About this Guero.
Pinche Guero | Badass Tacos
Lake Havasu City ARIZONA
Chef Joe Mizzoni’s culinary style is globally influenced, and his culinary lineage is star studded. From formal training at the renowned Culinary Institute of America, in Hyde Park, NY, to working alongside some of the world’s best Michelin starred chefs and restaurants in New York, Los Angeles, Miami and the Cayman Islands.
Most recently before moving to Lake Havasu City, Chef Joe was opening and overseeing some of Miami’s best restaurants in the dining scene. In 2016, Chef Joe earned the privilege to cook at the acclaimed James Beard House in New York City.
This is one of the culinary world’s greatest honors. He has also been invited to cook at The Chefs Table in Porto Alegre, Brazil and is a regularly featured chef for The Master’s at Augusta National Golf Course.
Before moving to Lake Havasu City, Chef Joe was responsible for opening and overseeing some of Miami’s best restaurants. An early advocate for slow cooking and the farm-to-table culinary movement, he’s played an integral part in helping to define what has grown into a world-class dining scene.
Before his time in Miami, Chef Joe traveled abroad extensively. Naturally curious and eager to learn about local food and cultures, his travels brought him throughout Mexico, the Caribbean, Southeast Asia, and much of Europe. During these travels, eating the different foods in each country, and understanding the history behind the dishes, a new culinary excitement was born. He then knew what he really wanted- to open a small restaurant, where he was able to focus on the lost techniques of authentic regional cooking and showcase the simple, yet complex nature of old-world recipes and traditional cooking methods.
2016 was a big year. Prior to cooking for the James Beard Foundation, Joe met his wife, Adriana. Originally from Vera Cruz, Mexico, Adriana is a pastry chef and met Joe in Miami, while they were both working at Jean George’s “Matador Room”. It was love at first bite. Over the years, Joe and Adriana began traveling to Mexico together, exploring all the great street food stalls serving the very best of local cuisines.
On their very first trip, what really grabbed Chef Joe’s attention was the instantly noticeable different taste of fresh, properly made tortillas. The full flavor. The perfect texture. This was the day everything changed. True heirloom corn from Oaxaca, Mexico was the new focal point. Pinche Guero would be Joe’s take on authentic Mexican street food done right. No shortcuts. No BS.
Our main focal point is our ”daily grind”. We nixtamalize in-house. Nixtamalization a traditional process where corn is treated with lime, cooked, dried and ground to produce the flour used to make tortilla. We personally import heirloom varieties of corn, grown by small family farms in Mexico. We make authentic Mexican tortillas, filled with traditional recipes, cooked with a modern approach, served with reverence for people, place, culture and ingredients. Our cuisine represents Mexican food by putting real corn and real cooking at the foundation.
Joe Mizzoni - Chef Owner - Pinche Guero
