PORTLAND, Ore. — Angel Medina grew up with one foot in Southern California and the other in Mexico, still remembering the first moment he fell in love with food.
"Every Sunday, we would go to church, Catholic church, and right after, the only thing I cared about was all the food stands. The toughest decision was whether to go with tacos, obviously, or tortas or even pancakes," he reminisced.
Often unimpressed with how Mexican cuisine was represented here in the States, he said, "This makeshift sort of Mexican cuisine with really mediocre ingredients. I think the first time I tried a tortilla; I learned what depression was because it was so bad here in the states."
Fourteen years ago, Medina moved to Portland.
"And a few years later, I found myself opening a coffee shop. I opened my first coffee shop, opened another one, another one, then took a break," he recalled. "Then during the pandemic, I opened restaurants, opened our first restaurant, Republica."
Never knowing this would push him to start a hospitality empire, Medina founded two more restaurants besides Republica: Lilia Comedor and De Noche.
"All of them have a commonality, which is corn, which, if you are Mexican, it's just one of those things that you love. But when you really have good corn, it's just one of those things that changes your life," he said.
He also opened a cocktail bar called Comala, three cafes and a roasting company, all places in Portland that highlight authenticity and grew, thanks to Medina's mentorship.
"If you keep just going down the ranks from our sous chefs to our general manager at Republica, you'll see somebody that started with zero experience, came into this industry and now is, we'll be lucky to have him for another two years because he's really that good," he said.
His commitment to shining a light on those often underrepresented doesn't stop there: "You're not used to seeing Latinos doing cooking shows or video podcasts of women talking about the struggles of wine."
That's why he recently started Todos Media, a platform where women, people of color and members of the LGBTQ+ community are invited to share their stories.
"The shows that exist out there on the big platforms, you just don’t see us doing it. And for me, it was easy to say, 'OK, let's create a launching pad for all of these things.' So far, I think it's going pretty well," he said.