in Austin, Texas — a restaurant built around Filipino flavors and local ingredients.
Beto Ortiz is the founder of Humans of the Kitchen and the creator of the 86 Challenge — a wellness initiative that encourages chefs and culinary professionals to prioritize holistic health over 27, 54, or 86 consecutive days. His work focuses on building structured support systems for hospitality workers and changing the culture around mental health and physical wellness in professional kitchens.
Episode Overview
The culinary industry has one of the highest rates of burnout, mental health struggles, and physical breakdown of any profession — and most kitchens still treat that as a badge of honor rather than a problem to solve. In this episode, André Natera sits down with Harold Villarosa and Beto Ortiz for a direct conversation about what burnout actually looks like from the inside, what the industry gets wrong about wellness, and what chefs can do to build careers that last.
Harold talks about what the pressure of high-level kitchen environments did to him over time, what it took to build the Insurgo Project alongside a demanding culinary career, and how opening Oko in Austin forced him to think differently about kitchen culture and team structure. Beto breaks down the 86 Challenge and what the data from working with chefs across the country reveals about what actually helps versus what the industry just talks about. This is one of the more practically useful conversations Chef’s PSA has had on the topic of sustainability in culinary careers.
Topics covered in this episode:
- What burnout looks like in professional kitchens and why it gets ignored until it’s too late
- Harold Villarosa’s path from McDonald’s to Noma to opening his own restaurant in Austin
- What cooking at Noma, Per Se, and Batard taught him about kitchen discipline and standards
- The Insurgo Project — teaching food justice and culinary skills to inner-city youth
- Opening Oko in Austin and building a kitchen culture rooted in Filipino heritage
- The 86 Challenge — what it is, how it works, and what Beto Ortiz has learned from running it
- Structured environments and healthy practices as the foundation of a sustainable culinary career
- How individual chefs and restaurant teams can adopt wellness without losing intensity
- What the culinary industry needs to change about how it treats the people inside it
Links & Resources
Harold Villarosa on Instagram: @chefharoldvillarosa
Humans of the Kitchen: humansofthekitchen.org
Subscribe to Chef’s PSA → youtube.com/@ChefsPSA
Shop Chef’s PSA Merch → shop.chefspsa.com
Visit Chef’s PSA Website → chefspsa.com
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