Chefs

Acre Names Longtime Erwin Vet Its New Chef

What do you do when you’ve worked somewhere for 20 years and that somewhere has announced that it’s closing? That was the problem Michael Lathrop faced when Erwin made plans to shutter, and so he did the only logical thing: he started calling old friends. Specifically, his long-ago coworker Paul Kahan, who got his start with Lathrop’s longtime boss, Erwin Drechsler. Kahan referred Lathrop to Tony Mantuano, who had just spoken to Marty Fosse, partner in Acre and its neighbors, Anteprima and Bar Ombra, looking for someone to take over Acre as executive chef Carlos Ysaguirre relocated to Austin to open a new restaurant there. A few tastings later, a couple of months of working alongside Ysaguirre, and Acre now has a new chef. Lathrop says that Acre’s farm to table approach is a natural fit for someone who worked so long for one of its original local practitioners: “Acre is not too far in style from Erwin. Both are similar in their simplicity. The food looks and tastes like what it is.”

Acre Names Longtime Erwin Vet Its New Chef