Texas chefs served Latin-fusion dishes like Caribbean tacos at the Sazón Latin Food Festival in Austin — a reflection of the diverse Latin diaspora.
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In early March, Chadwick Burnaw found himself in a South Austin parking lot, surrounded by the sounds and flavors of the Caribbean community he'd been raised in. Over the years, Burnaw has called several places home, including the Washington, DC, metro area, San Francisco, and now Austin, where he recently staged the latest Sazón Latin Food Festival, a traveling food fest that's made pit stops in Texas and California.
Burnaw went to college at San Francisco State University, and he was always searching for a place in the Bay Area that felt like home.
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He'd scope out San Francisco's nightlife scene, looking for clubs that would play the merengue and bachata music he was familiar with. During the day, he'd wander around town looking for restaurants that served the tostones or mofongo he craved.
More often than not, he came up with nothing. But one day, he found a small, nondescript club where partiers, mostly Latino, crammed in to enjoyed the same music he wanted to hear.
Burnaw knew he wasn't the only transplant who yearned for more cultural connection, and he wanted to do something to help. He founded Latin City in 2015, aiming to put on events that highlight Latin culture and give the Latino community more space to eat, dance, and find a piece of home together.
After spending more than a decade in the Bay Area, Burnaw moved to Texas in 2022. By that time, the pandemic prompted him to shift to open-air events, starting with outdoor brunches and eventually his first food market. "I wanted to create a space where you could try food from all across Latin America," he told Business Insider. "You could drive all around the Austin metro area and try all of this food, but it's rare to have it all in one spot."
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This year, at Austin's eighth Sazón fest, attendees danced to lively salsa music from the local band La Tradición between bites of Brazilian churrasco hot off of the grill, fresh arepas, and steaming plates of pollo guisado, washed down with cold aguas frescas.
Burnaw was serious about the vetting process when selecting vendors. With his family roots in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, he's no stranger to the idea of blending cultures, which is why he wanted the festival to bring together restaurants that represent a variety of Latin American dishes from across the Latino diaspora.
Since moving to Texas, Burnaw has become a fan of the city's most popular cuisine, Tex-Mex. While Tex-Mex is ubiquitous across the state, it was in the minority at Sazón.
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Walking through the festival, it was clear that several of the businesses served food inspired by a blend of cultures; many of them fused various spices, flavors, and recipes from different countries.
"It's just awesome to see so many different kinds of people come together and embrace each other's cultures and food," said Burnaw. "Especially in Texas, it's really cool to see an appreciation of cultures that aren't as common here, with Caribbean cultures in particular."
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Originally from Clarendon in southern Jamaica, the chef Chris Burrell likes to say that he's from the hills of Clarendon, while his wife, Yadira, is from the hills of Honduras. "We both grew up with a little bit of nothing and made the best of what our parents gave us," he said.
After spending years in the restaurant industry, the two chefs decided to take the plates they made each week at home — fresh-off-the-grill roasted vegetables with lighter, fruit-based sauces and Yadira's signature rice and beans — and share them at a restaurant of their own.
They started working on their plans before the pandemic started, and in 2021, they decided it was time to go all in. "We just thought since we'd been through the worst of the worst with the pandemic, it was time to buy a food truck," Burrell said.
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Their restaurant, Nyam Sunshine Cuisine, represents the best of both worlds: succulent jerk chicken served with plantains or fresh slaw and guava barbecue, pulled chicken marinated in citrus and achiote topped with grilled pineapple pico, and coconut shrimp with chimichurri sauce. It's a harmony of tropical flavors that are savory, spicy, and sweet.
Of course, the menu wouldn't be complete without a Jamaican staple: curried goat. "That's what was served at every function, every party, every dance in Jamaica," Burrell said.
Because they're based in Austin, they've reimagined several of their recipes and made them into tacos. "It's cross-culture all the way," Burrell said. "We serve the tacos from our point of view, but we always incorporate our sauces, our spices into everything. It's very different from the traditional Mexican tacos people are used to, but because of that, most of our guests recognize and appreciate that right off the bat."
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The inspiration for Tatiana French-Dejean's Mix'T Caribbean Blends — where she combines flavors from her Haitian, Black, and Costa Rican heritage into her recipes — was years in the making.
In her home state of Virginia, French-Dejean was known for her cooking. With knowledge passed down to her by her grandfather, a chef in the Haitian army, and her great-grandmother, she learned to make legume stew and Haitian staples like rice with sos pwa, a black bean sauce.
When she got older, she always cooked for family gatherings, birthdays, and Thanksgiving. Eventually, she started selling plates of food as a side gig to supplement her work as a paralegal.
During the early stages of the pandemic, French-Dejean's husband pushed her to focus on her culinary passions. She'd thought about it before, but she always imagined she'd be setting up her shop in Virginia. Instead, in late 2020, when her husband learned his job was relocating him to Texas, she shifted her plans. During the move, she found a listing for a truck that was the perfect fit.
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By February 2021, Mix'T was up and running, stationed in East Austin, where regulars came every week for her chicken and sauce. "They told me they'd never experienced those flavors or tasted anything like it," she said. "They were simple dishes, but the spices we use in the Caribbean bring out so much flavor in the meat."
French-Dejean started out with some traditional Haitian recipes that are typically cooked in bulk, but Austin's street-food culture changed her approach. Outside work, she was eating more tacos and barbecue, which inspired her to update her menu. "I wanted to put my own spin on it," she said. Those dishes include her Caribbean tacos and the Mixt fry plate featuring french fries topped with marinated beef, Mexican cheese, pico de gallo, cotija, and cilantro.
French-Dejean has participated in every Sazón festival in Austin, and she said it's been a delight to witness people expanding their horizons and getting excited to discover new flavors. And she's gained an increasingly loyal following each year. "I love how people come so excited to experience the culture," she said. "They're ready to dance, they're ready to try everything."
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That's exactly what Burnaw said he always envisioned: a cross-cultural exchange where everyone felt at home. Different restaurants had variations of the same dishes or different approaches to cooking with the same ingredients, but it was all under the banner of "Latin cuisine."
The event allowed people to open their minds, try something new, and enjoy a delicious plate of freshly cooked food — a treat that Burnaw said everyone could find comforting.
"I think so often we get caught up in thinking about how different everyone is," Burnaw said. "But we all have similar stories across Latin America, no matter our backgrounds. There's so much diversity in ethnicity and in culture, but there's also a lot of fusion. I hope people can see those similarities while celebrating our differences."
